
Harley Davidson’s EV debut could electrify the motorcycle industry - blocked_again
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/harley-davidsons-ev-debut-could-electrify-the-motorcycle-industry/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
======
nugi
I'll say it.

This will fail.

1\. Harley demographic is entrenched, hard to pivot. Most associate with
wealthy boomers and 'lowlifes', or working class murica. Not things as popular
today. Other, better, performance ebikes exist, and outside this restrictive
submarket, but are not thriving. And I will casually remind readers of
Southparks opinion. That said, they do have diehard fans that would buy
anything they made.

2\. Motorcycles are all about freedom. Range issues, or even the idea of them,
robs confidence. This will change, but gas is way more energy dense and on a
bike it matters even more than cars. Going into the mountains is not when you
want to wonder if your range will halve going up hills with gusto, or screwing
it on for the corners.

3\. Price perception. The electric will be awesome. Torque is so fun on bikes.
But to harley riders, I think it will fell like a 'toy'. And for the price
point, its gonna be a tough sell.

4\. Tinkering. You do not buy a harley as an intelligent person without ever
expecting to work on it. Hell, that is part of the classical appeal of them.
There are more than a few explorations of life and motorcycle maintance in
print. Maybe this is just my bias, but the connection with the machine is part
of what makes motorcycling so intimate.

I very much welcome being incorrect. I shopped for an ebike and bought another
used sportbike instead.

~~~
mc32
I'm hoping they, or someone succeeds, and I think the market will develop.

In addition to carbon emissions reduction, the most immediate benefit is a
godly reduction in noise pollution. In SF we have these bastards who love
nothing more than to rev up their engines and make noise, on residential
streets, at night. I so loathe that aspect of bikers.

~~~
brett40324
"In SF we have these bastards who love nothing more than to rev up their
engines and make noise, on residential streets, at night."

This is pretty much everywhere in the US. Aside from local ordinances, there
is nothing you can do about. To call people bastards for a loud bike is one
thing, but have you ever heard 'loud pipes save lives'?

~~~
mc32
On the highway, that's fine, on busy streets, that's fine. I get it. On quiet
residential streets, at night, it's being a selfish prick. Normal bikers
accelerate and are heard but aren't overly noisy. These other people on the
other hand intentionally want to be annoyingly overly loud.

The sequence is, slow for a stop sign or intersection, full throttle, then
heavy breaking for the next block, full throttle, mind you, modified, again.
It's infuriatingly annoying.

~~~
brett40324
Agreed. The problem I see with similar comments here about noise and the
character of these (fair to say overly obnoxious) riders, and how it affects
your life, is that the same can be said of All of other loud vehicles. It's
like complaining about the character of people with too loud of music blaring.
They like it loud. They're different than you. This is America, where it's
loud, and youre free to be loud too. This coming from someone who is
especially sensitive and irritated by noises Im not making myself.

~~~
mikeash
All loud vehicles piss me off, and so do people who play music too loud. Your
right to be loud stops at my ears.

“Loud pipes save lives” is ridiculous. If you need to be irritatingly loud to
be safe then your hobby is too dangerous.

~~~
nitrogen
_Your right to be loud stops at my ears._

I wish soundproofing standards for buildings were much higher.

Apartment listings only ever focus on just one of the major senses, vision.
They make sure the photos look good with prop furniture and just the right
lighting. But the experience of actually living in a place involves all of the
senses.

I would love to see an apartment listing saying "60dBA soundproofing", "99.9%
odor isolation", etc. All of the senses matter.

~~~
cma
That would still mean you can't enjoy balconies.

~~~
nitrogen
I used to want a balcony until I lived across from a building with balconies.
Especially during summer, there's always someone having a loud party until
late at night, and it's a different unit every time so harder to enforce noise
limits and clean air smoking bans. So the downside of balconies is you have to
share noise/airspace with everyone else with a balcony.

------
ph33t
One thing to understand, my Harley riding brethren, Harley _cannot_ be
targetting you. They are clearly targetting new riders. The combustion engine
is a hobby as much as anything for 1/2 the riders I know; for them, it's the
fun of owning a bike. Unless you have a lot of money, the only way to fix an
oft-broken motorcycle is by doing yourself. I've owned a similar (not Harley)
bike for a number of years. Parts are always vibrating off off the damn thing.
It is loud; I do believe it helps make you visible. Yes, that is anecdotal,
but I have ridden bikes with all types of pipes and I find it 100% true. I am
much safer (heard) with my La Chopper's Curvedd pipes than the very quiet
stock pipes; meaning, many fewer close calls.

So, they are looking for riders that don't care that their machines will
(ostensibly) be more reliable (less vibration), saves money on fuel, and is
quiet and efficient. I care about none of those things, BUT I want Harley to
stay in business, and if they can do that while attracting new riders, I fully
support them.

A side note, gas sport-bikes accelerate insanely fast now ... imagine how fast
they will with an electric engine ... scary!

~~~
cujo
The main issue I have with Harley and all the loud bikes is that riders are
remarkably rude and inconsiderate. Yeah, I'm passing a very general comment
around, but I don't think it's wrong.

Any time you ride that thing past someones home you wake everyone up if
they're sleeping and completely ruin any sense of quiet that may have existed.

If your neighbor fired up a chainsaw (or six) 20 feet from your house at all
hours of the day, I imagine you'd consider that neighbor similarly.

So if they loud bikes go away, I'm all in favor. I think you're all acting
like jerks for riding them.

~~~
cryptoz
I was under the impression that motorcycles were made to be artificially loud,
as just like the existence of the engine, the bike being loud is a major
selling point. Is this true?

The problem is that they are so fast. So if you call in a seriously scary and
illegal noise at night the culprit could be a state over before anyone
arrives. So it's obviously a non starter and nobody calls the police. But then
there is a cultural of it being normal and so the problem never goes away and
only gets worse.

Motorcycles are your right to ride if you have a license. Scaring the living
daylights out of people every day is not.

~~~
oldcynic
Not at all true, unless you add an illegal straight through or race pipe. Or
remove the baffles.

Motorcycles are comparatively loud, especially big V twins, because a) a
surprising percentage is intake noise - there's a _huge_ intake pulse from a
1200cc V b) the engine is open rather than behind a closed bonnet with noise
absorption c) they tend to rev much higher than equivalent car engines (not
Harleys)

Passing the legislated noise tests (specified engine revs etc), bikes are
often quieter than a car. With some bikes now too quiet for comfort around
pedestrians in town. Harleys somehow are always obnoxiously loud - My guess is
probably mostly from intake pulses given current EU noise regs.

~~~
mcguire
I don't know about the EU, but straight pipes are somewhat common in the US,
and de-baffled exhausts are almost ubiquitous.

------
pwaai
From my understanding of Harley fans is that they really really like their
air-cooled engines. V-Rod, Street 750 have all gotten flak for not being
'true' harleys....because they improved on lot of the outdated tech. They
can't sell even the newer bikes (revenue has fallen and closing down
factories) because the demographic is steadfast in their vision of classic
harley.

Porsche enthusiasts also show similar preference for air cooled 70~80s models
which appreciates in value....but they kept almost all parts of the formula
(the car look, clock, engine in the rear) the same because when they went with
a bold new look (like the tear drop of early 2000s) they were facing an uphill
battle.

It's sort of like the HN comment I see calling for petrol cars to be banned
because electric vehicles are going to render the old ones extinct.

There is a true lack of understanding the market and the buyers in a space
that most HN'ers are not the target demographic.

~~~
theluketaylor
the 996 era 911 is certainly the least loved porsche 911 and it was initially
due to being the first water cooled engine, but now it's because the horrible
egg headlights and the fact it isn't old enough to be classic yet. The 991.1
and 991.2 have sold incredibly well and the 918 showed porsche enthusiasts
hybrid would actually make their cars faster. When the 992 includes
electrification there is going to be a huge demand.

The air cooled leap in value didn't happen until more than a decade after
porsche switched to water cooling when people realized vintage 911s had been
undervalued for decades (they are excellent cars, especially with modern
tires). There is likely now a bubble, especially with 912s, but there are tons
of porsche guys buying both old and new stuff.

I don't see current Harley guys taking to electric very well, but this is
about getting a whole new generation of buyers, not about keeping their aging
boomers happy.

~~~
hungariantoast
At the same time that the 996 was a controversial success for Porsche, the 928
was an eventual, controversial failure. Even though I own a 928 I don't know
nearly enough about the 928's history to talk about why it failed, but I
wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with its rapid departure from
the 911's style and layout. My big question is will an electric Harley be just
enough, too little, or too much of a change from its heritage to succeed?

------
oldcynic
Techcrunch don't understand motorcycles do they?

Trouble with motorcycles is, at least in the EU, too many years of governments
putting the fix for bad car drivers onto the motorcycle license. The capacity
limits and multi-part test etc are quite off-putting for new riders.
Unsurprisingly, it's still car drivers causing most rider deaths. On the plus
side you develop a definite 6th sense for those that _will_ pull out - whilst
looking straight through you. You also end up a much better car driver.

Lifestyle ranges _are part of the problem of decline._ The manufacturers,
Harley included - perhaps especially, have catered more and more for the born
again bikers spending a lot of $$$ in their 40s+. The cost has got rather
silly and many models, even Jap middleweights, have reached the cost to buy of
a cheaper car. When I started only the Goldwing and rarer Italian managed
that.

So whilst I'd _love_ for an EV bike to revitalise things, I suspect they'll be
more of the same for the 40+ born again biker.

Source: Almost 35 years of motorcycling and trying to encourage the kids to
take up biking.

Edit: This has been gaining plenty of up _and_ downvotes. I'm intrigued -
what's controversial here?

~~~
Clubber
>Trouble with motorcycles is, at least in the EU, is too many years of
governments putting the fix for bad car drivers onto the motorcycle license.

Yes, but as you know, even if the motorcycle is in the right, physics doesn't
care. I quit riding recently after 8 years of serious riding, 18 of casual,
because our sales guy, who has years of riding experience got T-Boned on a
legal left turn with his wife on the back. They were "ok," meaning not dead
and no brain damage, but they were pretty beat up. The moral of the story for
me was, no matter how good and experienced a rider you are, you can still get
clobbered.

>The cost has got rather silly and many models, even Jap middleweights, have
reached the cost to buy of a cheaper car.

Between you and me and all the blind drivers, I'd rather buy a used sport
convertible with a manual transmission. Just about the same experience for the
same money, minus most of the risk of death.

~~~
falcolas
Aah, yes, the right of weight.

As for the sports car, I totally understand the choice. Unfortunately, for
under a couple of million dollars a car will never have the same potential for
acceleration as even a relatively modest motorcycle. And you... loose
something visceral when you can't lean into turns.

If a person is OK with that, however, a used sport car is definitely a
reasonable investment for some wheeled fun.

~~~
hcho
There are quite a few videos of Tesla S's beating motorbikes. They are
expensive but not million dolar expensive.

------
cmutel
We just published a study on the environmental performance of current and
future battery and fuel cell motorcycles
([https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261917318238)
; also available via scihub). The supporting information is open Jupyter
notebooks, though some of the background data is closed.

The environmental performance of electric motorcycles is different than cars:

\- Cars need ancillary services like heating, increasing battery size

\- Motorcycles have no real chance at regenerative braking

\- Motorcycles are driven fewer kilometers than cars, making the impact of the
vehicle more important (as opposed to the fuel).

Currently, we estimate that battery motorcycles are preferable across a
variety of environmental indicators, though results differ for small and large
motorcycles, which have very different usage patterns.

Feel free to contact me directly if interested in discussing or collaborating
on open source life cycle assessment code or data
([https://brightwaylca.org/](https://brightwaylca.org/),
[https://chris.mutel.org/](https://chris.mutel.org/)).

~~~
hfdgiutdryg
_Motorcycles have no real chance at regenerative braking_

They do, but it has to come from the front wheel. An electric generator would
be heavy and add significant unsprung weight.

KTM experimented with a 2wd dirt bike. It used hydraulic lines to transfer
energy to the front wheel. A similar system could be used for regenerative
braking.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/motocrossactionmag.com/amp/all-...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/motocrossactionmag.com/amp/all-
wheel-drive-ktm-is-the-bloom-off-the-rose)

------
thecrumb
Loud pipes just piss people off. And ruin your hearing. And most likely the
person in the car is yacking on the phone anyone and not listening to your
$500 chrome moly straight pipes.

Harley is dying and needs to do something to attract younger buyers into the
fold. Hopefully this will do that.

~~~
stagger87
Harley is definitely not dying.

~~~
mwfunk
Their audience is though- the average age of a Harley owner has been trending
upwards for decades. I believe it is somewhere around 67 right now, seriously.
There may be some younger people buying Harleys still, but for a very long
time the trend has been in the other direction. When the Boomers are gone, the
company is going to have an existential crisis unless they figure out some way
to expand their appeal to new demographics.

------
mulmen
As a rider "loud pipes save lives" is just justification of people who want to
make noise but won't own the responsibility of admitting it. My motorcycle has
a horn that faces forward for a reason. I use it respectfully all the time for
my own safety.

Riding a motorcycle without a horn is as irresponsible and dangerous as riding
one with bald tires or poorly maintained brakes.

Take responsibility for your own safety. Ride defensively. Don't be a jerk.

~~~
reificator
My bike is exceptionally quiet, and I get constant flak from "fellow
riders"[1] at work. When they call my bike a scooter because it's so quiet,
that tells me a lot about why they bought their bike. When they then also
claim that they only care about noise because of safety....

[1]: Who haven't been on their bikes in years.

~~~
pasabagi
I like walking, and honestly, it makes me feel very happy to know that there
are bikers who don't ride noisy bikes. There's nothing more depressing than
being in what feels like a perfect wilderness, except the sound of motorbikes
roaring through the valleys.

~~~
mulmen
Not sure if you are talking about dirt bikes or just road bikes in a more
rural setting. I can however imagine there are things more depressing than
engine noise so your claim is hyperbolic.

I do not ride a quiet motorcycle on the street. My pipes are louder than stock
(no baffles) but I still have mufflers. This bike is louder than stock because
I like how it sounds. I admit that makes me a bit of a jerk. I don't hide
behind dubious claims of safety.

~~~
pasabagi
Road bikes, actually. It just takes one road, and unfortunately the kind of
places that are good to walk in are also fun to bike in.

I think as it goes, the 'jerk'-ness of riding a loud motorbike is a small
subset of the greater jerkness of petrol-based vehicles in general. As a value
proposition, widespread car ownership is about the most horrible idea for
public transportation imaginable, in most places.

I'm really looking forward to the end of it, to be honest. Public transport
has lots of nice side-effects - like increasing general health (through
reducing polution, for instance), or making the elderly more able to get
around. Cars just have negatives - and most of the time, they're just a really
uncomfortable way to sit still in traffic.

~~~
reificator
That's why I have a motorcycle. All the personal freedom of a car, minus a
touch for inclement weather, but with 70+ MPG. And more entitle to boot.

It's not _good_ for the environment/traffic, but I'd like to think I'm helping
a little on both pollution and noise.

~~~
pasabagi
That actually makes some sense - but I'd still rather everybody used public
transport. If you've ever seen a video of what streets used to look like
before cars, you can really see what driving has done to public spaces, and
perhaps, to our society. It's made us a good bit more atomized, zipping from
private space to private space, stuck in these really expensive monads.

~~~
reificator
_I don 't know why my phone corrected enjoyable to entitle above, but it's
amusing._

I don't disagree on public transit, but IMO on an individual level it's not
practical until group buyin.

------
bartread
This could be quite cool, and something I'd certainly be up for test-riding.

It would also be quite ironic, in an enjoyable sort of way, to see Harley-
Davidson at the top of the pack in terms of innovation. Just hope it's got as
much go as it does show, unlike most of their other offerings: Rod series
aside[1], their bikes are absolutely worse than other major manufacturers' by
almost any measure you care to name (performance, handling, reliability, fuel
efficiency, weight, features, price, and TCO). I think the only attributes
they've been winning on recently are swagger and decibels which, in fairness,
are probably the two main reasons to buy a Harley... so I suppose they at
least know their market.

[1] And lots of people complained about the Nightrod because it wasn't a
"real" Harley: it had a Porsche designed engine that incorporated modern
features such as water-cooling (I'm being totally serious).

~~~
Clubber
Like just about any marketing campaign, HD sells emotion rather than an actual
product.

One of the reasons people are drawn to HD is they are highly customizable,
with a huge aftermarket of parts that are mostly "bolt on," meaning a
knucklehead like me can do it.

------
spaceisballer
I got excited in the article, especially the mention of the Zero SR bike with
135 mile range for $10k. Well the Zero SR starts at $16k. The Zero S with less
range and power is around $10k.

------
BatFastard
I hear people do not like loud bikes, but as a big bike rider I loved the
straight pipes on my Harley. It meant cars around me were aware of my
presence, which felt critical to my survival. As a biker my biggest risk is
cars being oblivious to my existence.

A silent motorcycle while cool would be a huge risk for people changing lanes
on top of it, pulling out in front of it.

Edit: Speelling

~~~
SirZimzim
Only time I hear those loud pipes is when they pass me and when they wake me
up.

~~~
colanderman
Yep. The "loud pipes" are only loud when the motorcycle is already _in front
of_ you, not in, say, your blind spot where it matters.

~~~
BatFastard
I can only speak from experience. I rode a very quiet shaft driven bike for 3
years, and then I switched to a loud Harley. On city streets people were aware
that I was there when driving the louder bike. On the quiet bike they would
not notice me until I came right up alongside them. But that is the experience
of one person.

------
city41
I find the drastic drop in motorcycle sales interesting. I used to ride and
really love it (and miss it). But I haven’t owned a bike in 4 years. For me
the increase in traffic and more importantly the dramatic increase in
distracted drivers due to cell phones makes riding more dangerous than I’m
comfortable with. I wonder if others feel the same.

~~~
mmmBacon
I still ride and but stopped riding street because it wasn’t fun being in
traffic due to the reasons you mentioned. I still like the occasional back
road ride but don’t own a street bike anymore. I ride exclusively off-road
now. While I might risk an injury, I’m probably not going to be killed. Off-
road riding and particularly motocross has vastly improved my skill level when
I do ride on the road. I credit my dirt skills with saving my life on the
freeway when someone pulled into my suddenly lane and I locked up the rear
wheel (mistake!) on an oily patch of road. Since I was familiar with the rear
wheel sliding and being locked up, my reflexes took over and I didn’t panic,
at least not until after. I’m not saying that I didn’t have to change my
underwear afterwards but I didn’t end up getting run over by the car behind
me.

The drop in sales you point out is the recession and crash of the housing
market in 2008.

------
exabrial
Not that weight was ever a concern for Harley... But the thing that makes
bikes fun _is_ power to weight ratio. It's impossible not to grin when
straddling upwards of a hundred horsepower on a frame that weighs less than a
thousand pounds.

My R6 weighed 359lbs and had a 123hp. It was hilariously fun to ride.

~~~
driverdan
Apples and oranges. The R6 is a sports bike. Harley makes cruisers. 460lbs is
light for a Harley, especially with batteries.

------
bnt
Not really. A) It’s missing the “feel” of a Harley (e.g. the feeling of the
engine between your legs), and B) Riding it in big cities where the sound of
the Harley gas engine is an advantage (car drivers can hear you and not hit
you when you’re in the blind spot) means the quiet electric engine could
actually get you killed.

~~~
Nanite
Is it? The"loud pipes save lives" argument seems to be mostly a myth (I can't
find any credible research backing it at least).

~~~
oldcynic
It's a myth. They will prevent some accidents with pedestrians or bicycles in
town because they haven't looked properly. That accident won't kill you
anyway.

A loud pipe will make bugger all difference when you're doing 50+ down a major
road and _that_ idiot in the 4x4 on the side road junction looks right at you,
then pulls out anyway. He probably has music on so gets little input, and no
direction, from your nice open pipe.

What saves lives there is the biker actively moving across driver field of
vision - eg weave in lane or more dramatic if you think he's going anyway.
More motorcycle awareness on the car test might help, but that's not
politically popular.

~~~
kingofhdds
You contradict yourself, I believe. Rider vs pedestrian can cause fatal
injuries to both actually. Most likely to a pedestrian, of course, but it's
still a human life, isn't it?

~~~
oldcynic
I understand, at least according to numerous speed campaigns by govt here,
that accidents at speeds of 30mph or less are unlikely to kill. As speed
limits in town are 30 with some areas 20mph, risk of death to either is low.

------
purplezooey
Thank God. Loud motorcycles are one of the top problems of my community.
Please, use a muffler.

------
monk_e_boy
Loud pipes save lives is something I f-ing hate as I live at the bottom of a
steep hill up which motor bikes love to show off their obnoxiously load
farting sounds.

Bring on the understated. The quiet and classy. The silent but deadly farting
sounds.

------
Izmaki
Part of the fun of riding a motorbike is hearing the majestic roar from the
engine as you accelerate from 1-60 mph in a handful of seconds. This is not
for everyone, no, but electric motorbikes makes me personally laugh.

~~~
whoiskevin
What makes me laugh is the silent burst from 0 to 60 of my Zero while your
still waiting for the first roar. Snarky aside are you in it for the
acceleration? If you are the electric is something you might want to try.

------
jumpmanjr
This is a great application for police motorcycles. Instantaneous
acceleration, and long periods of completely idle. Couple it with being US
made, and the police forces will eat them up.

------
ianai
Is there anybody making an enclosed 1,2 person trike? That seems like a way to
get to a 300 mile EV sooner and more than enough for city use.

~~~
petascale
Arcimoto: [https://www.arcimoto.com](https://www.arcimoto.com)

100 mile range rather than 300, but interesting concept nonetheless.

------
1024core
" It has 74 horsepower, a 93 mph top speed, 50 mile ride time,"

50 miles?!? Is that it??

------
jankotek
Electric motorbikes are very common outside US.

~~~
kingofhdds
Hm, where exactly? "Outside US" is a lot of space. I saw electric bicycles,
and electric scooters in some European countries, but they are still far from
being called common. And so far I never saw anything looking like a real
motorcycle with electric engine.

------
keeringplastik
Sounds like a bunch of grumpy grandpas in here today.

"Those hogs are too loud!" "My delicate hearing!"

I can agree though that the "loud pipes save lives" argument is silly.

The truth behind the loud Harley mystique though, is much simpler and obvious
to those who have ever ridden one: crack that throttle and a smile is
inevitable. It just feels good to ride a big, rumbling, thundering internal
combustion engine. Yes, you might channel your inner knuckle dragging primate,
but it doesn't mean you are one, or need to be one to understand it.

~~~
baron816
That noise is an externality. It’s pollution. I can’t count how many times
I’ve been woken up in the middle of the night by someone riding down my street
on a Harley. Those things should be taxed into extinction.

~~~
keeringplastik
Its really not. If it sounds like a dishwasher it just isn't the same.

That being said, it is rude to use excessive throttle in residential areas
after hours.

~~~
rconti
You are factually incorrect. It is an externality and it is pollution. And you
own the hatred that falls upon ALL of your fellow riders. So thanks, for that.

Everyone who doesn't own a Harley thinks it sounds terrible and hates it. The
only reason you don't hear more about it is because people are too polite to
speak up. You are the yappy-dog-in-a-grocery-store-dressed-up-as-a-service-dog
of the vehicular world. 100% self centered entitlement, relying on the
courtesy of others to tolerate your atrocious behavior.

