Harley’s big plan is electric (and 250cc, 500cc) motorcycles and £750 MILLION of investment

Announced in the final week of July, the audacious plans by Harley-Davidson to bring in a huge raft of new motorcycles caught the motorcycle world napping.

And while we all have to wait until 2020 to get our hands on the likes of the Pan America adventure bike and Streetfighter 975 ( see page 3 – ed), one new bike from Harley is going to hit dealerships next year – the electrically powered LiveWire bike.

What we know is that LiveWire is not only going to be the first motorcycle out of the blocks in this ‘new wave’ of bikes from H-D but also the first in what the company calls “a broad, no-clutch ‘twist-and-go’ portfolio of electric two-wheelers designed to establish the company as the leader in the electrification of the sport”.

That’s a bit waffly, but it does mean that LiveWire will be followed by additional models which will appear through 2022 to broaden what’s on offer from H-D with lighter and smaller electric bikes.

What will these look like? Well although Harley didn’t release any photos of any actual electric models other than LiveWire, it did show a range of drawings of where the designs for the smaller electric bikes were going. And they’re pretty funky.

But that's not all. Harley went on to announce that, as part of what amounts to an astonishing £750 million of self-funded investment, it is also developing a small-displacement (250cc to 500cc) motorcycle for the Asian emerging markets. This small bike is going to happen as part of an association with an as-yet-unnamed manufacturer in Asia.

“A broad, no-clutch ‘twist-and-go’ portfolio of electric two-wheelers designed to establish the company as the leader in the electrification of the sport”