This thread went rapidly from simple Harley bashing to bashing of, I guess, millennials? liberal local government?
I'll try to turn it back towards something that might be more on the topic of motorcycles and their evolution, and Harley's Livewire.
Let's do a basic economic analysis of the Livewire vs. another popular gasoline Harley. I'm choosing the Street Glide, instead of a Sportster, or Street 750, just so things don't come out looking AS bad.
Let's assume that the battery lifetime of the Livewire is going to be 10years, based on my observation that a lot of Prius batteries in 10 year old cars are essentially dead.
A Harley FLHX Street Glide costs around $22K, and gets around 41 mpg. Let's say our average rider puts on 5000 miles a year. Let's say that gas prices average $3/gal now and will creep up to just $4/gal over the next ten years. I think we can all agree that the average price trend is going to continue to be upward and I think price will only increase as production is reduced in the face of more electric vehicles being introduced.
10 years of riding that FLHX is going to cost 5000 miles / 41 mpg = 122 gallon per year x $3.50 gallon (avg) x 10 = $4270
A diligent owner of this Street Glide is going to get regular oil changes and service. Let's put in another $200/year for service, probably a low estimate, but this is another $2K over the ten years. This results in an all up price of ownership after 10 years of $28,270. I'm guessing that this ten year old bike with 50K miles on it will still be worth $7K to somebody, so when the owner sells it, he'll have spent $21,270.
The Livewire costs $29,800 retail, and lets assume that Harley is getting their full ask price. There's no gas used, no oil used, and let's assume that the owner charges the bike himself at cost of $1/charge, which is probably high. Assuming the bike gets charged every 100 miles, that's $50 per year, or $500 over ten years for power. No oil changes are required, but lets assume that the owner takes the bike in for servicing every three years at $200 per visit, another $650. At the end of the ten years, the batteries are dead. Let's assume the Livewire, after 50,000 miles and ten years, has therefore lost most of it's value, and is worth only $2K. This puts the 10 year cost of ownership of the Livewire at $29,800 + $500 + 650 - $2000 = $28,950
I know that for me, and probably most of you, a bike that goes "whine" is a lot less desirable than a bike that goes "rumble". But for an owner that doesn't care about such things, and finds it repugnant to use up the earth's declining supply of pickled dinosaur juice, and who hates to add extra carbon to the atmosphere, perhaps spending the extra $768 per year while zipping around on two wheels makes a lot of sense.
This calculation is only going to get more biased towards the Livewire as gas prices continue to increase, which they likely will. When gas becomes scarce, the value of all the old dinosaur burning machines is going to plunge precipitously. For right now, Harley could influence a lot more buyers to choose the Livewire, by dropping the price to around $22K. I wouldn't be at all surprised if HD gets help from some future federal gov't in the form of tax credits for purchase of their electric vehicles. I for one, think that HD is making smart business moves. Like it or not, the Street 750 and 500s are their highest volume sellers, because they are popular in markets OTHER than the USA, markets that are growing, not shrinking.