By Kate Murphy, RideApart
You might think that Harley Davidson tried to draw younger, sportier riders a decade and a half ago with the addition of the Buell
line of bikes, but anyone who ever stepped into a Harley dealer to look
at a Buell could tell the dealers weren’t committed to the change.
These days, it seems The Motor Company is, indeed, truly dedicating
itself to a reinvention– this time, though, the future is electric.
We’ve all seen the hype around the LiveWire,
and while the size and price of that bike might not be super practical
for most Americans, Harley isn’t putting all their eggs in that basket.
Not only do they have a concept electric dirt bike, but also a scooter. They’ve just purchased StaCyc which designs electric bikes for little kids, and now they’re looking at some of the e-scooters you may have seen around a city where you live.
Harley seems to be evaluating the advantages
of emulating Bird and Lime, two of the emerging rental e-scooter
companies whose business plans sometimes seem to be “it is better to ask
forgiveness than permission.” Many of these e-scooter companies all use
the same brand and model of e-scooter, which is a Chinese-built
custom-branded thing with an 18-or-so mile range. Harley is pretty sure
it can do better, while differentiating itself from the companies that
already exist in this market, by offering a better, more thrilling ride
instead of just rote transportation.
Harley has not confirmed whether they will commercialize the electric dirtbike or electric scooter concepts, yet, but they do exist in the flesh.
The Motor Company has a couple of other small electric concepts in the
works but they may not have advanced past existing purely in software,
yet.
