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Harley-Davidson Unveils Their First Electric Motorcycle
Major Blud writes Harley-Davidson has unveiled their first electric motorcycle called "Project LiveWire." The bike is currently not for sale and detailed specifications are scarce. Harley plans on taking it on a demonstration tour of the U.S. for the next year to gather customer feedback. "The new LiveWire won’t make the distinctive 'potato-potato-potato' chug that Harley once tried to patent. Its engine is silent, and the turbine-like hum comes from the meshing of gears. But electric motors do provide better handling and rapid acceleration — with the electric Harley able to go from 0 to 60 mph in four seconds. LiveWire’s design places the engine at the bottom of the bike."
Nice looking bike, but I wonder if they're going to offer something more cruiser-like. I'm certainly not opposed to a "greener" ride, but I'd look a damned fool on one of those.
Harley owners want to be noticed, and without the 120 decibel roar, we won't be paying enough attention to them.
I can predict that such a motorcycle will never have much of a market. Here's why.
Bikers such as myself appreciate the engine noise their bikes make. It's a marvelous thing. While I personally dislike the noise Harley engines make—they're too damned loud—I like the healthy, high octane growl the 1.2 liter engine I sit just above and behind makes. Then there are the vibrations from the engine. At 90 mph, the engine spins at about 5500 rpm. It's an incredible feeling to sense all that power at my command being exerted.
As you can expect, none of these things are present in an electric bike. It's going to be quite a dull experience to ride an electric bike I think.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
Bikes aren't dangerous ... bimbos in SUVs are dangerous. Cell phone drivers are dangerous. Bikes are devices. People are the problem.
How will they make it leak oil and break down like normal Harleys?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The sound and the fury are great; there is no denying that. But I would be very interested in an electric bike that just runs. No oil, no fuel, no maintenance. Just a ultra-reliable ride.
Oh, are you one of those people who thinks a glass muffler gets you noticed and keeps you safe? More likely startles some poor minivan driver into swerving into your path. If you want to stay safe, the way to do it is to pay attention. Keeping the bike quiet means you'll hear Mr. Minivan coming. See and avoid, man. See and avoid.
People are the problem.
In particular, the people that ride bikes.
Don't be so mean. The world has enough of a donor-organ shortage as it is, without you going and discouraging nice, healthy, young specimens from doing things that not infrequently result in massive cranial trauma that leaves much of the rest of the body so usefully intact...
Harley Davidson is rebranding itself as Hardley Audible?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Yes and no.
While bikes are more dangerous than cars you can avoid more accidents on them then if you are in a car.
What most bike riders don't like to acknowledge is that, as much as we would love to blame the volvo driver, we tend to kill ourselves by ourselves.
Have a look at the statistics. A huge percentage of fatal motorcycle accidents are single vehicle. It comes from the fact that you can but an absolute weapon of a vehicle for essentially pocket change. Then most of us ride for fun at the weekend so our total number of hours driving a bike are relatively low, and as such so is our skill levels.
My bike will do 120kph in 1st gear and get there unbelievably quickly, then the only thing that caps its speed as an electronic limiter at 300kph..... Way faster than this electric harley. There are so few cars that can even come close and none of them are affordable.
If we weren't out having fun on our super awesome toys tearing up and down the local mountain the fatality rate would be a hell of a lot lower.