AMPED UP
The first electric road bike from a mainstream manufacturer, the LiveWire is new, different and like nothing else from Harley-Davidson — ever. It’s a sportsbike, for a start — probably a deliberate move on the part of the Motor Co to prevent cannibalisation of sales of other models — with a long, transparent development schedule and even putting customers on the Project LiveWire concept bike demos; the last thing Harley wanted was for people to stop buying existing models while they waited for their electric bike.
It helps that the LiveWire is also a bit of a rocketship — off-the-line 0-100km/h in three seconds, but more importantly with heaps of roll-on acceleration available at the twist of a throttle.
THE MOTOR AND BATTERY
Powered by Harley-Davidson’s Revelation powertrain, the LiveWire has 115Nm of torque available at the twist of the wrist. There’s no clutch of gearbox to operate, just twist and go — hard. This thing punches off the lights, super-easy and super-quick.
Overtaking is a joy. It flies around slow-moving vehicles. The engine is described as an Internal Permanent Magnetic Synchronour Motor with Water Cooling Jacket, which is a mouthful
