Posted on 12/13/2021 6:23:55 AM PST by Scarlett156
MILWAUKEE -- Harley-Davidson will take its electric motorcycle division public through a blank-check company, valuing the enterprise that has been part of the Harley for 10 years at $1.77 billion.
The news gave a jolt to long-suffering shares of Harley-Davidson, which jumped 12% before the opening bell Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
The beach is about 200 miles from Charlotte...about a four hour ride on a gas-guzzler motorcycle.
The same trip on an electric motorcycle will be 2 hours+8 hours+2 hours. And maybe an additional 8 hours if you don’t quite make it the last few miles to the beach. Anywhere from 12 hours to 20 hours on the E-motorcycle vs 4 hours on the gas-powered ride. Then there’s the problem of finding a charging station.
Let me think about that a moment...
The sport bikes are no-doubt fun and capable, but not everyone wants to go 150 mph or pay 2x the cost of a gas sport bike.
The scooters / urban bikes make a lot of sense - if you have an urban setting where you can reasonably/safely park & charge the bike.
That leaves the rest of us kind of out in the cold. Someone who wants/needs highway speed capability but not sport-bike zoom, enough range to commute and run errands for several days without having to find a place to charge it every time it is parked.
How about these specs EV bike manufacturers:
200 mi range, which includes about 50 mi of 65 to 70 mph highway. The remaining 150 mi a mix of urban/rural.
100 mi range two-up.
75 or 80 mph top speed.
Recharge overnight (8 to 10 hrs) from 0% through standard plug in my garage.
Recharge 50% or so in 15 min at an EV charging station.
Cost around $10K.
How can you get to Sturgis in electric HD?
It would probably take two weeks to get there, one way!
And what about the HD sound?
Instead of spinning it out to existing shareholders who paid for the R&D. Way to go, HD.
Without the ear splitting racket, do not see the usual “lifestyle” HD owners biting.
Budda, budda, pop, flatch, wheeze
I was a WERA road racer in the mid to late 80’s.
All I can say is “Very nice”.
**Took us 4 days. It would take 4 weeks to do that with EVs.**
4 days! You must have mixed in some sightseeing.
The wife and I moved from northwest IL to South Central TN. Three round trips (2 vehicles down, one back, each time). 565 miles one way. One day down, one day back. Two trips was with the 4×4 pulling a 16’ 5th wheel livestock trailer. One of those loads was just under the 16,000 lbs weight that is the IL DOT chicken coop threshold.
I’m a truck driver, so driving with few breaks is natural. My wife likes to get to the destination a quickly as possible.
Next year we are going to visit her brother near Redding, CA. We’ll probably team drive the suv in 2 days going out, but sightsee some coming back. We both have had our fill of the airports, so If we are going anywhere in the 48, it will be by road.
The only EV that makes sense is UTV side x side for hunting.
Having something that is silent would be a big help.
Compared to the same trip in my F150, I was more aware of the smells of the air in many places. I aimed for a break every 100 miles to stretch my legs and drink a 16 oz bottle of water. You get very dehydrated in the wind. I left San Diego at 5 PM so the desert crossing would be less hot. I deliberately stopped in Mesquite, NV to sleep at a hotel so that I could ride through the Virgin River Gorge with morning sun. Beautiful.
The temperature range on the trip ranged from +42F in Idaho after dark on day 2 and 116F passing through Baker, CA the first night. On the roll through the valley near Beaver, UT, I was hit with heavy rain from mile marker 120 to mile marker 222. Fortunately, I had my "Frog Togs" in the tail bag.
Could you do this trip on Harley LiveWire? Not in 2 days. The Fat Bob has the "touring class" V-Twin designed for long range highway riding. The LiveWire electric is in "in town" commuter bike. Rip around town and bring it home for an overnight charge. It isn't even good enough for a round trip to Idaho Falls from Pocatello (106 miles).
That sounds logical.
Serving on my church’s parking ministry I can’t tell you how many times I almost stepped out in front of one of those stupid battery operated cars because you don’t hear em coming.
It really is a safety issue that no one has ever talked about
We had two kids and a dog with us but the biggest issue was the 1 ton Chevy was a 1973 that had sat for 9 years when I got it and the box truck was a mid 80s that had sat for 4 years when I got it. In other words POS vehicles that cost $1000 between the two of them. We used CB’s to communicate and my handle ended up being Mr Chugs because the truck I was driving would chug up the hills and I’d end up dropping down to 2nd gear on some and doing 20-30mph by the to of the hill.(that and I like beer)
If I’d have gone through a weigh station, they wouldn’t have let me drive out of there. We walked across tool boxes to get to the bed in the back. 35 foot 5th wheel and you couldn’t see the floor due to all the stuff, mostly tools.
I made sure brakes and steering were good but the fuel tanks were both rusty inside. I had 3 carbs and at some point in the day, I’d swap one truck’s carb, usually the Chevy and every night, I’d clean up a carb to have for tomorrow’s needed swap.
I’d be willing to bet there are some Xiden bucks in there for them on this endeavor....
—”
If it doesn’t go putt putt putt putt, whats the point?”
Careful about making H-D sounds!
Now the Wisconsin company wants the government to protect its investment with a trademark. Harley says the competition is copying its sound.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-03-27-fi-57205-story.html
Harley-Davidson LiveWire full specs
So far we’ve known that the LiveWire has a city range of 146 miles (235 km) and a 0-60 mph (0-97 km/h) time of around 3 to 3.5 seconds.
We also knew that Harley-Davidson’s first electric model would feature Level 3 DC Fast Charging that would top up the battery from 0-80% in 40 minutes or 0-100% in 60 minutes.
Dang! Old fuel tanks, yeah, that’s a problem. A friend of mine had that problem back in the 90’s, driving a rusty 65(?) chevy pickup back and forth to work. The aftermarket inline filter would plug after a while, but it was the in cab tank dripping a few drops a day that had to be dealt with. His temporary 20 gallon tank (off of an old grain truck) was bolted in the bed. Iirc, it was temporary for about three years.
Damn
I hadn’t seen that
I know a guy that lives near Redding
He loves it there.
Likes to hunt, and he was recently telling me about the the illegal pot farms. Accidentally wander into one their grows, and you won’t come out.
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