H-D says they will market an electric motorcycle in 18 months

[Richard230]

Here is the latest.  Note the adjectives "premium" and "no compromises".  Considering it is H-D, that sure sounds expensive to me, which may get them some good press (the Livewire story made the CBS national news last night), but probably not all that many sales.

http://www.motorcycle.com/features/yes-the-harley-davidson-electric-motorcycle-is-on-the-way.html

[siai47]

I don't think HD is a right fit for the electric motorcycle market.  The image they present is a polar opposite of what a purchaser of an electric vehicle would aspire to have.  If you read further into the article, it appears HD's sales are on a downturn.  IMO that is because they are marketing to an ageing population.  If not at retirement age, most are headed that way.  Heck, I am 70 years old and bypassed Harley by going from British motorcycles to Japanese.  Some were nice to look at but from a technical standpoint, they were (are) outdated a half a century ago. 

That being said, if they really wanted to enter the electric market they should build a Harley-Davidson branded electric mobility scooter.  It hits right at their demographic.  Imagine a gang of them terrorizing the local assisted living center before being run off by a rival gang from the nearby nursing home  !

[HadesOmega]

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.  The Empulse can already get 60 FREEWAY miles on a charge, let's hope HD is going for 100 freeway miles, like how Lightning advertises.  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

[Richard230]

Leave it to Harley that the first thing they think of for their electric motorcycle is to trademark the name of their new power train:   
http://www.motorcycle.com/mini-features/harley-davidson-trademarks-h-d-revelation-for-its-electric-powertrain.html

[jazz999]

There should be no reason that a brand new electric motorcycle today or in the near future does not get at least 200 miles per charge.  Had Brammo stayed in the game, I am certain they would have exceed 200+ miles per charge by now.  They were doing 65-80 miles per charge 6 years ago

[Richard230]

Leave it to H-D to buy into the new technology by sucking up an existing company.  (Something H-D has been doing since the early 1960's.)

https://electricmotorcycles.news/harley-davidson-invests-in-alta-motors/

Kind of reminds me of when Polaris invested in Brammo.     Hopefully Alta has a better business plan for electric motorcycles than either Brammo or Polaris did.  :O

[Ultratoad]

With any luck, if Harley and Alta are successful....  It will force Polaris to dust off the Brammo stuff to develop a new line of Victory's (I mean Indians)....  The Harley Live Wire was the main reason Polaris bought Brammo in the first place....  Could get interesting....  I'm hopeful for the future of the Brammo tech and Alta....  Harley and Polaris, not so much....

[jazz999]

On the face of it all, the Polaris deal seemed to be a good move only to turn out disappointing.  It was surprising that a multi-billion dollar company flopped on the Empulse so bad with terrible planning, zero marketing and limited support (parts and service).