Harley-Davidson unveils LiveWire electric bike

Harley-Davidson has unveiled the LiveWire electric bike at the EICMA 2018 in Italy. The deliveries of the bike are scheduled to begin in North America and Europe in 2019.

The electric bike follows up on the American bike maker's 2014 project to offer test rides of an electric bike and get feedback on the experiences. The company claims that the feedback will be used for the further development of the electric bike.

The LiveWire gets an orange and black dual-tone colour scheme. It comes with a circular headlamp housed in a half-fairing with slim indicators mounted on the sides. It gets fully-adjustable Showa inverted shock absorbers at the front and a monoshock at the rear. The batteries and the electric motor are housed in the middle of the bike, where an engine would be located otherwise. In place of the fuel filler, the bike gets an electric plug to recharge the batteries. It is also equipped with a Bluetooth enabled touchscreen system with an inbuilt GPS.

The LiveWire rides on 17-inch wheels shod with Michelin sport tyres. It gets dual disc brakes at the front and a single disc at the rear with Brembo callipers. The bike is equipped with safety features like a traction control system and cornering ABS.

While the specifications of the batteries and motor are not yet known, Harley-Davidson claims that the belt drive to the rear wheels has been designed to provide a sound that increases in pitch as the bike's speed increases.

The LiveWire will be built at Harley-Davidson's York, PA facility in the US and is expected to be followed up by other electric bikes in the future.