07 January 2019, US, Las Vegas: Harley Davidson presents its first electric motorcycle at the CES technology fair. The LiveWire model comes from zero to 60 miles per hour (96.5 km/h) in 3.5 seconds and is available from just under 30,000 dollars (a
picture alliance via Getty Images
The Harley-Davidson LiveWire electric motorcycle has only been shipping to dealers since September, but there’s already a situation. Today, it was revealed that an unspecified technological problem with the two-wheeled EV has been discovered and the company is temporarily suspending production of the crazy-quick bike.
The exact nature of the problem isn’t being disclosed, with the company only saying that a “non-standard condition” was the cause for the temporary production halt. Harley also didn’t give an estimate for how long the production pause might last, just that it needed more time for testing and analysis before letting the bikes out into the wild. One possible hint at the problem comes from a memo the company sent to customers and dealers last week asking them to use only the electric vehicle chargers installed at Harley dealerships instead of home electrical outlets, according to Bloomberg, but there’s no confirmed connection between that memo and today’s suspension news. Harley shares took a tumble when the news of the production halt broke earlier today, from $35.52 to $34.57, but as of this writing, they have recovered to $35.17.
Even before this problem was announced, the LiveWire was not exactly a sales success. The bike starts at $29,799 and has been available for preorder for U.S. buyers since January. Reuters reports that most of the orders for the bike were coming from existing riders, making the LiveWire not so much a Harley for a new generation of bikers, but an extra bike for people who were already Harley fans. The tech is appealing to younger riders, but the price is a bit high, Reuters found. That message might change when other, lower-cost electric Harleys arrive in the coming years, but there’s no doubt that the company isn’t doing as well as it could in the United States. After all, 2018 was when Harley’s U.S. sales saw their steepest decline in four years, and that trend is expected to continue in 2019. This new trouble with the LiveWire is not going to help that trajectory.
