Geezer with a Grudge: It’s Real, I Hope

Jun 28, 2014

It’s Real, I Hope

From everything I read, it sounds like Harley Davidson’s “Project Livewire” electric motorcycle is the real deal. To quote Vizzini from Princess Bride, “Inconceivable.”

That word must not mean what I think it means, because not only is The Company hyping the bike all over the corporate webpage, but they are shipping bikes around the country for test rides. Not just media hack test rides, but test rides with real people/riders in 30 cities. I am going to be seriously pissed if the Cities aren’t on the list. I might own a Harley Davidson again, for the second time in 50 years.

Specs are hard to come by, but GizMag got a statement from H-D: “The LiveWire is powered by 3-phase AC electric induction motor, which produces 74 hp (55 kW) and 8000 rpm. Peak torque is 52 lb.ft (70.5 Nm). The bike maxes out at 92 mph (148 km/h) and accelerates from 0-60 mph (100 km/h) in 4 seconds. A full recharge takes around 3.5 hours and its average range so far has been 53 miles (85 km).” Predictably, the Livewire is significantly technologically and performance-wise some distance behind Zero or Brammo bike performance standards. In fact it’s pretty much the bike those pioneers were building 4 years ago, but you have to wonder about where electric bike competition/price/availability will go if the Harley gains some traction. Got my fingers crossed.

2 comments:

RichardM said...: I hope it is too! The range is reasonable for commuting and if there is a quick charge option maybe it'll be useble for much more than that.; 6/28/14, 8:24 PM
T.W. Day said...: They are going to have to push their technology hard, though. The Zero's are getting more than 150 miles per charge.; 6/30/14, 11:00 PM

The Geezer Story

I stumbled upon this column name (Geezer with a Grudge) almost 20 years ago, in 1999. The first Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly editor I worked with, in late 1999, complained that the magazine was getting no mail and the editors wanted to know if any readers were still out there. I fired off a sarcastic note, as a joke, intended to provide a little humor and some feedback. He published it as an article and later called me to say he'd received more mail on that letter than he'd received in the past year! I followed that with an offer to write a monthly column attempting to piss off a particular section of the magazine's readership to see if that tactic would generate some mail.

It did, probably more regularly than the magazine wanted at times, and I wrote a monthly column for MMM until the magazine died in 2018.

I plan to post an occasional old Geezer article into the blog, followed by short comments about the current status of my perspective on our activity/sport/vehicle of choice.