Harley-Davidson LiveWire may be the future, but there’s something missing

It really is quite difficult to review something that you’re already convinced you’re going to hate.

Riding an electric motorcycle for the first time was somehow even more daunting than driving my first EV, which, many moons ago, was about as exciting as being asked to road test a vasectomy clinic.

The fact that the bike in question was, notionally at least – and according to the branding painted on what would normally be the fuel tank – a Harley-Davidson just made the whole experience even more surreal.

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The Harley Davidson LiveWire might just be the most bizarre, wrong headed and weird mechanical device I have ever encountered. It’s a blunt Samurai sword, a silent rock concert, a private tour of the Louvre while blind folded, or, worst of all, entirely silent sex. Sure, you’re thrashing away wildly at high speed, but if neither you nor the bike are making any noise at all, how are you supposed to know if you’re enjoying yourself?

Yes, I know that electric motorcycle are as inevitable as electric cars were when I first drove and hated a Mitsubishi i-MiEV some time back in the last century, but since then EVs have managed to win me over by becoming more exciting and involving to drive. I recently put a Ferrari SF90 in silent mode, and it was still hugely entertaining (but it also had the option of adding noise at any point via an old-school V8 engine).

But motorcycles are different, as my good friend Boris Mihailovic – former outlaw, infamous motoring journalist and author of many fabulous books – explained to me when I asked him, in desperation, to explain to me why the LiveWire exists.

His scathing take was that Harley’s E-bike (it is actually hiving off LiveWire into a separate sub-brand, like Volvo with Polestar, perhaps having realised what a horrible mistake it was in terms of brand image for a company that’s more famous for being noisy than anything else) is missing two critical things.

“It does not sound like a motorcycle. And it does not provide that critical organic feel, that vibration, that response, and hence connection to the power that only internal combustion can provide,” he ranted.

“Yes, I understand the ‘instant torque from standstill’ thing. It is certainly there. And I still don’t care. Not even a little bit. Because it’s not a motorcycle.”

He went on to become quite maniacal at this point, deriding the LiveWire as the most soulless, unengaging, and uninteresting thing he’d ever had the displeasure to ride.

What I quickly came to discover when riding the LiveWire myself was that while it is sad and annoying that EVs don’t have proper gearboxes and will never be manual, you just don’t feel like you’re losing quite as much as you are when you take the gear changing experience our of motorcycling.

Running up through the cogs and blipping down through them is one of the greatest of the many joys of motorcycling, but on the LiveWire it’s just twist and go, no clutch, and thus much reduced rider involvement.

It’s still fun, in that naked and dangerous way that all motorbikes are fun, but then so are mopeds and electric scooters. There is fun, and then there is serious motorcycling. Making all scooters electric would be no loss to anyone, and frankly it should be done immediately so we never have to hear or smell them again.

But a Harley? Just no.

The LiveWire is no scooter, of course, it’s got a three-phase electric motor good for 78kW and 116Nm, which is enough to smack it to 100km/h in an arm-stretching three seconds flat. With the instantaneous torque you get from an electric motor, it really does have some punch. Overtaking is an exciting breeze, and it corners pretty well, too, for a Harley.

There is a bit of a range issue, though, because the LiveWire can only go a claimed 235km off a charge, although real-world testing suggests it’s a good 50km less than that. I ran mine down to 50 percent and when I plugged it into my home wall box I was told it would take six hours to recharge. The company claims you can get to 80 percent of charge in just 40 minutes at a fast-charger.

If you wanted to just commute on your LiveWire, it would be plenty, but if you only wanted to commute you’d buy a scooter, not something with Harley painted on it and carrying beefy proportions and tough looks, and brand value, and, most electric shocking of all, a $49,995 price tag.

I’m not as shocked by that price as I am by the fact that someone, somewhere is buying these things for that many dollars. Not a lot of people, I’m betting, but still, more than none.

I’ll grant you that I did grow to enjoy the LiveWire, once I got my head around the weirdness, but that’s just because I love riding. I’d enjoy a bicycle, probably, if it just an engine.

My kids, who will be able to say the first Harley-Davidson they ever went on was entirely silent, loved it to bits as well and kept asking for rides. I am going to get a noisy Harley as soon as possible, so that they don’t grow up all wrong.

There is no doubt that, just as with cars, all motorcycles are going to go EV and low-fi eventually, but somehow it’s a more terrifying prospect in the case of bikes. Perhaps I just need another 20 years to get used to the idea.