Living with a Livewire episode four

It's now almost four years since I bought my Harley Davidson electric Livewire motorcycle and a lot has happened in the world of premium electric sports bikes.

I can happily report that I still get excited every time I ride my Livewire. The new-bike-honeymoon-period may have worn off but its performance and panache refuses to fade away.

Like any performance bike, when you get the urge and are rewarded by silky smooth torque and very respectable power your senses tingle. My Livewire does that in spades, but I still can’t help thinking “oh my gosh, it’s doing all this and it's electric” - the fact that this machine exists and does what it does so well still blows me away.

Everybody asks “doesn't it feel soulless, don’t you miss the sound?” 

Absolutely not, but I accept I’m an anomaly after more than a decade of electric riding. My Livewire’s character is a blend of absolutely familiar motorcycle excitement and invisible science fiction. How it's this much fun is its mystique. 

Sound, or rather the emotions that sound evokes is more tricky. I still get an elevated heart rate hearing a 1956 Moto Guzzi V8 or a highly tuned two stroke at full noise, don’t get me wrong. But in the real world I’ve learned to love a stealthy ride. I’ve cognitively diss-associated power with traditional noise so I just don’t miss it.

Predictably, the simplicity, reliability and ultra low running cost of an electric motorcycle make ownership hassle free. I never have to worry about stale fuel, weather changes or wishing I had the cash to get my valves done or my carbs balanced. 

Just charge it and ride it.

I’m pretty satisfied with how my bike has aged too. Living by the ocean, some of the metallic fittings have suffered from corrosion but that’s normal - and with only one exception everything else about the Livewire is holding up really well. 

Around six months ago some Livewire owners started reporting issues with the dashboard, which is a full colour touch screen. The issue seemed to be delamination and moved quickly from a small bubble to full blown delamination of the screen from the casing.  It didn't stop anything from working but clearly wasn't good and in bright daylight made the screen very hard to read.

Going by owners groups, it seems that Australia with its high UV copped it worse than other countries by a longshot. What started as one or two isolated cases quickly escalated to a worryingly high percentage of local owners with the same issue, all around the four year mark.

After some understandable deep concern and delays I am happy to announce that my decision to pay the premium for a 100 year old brand paid off - Harley Davidson quietly started contacting owners and offering a warranty solution.

According to my sources, some of the components used in the original screen unit had become unobtainable and of course the cost of repair was more than likely prohibitive too. Instead, Harley opted to develop a retrofit solution using the screen off the later model Livewire Del Mar (also shared with the Harley Sportster).

I was lucky enough to watch the swap out process which included a tasty new screen, adapter housing, wiring harness and a few other bits which took around an hour. 

Sick new rig

Functionally it's very similar and provides most of the original features with the added bonus of a few new ones. I really like the full colour on screen map navigation (rather than basic turn by turn) and it seems to be crisper and sharper too. It finally includes a valuable 12V ancillary battery voltage monitor which is handy.  

Being round rather than rectangular sacrifices the size of some screen elements which is annoying for aging eyes but I think it looks way more stylish and it has better clarity - so quid pro quo.

I am going to call out one feature that’s been lost which I really miss and it’s the ability to see short term and long term range calculations. With a relatively low range (250km city/150km highway) and being highly susceptible to variation from temperature, wind and elevation I found this feature invaluable.

In short term range mode, the computer recalculated anticipated range every 5 seconds or so which provided a fantastic way to dynamically adjust riding style and always land at your next charger comfortably, with long term averaging it out. I really miss this feature and hope a software update might bring it back in the future.

For the benefit of other owners, here's a few other nuances that are different:

• Touch screen is gone, so disarming the bike without a fob is now done via a sequence of button pushes on the left and right switchblocks

• I initially couldnt get my BT helmet to work via the switchbock controls and realised I needed to disconnect my (Forcite) helmet from my phone and instead, connect to the headset BT on the bike

• Toggling through the dash screens is done via the lh switch block

• As part of the retrofit, a new harness will be fitted and some minor changes made to the lh switchblock

Bracketmatic

As the only issue I've had with my bike I have to give huge props to Harley Davidson for coming up with a high quality solution for owners and particularly thank the team at Harley HQ who let me learn about the process. 

The market

Like the entire EV market, sales have been very sluggish for the last few years and the premium electric two wheeler segment inevitably gets hit harder than most. Sales statistics are very hard to come by but here's what we do know: too many companies in this segment are still going bust or losing money.

Energica, Fuell, Sondors, Cake, Arc Vector and Onyx have all collapsed in the last few years despite tens of millions of investment and some highly innovative attempts to win the hearts of buyers. At the same time, new entrants keep popping up and the major brands like KTM, Ducati, Honda and KTM are all dabbling. 

Energica, who were the darling of the segment collapsed in 2024 and despite multiple attempts to sell the assets and IP, a buyer has yet to emerge. The fact that no one was even willing to get a low cost entry into the segment is very telling.

Stalwart Zero motorcycles continues to deliver bikes in the mid to premium segment and notably released a range of smaller/lower cost machines in the last year, no doubt trying to capitalize on the much higher volumes  in the low power segment. It remains the oldest and highest volume manufacturer having reportedly sold around 20,000 motorcycles in total.

However, this came on the back of a US$120M fund raise in late 2024, which followed a US$107M raise 2 years previously. According to some investor websites, Zero Motorcycles has raised a total of $569 million over 55 funding rounds and its 15 year history and sells around 3000-4000 bikes each year.

And then there is my personal favourite, Livewire, which was spun off by Harley Davidson a few years ago. To date it’s estimated that around US$300M has been invested including a 2024 loan by HD to the tune of US$100M.

Despite my personal affection for the brand's machines, I am in a very, very small club - Livewire has failed to sell more than around 600 bikes per year since kicking off and 2025 is looking worse than 2024 so far, with losses accumulating at a huge rate.

However, I remain eternally optimistic about Livewire for just a few simple reasons - they have built a remarkable range of machines and have virtually no competitors in that segment, following the departure of Energica. This alone should allow sales of their LW1 and Del Mar models to grow because there's a proven demand that now has a supply gap. I don't know what drove it but after steady declines, the Livewire stock price finally rebounded this year too, so perhaps their investors are feeling optimistic too.

Interestingly it could be argued that the underlying HD brand also positions Livewire in a better place because it’s globally familiar. However, according to my eye rolling, head shaking wife who has a sixth sense on many things “Sure it's a huge brand - but it's ugly. To most people it stands for old fashioned aggression and noise, you just can't escape that.” Hmmmmm, maybe it's a leap too far for many?

Underlying the challenges in this segment is one simple truth - putting aside south east asia, in markets like Australia and the US, motorcycles in general tend to be bought for leisure rather than transportation and it's a big discretionary spend that needs big consumer confidence - or it ain't happening. 

Despite massive progress, we are really still in Gen 1 of the technology and only time will tell who will win the premium electric motorcycle wars.