The Harley-Davidson LiveWire is dead, long live the LiveWire One. After a somewhat choppy start to its electric offerings, Harley has decided it will spin off LiveWire into its own brand with multiple electric motorcycles under that brand. Considering Harley began life with the Model 1 way back at the dawn of time, it’s only fitting that the company stick with that for its new electric-only brand. The old LiveWire (code named ELW) will be born again from the ashes of what once was to become One (code named LW1).
According to NHTSA’s latest VIN filings, the bike will receive the name One, stylized spelled out, rather than as a numeral which Harley seems to prefer. Recall that the company’s recently launched e-bike company is called Serial 1, also harkening back to the start of The Motor Company. The LiveWire One will be considered a 2021 model, so when the official unveil happens on July 8th, you can expect deliveries to dealerships near you to occur quite soon afterward.
We don’t expect styling to change much from ELW to LW1, as the latter has already been teased in the white bike shown above. Thanks to some information gleaned in filings with the Australian government, we know that the bike will have a few minor mechanical tweaks to the formula. First, Harley is dropping the max RPM of its “Revelation” electric motor from 12,000 rpm to 11,500 rpm, which comes with an equivalent drop in peak horsepower from 105 ponies to just 101. Further, we know that the weight of the bike has increased from 549 pounds to 562 pounds.
There are a few things I’d love to see from the revamped/new LiveWire One. My hope is that this additional weight is loaded into a larger battery pack for a bit more range. On my trips with the LiveWire, I could really do no more than 70 miles at highway speeds. The bike has plenty of range for around town stuff, but you really need a few more miles to make it safely between charging stops.
Another thing I really hope for is faster charging speeds. Charging up to 80 percent in 40 minutes is just not acceptable if your bike requires a level 3 charger to make that happen. At its fastest charging rate, I saw no more than 22 kW of charging speed, which is less than one tenth of what something like a Porsche Taycan is capable of. If the new LiveWire One steps up to the 800v architecture that is quickly becoming the standard in modern EVs, then it will be a significantly better bike.
And the last thing we can hope for is a lower starting price. I understand why Harley set the price at $29,799, but it doesn’t seem to be luring many buyers into the showrooms to purchase. With a little more range, a faster charging architecture, and similar performance, I’d like to see the LiveWire one come in somewhere around $22,000. Is that realistic? Probably not, but time will tell.