‘The Future has arrived — and its electric’
The first of the two new scooters has no clutch (goodbye, shifting) and is designed to not require a motorcycle license, should it come to market sometime soon.
Battery packs can be removed easily by hand, the company says, making it easier to move and charge. It can plug into any standard household power outlet.
Both models "embrace their electric powerplants" the company says, and "put raw emotions into the equation of the future" through unique designs.
Still, it won’t be easy for a few electric vehicles to turn the tides.
Harley’s own investor presentation outlining the More Roads program says that electric motorcycles aren’t expected to achieve cost parity with internal combustion engine MC’s until 2030 at the earliest.
The company's "immediate future is not looking any brighter," David Beckel, an analyst at Bernstein, told clients last week of Harley's 2018 financials
LiveWire, Harley's first fully electric motorcycle to actually go on sale, should be available by the fall of 2019 in North America and Western Europe.
"Getting great at delivering urban riding experiences is something that we see the future needing us to do," Marc McAllister, Harley-Davidson's vice president of product portfolio, told Business Insider earlier this year.
Read McAllister's full interview about Harley-Davidson's biggest opportunity for the LiveWire here.
