Full stop, I loved the first Harley-Davidson LiveWire.
I rode it on the Brooklyn Formula E track way back when it first debuted, and me and one of the brand's marketing leads—what's up, Laurence!—had an absolute ball hanging at the back of the pack and shredding the track. It had power. It had poise. And it looked great.
But it had its failings.
The bike was too heavy for its brakes, range—like all electric motorcycles—sucked, and it carried a truly eye-watering price tag. It eventually went down as market demand was almost non-existent for a $30,000 electric motorcycle, but the whole pricing affair would se the first of many missteps for the fledgling off-shoot that'd set it on the path it currently finds itself facing. That of a brand that doesn't quite know what its purpose truly is.
Case in point, LiveWire is debuting a new motorcycle called the Alpinista in a few weeks based on its S2 platform. There's just one problem, I don't really know who the bike is for. And I'm not sure LiveWire does either.
LiveWire is in a bit of a pickle at the moment. It's burned through cash, had to move back into Harley-Davidson's main campus in Wisconsin, has merged back with Harley-Davidson for its executive functions, and can't really seem to sell any motorcycles to the general public. There's also the fact that for those motorcycles that have been sold, most have been recalled for some sort of small-to-catastrophic failure.
Which, again, ain't great given when they work, I really like what they do. And I'm a big fan of electric motorcycles as a whole, even though I really only think they work as a backyard toy at present.
But the debut of the Alpinista is a weird one, as the promotional media and pictures were all taken around my place in Northern Utah. A place where I've ridden a number of electric motorcycles over the years, including both the Zero FX and DSR/X. It's a place of mountainous canyon roads, breathtaking scenery, and the opportunity to breathe fresh mountain air. And LiveWire clearly wants to market the motorcycle to those who aim to, or already do, ride these roads. People like myself.
Yet, taking an electric motorcycle into these roads, which I have, always falls short, as range anxiety creeps in or is outright trash. I legit threw the FX into the back of my truck to take it to the very road Harley shot the Alpinista on overlooking the valley below. Why? Because EV motorcycles don't work in the place that they're promoting you take your EV motorcycle to. I rode those roads, and not too agressively, but doing so necessitated me towing the bike there and not riding it from my house, which is only twenty five minutes away.
So I guarantee LiveWire trailered those bikes up to that spot, because if they stayed anywhere in my town or Park City, they would've been riding back in limp mode thanks to its 77 mile combined range, or turning off regen and just coasting down the mountains. How will that fact of life help turn LiveWire's future around? How will folks doing what the marketing materials promise, only to find themselves either stuck or limping home at 5mph, help LiveWire overcome its lackluster sales and debt?
Hand on heart, I want to see LiveWire succeed. And I think electric motorcycles have their place in the grand scheme of motorcycling, even if I think it might not be their time to shine. But when the marketing folks at LiveWire do things like this, i.e. make promises that the company's bike's can't keep, it becomes really hard to say anything other than the above.
The S2 Alpinista will debut on January 15th, so stay tuned to see what the bike is all about.
