#livewire

As the world’s tech companies gather in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Harley-Davidson has announced that the 2020 Livewire is now available for pre-order. Additionally, Harley has tossed out a few more tidbits about the company’s first electric motorcycle. First, the retail price will be $29,799 in the U.S. Second, we finally get some specifics about power delivery and range.

Along side the new 2019 LiveWire, Harley-Davidson revealed two electric urban mobility concepts at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The two as-yet-unnamed concepts, a mountain bike-style vehicle and a scooterish looking model, give us the first looks at a selection of “lightweight urban” electric models that Harley-Davidson says will go into production in 2021 and 2022.

For a company like Harley-Davidson, change can be slow and incremental. Not so today, as Harley-Davidson announced a new plan for growth from now through 2020, including some significant, bold changes that many customers have long been asking for.

Four years after introducing the prototype, Harley-Davidson is finally ready to go electric, announcing the impending launch of the LiveWire production model in August next year.

Harley-Davidson has filed a trademark application to use the name “H-D Revelation” for its upcoming electric motorcycle technology. The trademark was filed with the U.S. Patent Trademark Office for use on batteries and chargers as well as powertrains, specifically motors, transmissions and electric drives, but not for as a model name for a whole motorcycle.

As Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Harley-Davidson, Mark-Hans Richer, has, as they say, a lot on his plate. A new platform in the shape of the two Street models, 750 and 500, the Project LiveWire Experience Tour currently underway, an updated model lineup for 2016 in the pipeline, and certainly goings-on that only the need-to-know know, is enough to keep ten people busy. Nonetheless, Mr. Richer kindly set a little time aside to speak with MO and confirm that everything for the Motor Company is going swimmingly.

Smash! Boom! Bam!

When it comes to creating a splash in the moto world, perhaps no one in the past year did it better than Harley-Davidson when it unveiled an electric motorcycle. H-D, long known as a company tied firmly to vintage roots, shocked everyone with its electrically powered LiveWire.

Wait, what? It’s 2015 already? It feels like 2014 just started a couple of months ago. I guess it’s time to hang up another FastDates calendar my wife doesn’t approve of. (Seriously, love, I didn’t ask for it, they just sent it to me.)

The announcement of Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire electric motorcycle sent shockwaves through the moto industry and even made headline news in the general media. Harley’s products, perhaps more than any other vehicle manufacturer, are steeped in tradition, so building an e-bike just seemed so unlikely for the hidebound company.

Harley-Davidson’s electrically-powered LiveWire has sent shockwaves throughout the moto industry – and also through the general public. I don’t recall the last time Harley made a bigger splash in traditional media than the news of this electric motorcycle, which I got to ride yesterday on the streets of New York City.

In a bombshell that would seem to be an April Fools joke, we believe Harley-Davidson will be building a production motorcycle powered by electric power, named “Livewire.” Harley filed a trademark application for the name on Nov. 1, 2012 with the USPTO, then also filed for a trademark in the EU on Nov. 2, 2012 which was approved March 13, 2013. This is potentially game-changing news, and if this indeed turns out to be true, it will give a whole new meaning to “The Motor Company.”