The registration figures for electric bikes will, no doubt, still be giving many manufacturers cause for concern. But the conveyor belt of new machinery keeps rolling on, and the American LiveWire brand was in London last month to launch its new battery-powered bike, the S2 Del Mar.
The event, at the Bike Shed in Shoreditch, was the first of a European promotional tour taking in London, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin, with the Launch Edition of the S2 Del Mar on show. There is a limited edition 100-bike production run to get the new model up and running and it comes with some snazzy bodywork, one-off wheels and a slick white paint job.
The bike itself takes some of its foundations from the LiveWire One electric cruiser, first developed when LiveWire was a sub-brand of Harley-Davidson. The Del Mar is a smaller, lighter bike, and the powertrain has been redesigned and optimised with more up-to-date integrated electronics and slightly less power (80bhp instead of 100bhp). There are echoes of the Harley roots, though, including the unique Dunlop LiveWire branded tyres and a stance that vaguely brings the old H-D Sportster to mind.
The numbers are as you might expect for a full-bore electric bike: around 80bhp with lots of instant grunt promised, 195kg weight, range of 110 miles in ‘urban’ conditions and a chunky price tag of £18,990. It looks well up to a typical trendy commute from St Albans to Shoreditch each day, with premium features like the 4in TFT LCD dash, L2 fast charging (75 minutes 20-80%) and over-the-air firmware updates making life easier.
Officially, LiveWire is separate from Harley-Davidson, but the Milwaukee outfit still owns three-quarters of the firm, and the organisations also share some senior executive staff. There’s a lot of crossover at lower levels, too – its press releases arrive containing contacts with Harley email addresses. And that will continue when it comes to selling the bikes: LiveWire is launching in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands and will, initially, be focused on distribution through existing H-D dealers. The thinking is that those Harley retailers will already be in the corporate mindset and set up with suitable infrastructure.
Whether the existing H-D customer base is already in the LiveWire mindset is another question.
www.livewire.com