This past week Harley-Davidson brought their new concept, fully electric, motorcycle currently called Project LiveWire by the Intel campus to show off. They were also signing people for demo rides at Harley-Davidson of Chandler so I signed-up.
At the dealership there was a tractor tailer that was the tour vehicle going around the country that opened up in to its own display booth. This is where you had to watch the introductory video telling you that Project LiveWire is not like other motorcycles (there is no clutch and no gear-shift) and sign the requisite liability waiver forms.
Then you got on one of eight bikes that were there. There’s just one variant so they were all the same.
The stated range of the bike is currently 50 miles and it weighs about 400 pounds. There is only room for the rider (no passenger at this point). These being prototypes that is all subject to change before the bike is actually made available for sale.
Sitting on the bike in riding position I was in more of a forward leaning position. Not quite like a sport bike where you are hugging the bike for aerodynamics but also not fully upright in a neutral position. I guess with a 50-mile range you’re not going to go on some long trip with this and they probably want the bike to look more aggressive than their other models.
Instead of a traditional instrument cluster, there is a single touch-screen display. Of course, it tells you your speed but you also get other electric-vehicle information like battery voltage, battery temperature, ECU temperature, how much of the bike’s power capacity you are using at any moment, what seemed to be an inaccurate compass heading and how much range is left. I would have like to have more time to play with it and get the feel of the bike’s other controls but I think they were running behind schedule due to a brief rain shower that happened just before I arrived for my test ride.
We were then told to press the start button and the bike came to life. The bike isn’t ready to move at this point. I guess just briefly pressing the start button puts it in “accessory mode” like a car. The display then had a big “111” in the screen. They guy giving the overview said that indicates that the bike is in this accessory mode and that the engine is not engaged. I thought I heard him say the 111 signified the age of the Harley-Davidson company. That’s nice and nostalgic and all but does it change as the company gets older? I thought it would be more intuitive if it just had a big N for neutral to indicate that the bike’s motor was not engaged.
Holding the start button actually engages the electric motor. With no clutch or gear-shift turning the throttle now yields the bike moving. So now it was time to actually ride this thing. You can pick between two riding modes: range and power. I stuck to range for this ride so that I wouldn’t have any surprises.
As with all other electric motor vehicles, there is plenty of torque available at any time. I was at the end of the group so I was the last to turn out of the dealership on to Chandler Boulevard. The light holding the traffic had just turned green so I had to hustle to catch up to the rest of the ride and to not get in the way of the traffic that was now coming down the street towards me. That was no problem on this bike. The next thing I knew I had the bike going 55. Also with other electric vehicles, they use coasting and braking to put power back in to the battery pack. It’s really noticeable slow-down when you roll-off the throttle on this bike. There really isn’t any coasting. In fact, I don’t think I had to use the brakes at all during the demo ride to slow down. They warned us during the briefing that you should still tap the brakes so that the person behind knows that the bike in front is slowing down.
The route for the demo ride was just four right turns to keep things simple and not split up the group. This is where I wish I had a little more time to get accustomed to the controls. Harley’s have a turn signal controller on each handlebar: the left one on the left grip and the right one on the right grip. Every other bike I’ve ridden the left and right turn signal are both on the left grip. So I kept trying to push one side of the turn signal on the left grip to indicate a right turn. I’m pretty sure I had my left turn signal on most of the ride. It wasn’t until I got back to the dealership that I realized that Harley splits the turn signals. If you can’t tell, I’ve never ridden a Harley before.
The bike has an electric motor so there isn’t the loud rumble of Harley’s other bikes. The LiveWire does sound like the light bikes from the movie Tron when accelerating.
Overall it was a fun ride but I probably wouldn’t buy one. I wish I could have had a little more time with it. The bike felt heavy sitting there but once moving it really wasn’t that hard to maneuver. I didn’t really like the slightly-forward riding position. I’m more of a neutral position, dual sport kind of rider. I’m not sure how well it would sell given Harley’s current demographics. I can’t see any traditional Harley enthusiasts buying one of these but they may be targeting a different kind of rider with this bike. These were all prototype, hand-built bikes but felt very solid. The torque was mesmerizing but I really didn’t like the coasting response, it felt to abrupt to me.