Harley ' s decision to transition the LiveWire brand from a single model name into having a broader brand meaning is interesting on many levels . For a start , it does call into question the extent to which the launch into the electric motorcycle sector was initially thought through . With the benefit of hindsight , we now understand just how flawed the ' More Roads ' strategy document was and , in the case of the LiveWire model , it has been the pricing strategy ( and range / charging ) that revealed a mistaken understanding of the nature of the power that the ' Harley ' brand has built up . The original LiveWire model was predicated on a read of the Harley brand name that failed to understand the disconnect between where the brand had been for greater than 115 years and where ' More Roads ' assumed it could be driven . Who knows what the future may hold , maybe ' Harley ' will be a verb one day , but at present it is ' one of many ' brands , all competing for the leisure spend Dollar . It is not yet ready to be a ' Hoover ', a ' Xerox ' or a ' Biro '. It has a very specific meaning , it is not a categorydefining portmanteau term . That said , pricing was only one flaw . Others were misunderstanding where the Powered Two- Wheeler ( PTW ) cycle was in demographic and urban mobility terms , misunderstanding the rapid evolution of EV tech , and failing to fully grasp the implications of the platform ' s shortcomings in charging cycle and range terms - especially in the context of the present geographic distribution of its dealer network . ' More Roads ' did ' visit ' that latter issue , but unfortunately the launch went ahead long before plans to build an urban / suburban commuter retail network were ready . " Build the bikes and the people will buy them " doesn ' t cut it when the brand values ' Speak in Tongues ' that ill-match the message , and when the brand is transitioning from a largely monopolistic market into one infested by shoals of sharks . All that said , it ' s not that the original LiveWire was a bad bike , it was simply the wrong bike . It was wearing concrete boots in terms of its ability to ' do the job ' required by its buyers - it could never be a downtowner . Downtown is an environment in which bikes get thrashed , bashed and trashed . The average on-the-road MSRP of the kind of e-bikes ( scooters and motorcycles ) that define the major urban environments of places like Rome , Milan , Madrid , Paris and ultimately New York , L . A . etc ., is in the region of $ 6,500 at most - they are largely a short-term consumable , not expected to last the rigors of their use much beyond their warranty . With Harley ' s Chinese supply chain moving forward , the company has access to the kind of bottom-feeder units that make money in cities . If it wants to make sense of domestic U . S . manufacturing overheads , then it will need the kind of charging cycles that are indeed on the way , but that are still only just starting to move from labs to productionization ( e . g . lithium metal solid state battery technology ). The good news is that , shorn of the baggage that drove Harley down the ' More Roads ' route of blinkered vision , Jochen Zeitz and his management team now have the freedom to visualize this with an unobstructed view , and execute upon it . Therefore , leveraging the huge brand profile that LiveWire achieved , and using it
" second law of thermodynamics "
for a family of PTW , wider powersports industry and other transport solutions is a plan that has potential ( shame about the logo though !). This ' Gen II ' thinking makes way more sense of ' where Harley is at ' in terms of its own evolution , issues and opportunities . It makes way more sense in terms of the transport policy , demographic and , therefore , market changes and challenges that still lie ahead . While Zero Engineering may well have grounds to take issue with Zeitz ' claim that the existing LiveWire model is the top selling American made electric motorcycle ( or words to that effect ), as he states , the vision that Zeitz is able to embrace because rather of than despite Harley ' s brand heritage is the one of desirability . Zeitz and his newly minted cohort of ' New Gen ' Bar ' n Shielders are right to be eying Harley as the powersports industry ' s ' Apple Store ' of the future . Harley is probably the only existing industry brand for whom such ambitions may not necessarily be doomed to descend into hubris , plus maybe Ducati and MV Agusta ; Piaggio and Yamaha are also trying it , but theirs is a more orthodox company store mission . Unlike the prior management iteration , Zeitz and his crew appear to realize that they couldn ' t do this with the existing product line of gas-powered bikes and with legacy Harley- Davidson brand values - venerable and righteous though , they definitely remain in their context . The first LiveWire branded motorcycle is scheduled to launch on July 8 , 2021 ( at IMS Outdoors in California ), and it is California that is the target for the first of a generation of aspirational , inspirational and motivational retail environments . Those are not new qualities for Harley of course - they are the very stuff that the existing Harley dealer network so successfully leveraged in its heyday . But what is now needed is a parallel universe of geographically , technologically and demographically discrete , distinct and inclusive retail brand environments in which diversity of customer values replaces the homogeneous identikit that brought Harley this far . It ' s not Harley ' s fault the world has changed , and will continue to change . It ' s not anyone ' s fault . It ' s just change , that ' s all . It always has changed , and it always will . The definition of corporate failure is to fail to adapt . Exhibit One , Your Honor - Newton ' s second law of thermodynamics . Case dismissed . For me , the single most important aspect of the ' LiveWire as brand ' announcement is the remarks that relate to ' LiveWire ' being a brand under which new tech can be developed . That tech will then be used to inform the Harley branded product offer that will be needed for the brave new world of sustainability and wealthy Millennials . At last , someone who " gets it "!
Robin Bradley Co-owner / Editor-in-Chief robin @ dealer-world . com
4 AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - JUNE 2021 www . AMDchampionship . com