• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

Harley-Davidson finally confirms that it is bringing its first electric motorcycle to market

Good on HD for attempting to look forward rather than repurpose older tech. I'm curious if any Barf members have tested out the Livewire.
 
I had a V-rod, rednecks in Flagstaff? yelled "rice" at me.
Somebody's grandma gave me an attaboy for the same 'rod out front of VV's post office. She rode 45 flatties back in the day, caught the Bar & shield emblem.

As to the potato potato, there is a button to make every camera sound like a 35mm film winder to take a pix. Why not a bluetooth potato potato, that will barge in on every bluetooth signal & pair.

As to ebikes range, run a string of chargers out front of a bar. Make it a law, so all bars can "service?" riders.
 
Hoppalong said:
Well, what I'm talking about actually happened to every Buell rider there ever was.
Click to expand...
Sad but very true. Parts and service treated me like I didn't belong there and a waste of their time. The salesperson I bought it from was okay since he rode a Buell, but the rest of their staff wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
 
Sounds like Fremont HD/Honda/Kawi back in the late 80s and early 90s until they peeled off HD. Anything that wasn't HD was poopoohed by the parts and service personnel.
 
I have good experiences buying Buell parts and apparel at the HD dealers in Sacramento. Everyone was friendly and knowledgeable.
 
I have a 2009 HD XR1200 with all the Vance & Hines race parts on it, and even that's not considered a "real" Harley. :dunno
 
Will it have an offset weight on the motor shaft for that paint shaker feeling?
 
Hoppalong said:
If you want to be treated like sh!t, just buy something from Harley-Davidson that isn't a fat-boy screamin-eagle hog "real-man's" motorcycle.

Don't believe me? Ask anyone who ever went into an HD dealer and exprressed interest in a Buell, or made the mistake of actually buying a Buell.

As far as service and parts support you can expect: most HD dealers will treat you like sh!t right on up to the short time later that HD dumps the product completely.
Click to expand...

When I had 1125cr and it took a shit taking, surprise I know :laughing, the HD in Oaklamd took a good care of me. They even handled it under warranty. Even thought it was few month out. So I guess there was at least on HD dealer that took care of Buells. :laughing
 
Oh yeah I saw a posting about it in bloomberg, they mentioned in it that they didn't want to release an electric bike that wouldn't get 100 miles on a charge. That's good to hear but they've got a lot of catching up to do with Zero, although their bike is probably different than most bikes on the electric bike market now. My Empulse can already get 60 FREEWAY miles on a charge, let's hope HD is going for 100 freeway miles. They've got some lofty goals that's for sure let's see if they can make it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-30/harley-davidson-is-making-an-electric-motorcycle-after-livewire

1000x-1.jpg
 
I test rode the Livewire when they had the test ride in Santa Rosa. They better have made improvements in the years since and not have shelved the project or it would be hard to compete.
 
Ya know what, good for HD. The electric motorcycle will become a major competitor for dollars spent at dealerships. They absolutely will reach a point where you can go on a spirited 150 mile ride, which is the real goal for a lot of us. One good ride on Sunday, just a few hours on the bike, and not away the the Mrs and the kid for too long. Or a commute to and from the city. Combustion bikes have the edge of generations of engineering. But we are at a point where electric vehicles will progress faster than their combustion counterparts. And they don't need to actually overtake them, they just need to be good enough for Joe rider.

I'm really excited for HD that they will take the plunge. If they are able to hold on to American manufacturing somehow, I think it would appeal to a lot of blue collar 25 year olds. I think it looks good, definitely outside of Harleys usual design box.
 
Last edited:
I always say that noise, vibration, smoke and leaking oil can always be Engineered back into the design of electric motorcycles.

I wonder how HD made the prototype? Designing and manufacturing battery packs, controllers and motors to work as a drive train system requires specific engineering knowledge.

I'm wondering if they used consultants or if they hired up for the engineering. Did they use motors and controllers off the shelf? Anyway, it probably was a great project.

Mercedes and Toyota invested in and hired Tesla to design and manufacture EV powertrain for their cars years ago. Now Mercedes and Toyota do it theirselves as Tesla is more of a competitor now.
 
It brings me no pleasure to say this, but I think Harley is effed. The bikes that might appeal to millenials are just too far from the base. Maybe they can remain in business by sticking with big twins and scaling way back but I doubt they will go that route. I work by a Harley dealer who must have a few hundred bikes in stock and maybe a half dozen customer cars in the parking lot at any given time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top