Gadgetory

this is Harley Davidsons project livewire very different bike from the company it's got a very different powertrain all electric it's got an electric motor mounted down in the bottom of the frame which is actually mounted transversely pointed toward the rear tire which is very different from other electric motorcycles that we've seen before but sound about 74 horsepower which doesn't sound like a lot but they say it's good enough to go zero to 60 in less than four seconds is it quick we're about to find out that's unlike any other Harley I've ever ridden before and probably unlike any Harley you may have written before to smooth and quiet it's very different from a traditional bike but actually a lot louder than your average Evie to your average electric motorcycle is very quiet but Harley is you went out of the way that a lot of noise - this coming from the drivetrain it is all natural noise we did confirm there is all the noise coming from the differential and from that electric motor itself there's nothing going on through speakers or anything like that the riding position is very upright very comfortable very suited for this sort of conditions it sit straight upright you can see where traffic very easily and there's no transmission here there's no shifting there's no clutch which also makes it very easy to ride in a busy city streets like we've got here of course we'd rather take it on some country roads but hardly thinking this might be a commuter for a lot of people and that we could certainly see it doing pretty well in that regard now we did talk to some members of the Harley Owners Group they think that you know loud pipes save lives so therefore they're concerned about the quietness of this bike but otherwise actually thought it was pretty cool now I run a triumph which has a lot of torque but it doesn't quite have the throttle response of an e V like this really a twist the grip and it goes at any rpm maximum rpm of this by the way is 15,000 which is you know as good as a 600 CC sport bike it gets up and goes much more quickly than a 600 CC sport bike another big change from a traditional bike is this colour touch-screen here you can actually go through and toggle between reins you can see your throttle response you can see the temperature of the motorcycle all very high-tech maybe a little bit distracted for riding but again this is just a prototype at this point now there are two very important missing pieces of information about project livewire price and availability Harley will won't give us any indication on either of those things which is a little bit unfortunate but the way they're launching livewire is pretty cool they're actually taking these bikes around two major dealerships around the country and a major Harley shows as well to let the normal people out there ride on people like you if you want to try out this bike Harley would love to let you sit in the saddle and take it for a spin and that's a great way we've got a traditional company like Harley Davidson watching something untraditional like project livewire