harley-davidson Harley-Davidson Releases at EICMA Show Production LiveWire Electric Bike

[G. David Felt]

Harley-Davidson LiveWire News Release

Bike riders beware, the name brands are finally delivering their electric bikes and that starts at one of the biggest bike shows on the planet. EICMA in Milan Italy.

Today Harley-Davidson announced and showed off their production bike the LiveWire. This electric bike is being built with a permanent magnet electric motor which produces a tone that increases in pitch and volume with speed, a new sound that represents the smooth, electric power of the LiveWire motorcycle and is not a speaker generated tone but a true engine tone.

The LiveWire bike has a fully adjustable Showa Suspension for composed riding at the slowest speeds or in spirited open road riding. The bike has a TFT touch display with Bluetooth connectivity, navigation, music and more. The battery pack is supported by level 1 to level 3 fast charging and the dealers will have chargers on site as well as sell a Harley-Davidson charger for installation at the owners home.

Harley-Davidson also stated that by 2022 every model line will have a full electric version bike to sell along side the ICE bikes. The LiveWire bike goes on sale next year and full details on HP, torque, pricing and pre-ordering will be released in January 2019.

The future of Harley-Davidson here.

[G. David Felt]

@ocnblu It is finally here with it's own unique tone. Not silent. Very cool bike. 

[ykX]

I like it too.   It looks cool and good for HD doing finally something advanced.

I think getting electric as a toy at the moment is a good idea vs something you need to use daily.

[Robert Hall]

H-D realizes they have to evolve if they are going to survive long term.  Their current nostalgia focused product is appealing to a smaller and smaller base of customers and not bringing in younger buyers. 

[G. David Felt]

@ykX @Robert Hall I am excited by the HD Livewire bike. Very cool for them and I truly hope it does pull in the younger crowd as like Robert stated, the pool of baby boomers is getting smaller and smaller and people are not wanting the open pipe loud noise bike.

I do love the actual working bike on the home page of the EICMA trade show that has clear connection to the light bike in Tron. That would be fun to ride and see how it handles.

I am also amazed at how many electric bikes are coming out. GM getting into the electric pedestrian bike is cool I think.

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2018/nov/1102-ebike.html

[ykX]

@dfelt

Actually in Europe electric bikes are extremely popular.  I know in some countries they had to make new laws limiting age and requiring protection because a lot of kids were riding them and getting into bad accidents.

Here is one cool announced recent;y:

Ducati electric assist mountain bike

Autoblog

[G. David Felt]

@Robert Hall @ykX @Drew Dowdell

Finally HD released a current video of the production Livewire and you can hear their patented sound. I have to say that baby boomers wanting their loud ear hurting sound will probably not like this, but I can see a ton of 20 to 50 year olds who would like it.

I truly think this will bring in a new generation of riders to the HD family.

[Drew Dowdell]

If they can get the range up

[ccap41]

44 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

If they can get the range up

I don't know what the range of these are supposed to be but some of the riders are already content stopping every 50-90 miles with their itty bitty tanks. 

[Drew Dowdell]

Just now, ccap41 said:

I don't know what the range of these are supposed to be but some of the riders are already content stopping every 50-90 miles with their itty bitty tanks. 

True, but those tanks can be filled up quickly.  I wonder the rate at which the Live-Wire can be recharged on a fast charger.... apparently, all HD dealers who sell it will also have a DC fast charger installed.  A Nissan Leaf can get 90 miles of range in 30 minutes on a DC Fast Charger. Figure 15 minutes or less for a full "tank" on a Live-Wire?

[G. David Felt]

5 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

True, but those tanks can be filled up quickly.  I wonder the rate at which the Live-Wire can be recharged on a fast charger.... apparently, all HD dealers who sell it will also have a DC fast charger installed.  A Nissan Leaf can get 90 miles of range in 30 minutes on a DC Fast Charger. Figure 15 minutes or less for a full "tank" on a Live-Wire?

During the Summer tour of the LiveWire concept that looked different than the production bike, they had a 110 mile distance and could accept DC fast charging. There have been comments that the battery density will increase in the production bike due to the latest battery technology. If so, then I could see 150 mile range on these bikes which I think will be enough for many riders initially.

[ccap41]

8 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

True, but those tanks can be filled up quickly.  I wonder the rate at which the Live-Wire can be recharged on a fast charger.... apparently, all HD dealers who sell it will also have a DC fast charger installed.  A Nissan Leaf can get 90 miles of range in 30 minutes on a DC Fast Charger. Figure 15 minutes or less for a full "tank" on a Live-Wire?

Absolutely true. Those 1.5 gallon fill-ups only take a couple minutes. 

[Drew Dowdell]

5 minutes ago, dfelt said:

During the Summer tour of the LiveWire concept that looked different than the production bike, they had a 110 mile distance and could accept DC fast charging. There have been comments that the battery density will increase in the production bike due to the latest battery technology. If so, then I could see 150 mile range on these bikes which I think will be enough for many riders initially.

150 miles of range would be plenty.  After 150 miles of riding, I'm definitely in need of a 15-minute break. 

[A Horse With No Name]

3 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

150 miles of range would be plenty.  After 150 miles of riding, I'm definitely in need of a 15-minute break. 

Agreed.