Harley-Davidson’s Coolest Electric Motorcycle Is Finally The Price It Should Have Been Seven Years Ago

Back in 2019, Harley-Davidson started sales of an incredible machine. The LiveWire, the Bar and Shield’s first production electric motorcycle, looked and rode like it was ripped right out of the future. But with a staggering price of $29,799, few riders took up the opportunity to ride the LiveWire. Now, some seven years of slow sales after its launch, the LiveWire One, as it’s called now, is nearly half the price it used to be. Maybe now is finally the time to ride Harley’s coolest electric bike.

A couple of years after launching the LiveWire, Harley-Davidson spun its entire electric division off as its own company, itself named LiveWire. One of the biggest struggles faced by the LiveWire team, even back when they were a division of the Motor Company, has been getting people to buy their bikes [Ed Note: That’s kind of the problem. -DT]. Consider that the LiveWire One, which has a real-world range of around 100 miles, was priced like a flagship bike. That made it a tough sell. When the LiveWire went onto the market, the same $30,000 it commanded could have purchased you a Kawasaki Ninja H2, which was the fastest streetbike in the world at the time.

As time went on, LiveWire started dropping the price of the One. The first change from LiveWire as a standalone company was to drop the price of the LiveWire One to $21,999. That was a great start, but still a whole heap of cash for a bike with unavoidable limitations. The bike’s price then lingered at around $22,799 for a while before dropping to $16,499 in 2025.

The LiveWire One hasn’t been the only steed to get price cuts. All of LiveWire’s entire middleweight lineup, which includes the S2 Alpinista sport standard, the S2 Mulholland cruiser, and the S2 Del Mar street tracker, has seen hefty drops in pricing, and all of them are in the name of getting people to spend their money on a LiveWire. Meanwhile, LiveWire has also added the affordable S4 Honcho minibike line and now Dust dirt bikes. The company sold only 653 motorcycles in 2025, up slightly from the 612 units it sold in 2024. Previous years weren’t any better, with 660 units finding homes in 2023 and 597 units getting sold in 2022. According to LiveWire’s investor reports, it burns tens of millions of dollars to churn out those hundreds of units, too. For example, LiveWire lost $85 million in 2022, and losses deepened to $125 million in 2023.

It’s sad when you remember that, back in 2021, LiveWire was so confident in itself that it projected that it would sell 53,341 electric motorcycles in 2025. To say that LiveWire hasn’t come close to its expectations would be an understatement. Obviously, something has to change, and LiveWire is pulling the lever that might matter the most: price.

LiveWire has a handful of cheaper bikes in store for riders right now, and perhaps the most impressive price drop of them all is LiveWire’s flagship, the bike that started it all.

Harley-Davidson Showed The World What It Could Do

The LiveWire One, née Harley-Davidson LiveWire, was born from a research project that was revealed to the public in 2014. Back then, Matt Levatich was at the helm of the Motor Company, and he saw Harley reinventing itself for the 21st century. Project LiveWire was supposed to be for motorcycles what the electric guitar did to music. This was all a part of Levatich’s grand plan to make Harley more accessible, fresher, and maybe even a technological leader. In true Harley fashion, Project LiveWire was even loud, using a bevel gear in its driveline to emulate the sort of sound that a turbojet makes.

Later, the LiveWire would be one of the halo motorcycles of the More Roads To Harley-Davidson growth plan, which was supposed to finally rid Harley of its associations with “biker” culture and promote a new Harley that was more for everyone. The LiveWire, along with bikes like the Pan America, the Bronx, the Custom 1250, and even an electric scooter, were supposed to pave the way to the Motor Company’s future. Locally, I personally witnessed Harley-Davidson proudly backing Pride rides and even flying the rainbow flag on its social media. Scarlett Johansson swung a leg over a LiveWire prototype in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It was an interesting time, for sure.

The LiveWire would end up delayed, but when it finally launched in 2019, riders all around the world were wowed. I mean, even the press release got me amped up back then:

Power

The LiveWire motorcycle is powered by a permanent magnet electric motor that produces instant torque the moment that throttle is twisted– which results in incredible acceleration performance for a thrilling ride. The motor is located low in the motorcycle to lower the center of gravity and help the motorcycle handle well at all speeds and easy to control when stopped. The LiveWire model is designed to produce a tone that increases in pitch and volume with speed –a new sound that represents the smooth, electric power of the LiveWire motorcycle.

Chassis

Powertrain performance is maximized by a chassis designed to deliver nimble, agile handling for confident control on urban streets and a thrilling ride on curving backroads. Combining the powertrain as a stressed member within the aluminum frame to increase rigidity, the LiveWire features premium high-performance fully adjustable Showa® suspension. The Showa® BFRC-lite® (Balanced Free Rear Cushion-lite) mono-shock rear suspension is complimented by Showa SFF-BP® (Separate Function Fork-Big Piston®) up front, balanced to match the performance and adjustability of the rear shock and deliver exceptional low-speed damping control – ideal for composed control in typical urban riding conditions. To improve the control and performance of the motorcycle further LiveWire is fitted with Brembo Monoblock front brake calipers gripping dual 300 mm-diameter discs to deliver outstanding power with a crisp feel for confident braking performance. Confidence when riding is boosted with cornering-enhanced Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) and Traction Control System (TCS) – both of which are standard features on the LiveWire model – and co-branded H-D/Michelin Scorcher tires (180mm rear/120mm front). The rider can also tailor the performance of LiveWire with seven selectable riding modes – four of which are set as standard from the factory and a further three modes that can be defined by the user.

Technology

A color touch screen TFT display (thin-film-transistor, a type of liquid-crystal display noted for high image quality and contrast) located above the handlebar offers the rider a wide range of information on a screen that’s bright and easy to read. The display unit is tilt-adjustable to afford most riders a perfect viewing angle. The TFT screen also allows the rider to access the interface for Bluetooth connectivity, navigation, music and more. The LiveWire motorcycle features a RESS (Rechargeable Energy Storage System, or the main battery) composed of lithium-ion cells surrounded by a finned, cast-aluminum housing. The LiveWire motorcycle is also equipped with a small 12-volt lithium-ion battery that powers the lights, controls, horn and instrument display. Charging can be completed using the on-board Level 1 charger that plugs into a standard household outlet with a power cord that stores below the motorcycle seat. LiveWire can also be charged with a Level 2 or Level 3, DC Fast Charge (DCFC), through a SAE J1772 connector, (USA), or CCS2 – IEC type 2 charging connector in international markets. All Harley-Davidson dealers who sell the LiveWire motorcycle will offer a public charging station with DCFC.

I still remember my first ride on a LiveWire like it was yesterday. It was 2019, and I was contributing to Out Motorsports just for the fun of the game. I heard Harley-Davidson had a ride event taking place near me, and I wasted no time in getting there. The LiveWire was the first electric motorcycle I had ridden and to date, remains one of the best. I’m still not quite sure how the engineers at Harley did it, but to me, the LiveWire was everything I loved about my Buell Lightning, but all-electric. It was stupid fast, it rode like the pivot point was where my butt was. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that Harley secretly put Erik Buell back onto the payroll for one last ride.

The LiveWire had 105 HP and 86 lb-ft of torque available pretty much at a dead stop, and I spent every second on it with a big, stupid smile on my face. Its other specs, including a 110 mph top speed and up to 146 miles of range from its 15.5 kWh battery, also seemed decent. Then my heart broke at that $29,799 price tag.

I wasn’t the only one. Motorcycle journalists everywhere adored how the LiveWire rode just to have their excitement totally extinguished by the price. The only way buying a LiveWire made sense was if you were wealthy or you got a good discount in buying one used. The price changes over these past seven years have softened the blow, but even $16,000 is a pile of cash.

That’s ignoring the unfortunate reality that, while the LiveWire One is currently marketed as a “sport touring” motorcycle, it can’t tour unless you have all the time in the world to ride across the country. Doubly unfortunate is that, in my experience, there’s nothing that the LiveWire One does that you cannot get in a cheaper motorcycle. So the primary selling point for the One is to get an electric motorcycle designed by Harley-Davidson. So I’m not entirely surprised that the order books slowed down after an initial rush of early adopters.

Perhaps The Price It Should Have Always Been

But now, after all this time, the folks at LiveWire have a carrot to dangle in front of riders. At a starting price of $13,999 before fees, the LiveWire One is now less than half the price it was when it launched in 2019. That’s incredible. But what are you getting for that money?

Not much about the LiveWire One has changed since 2019. It still makes the same 105 HP, still has the same 110 mph top speed, and still has the same 15.5 kWh battery. The biggest difference between a 2026 and a 2019, pricing aside, is that the tank says LiveWire instead of Harley-Davidson.

So, it’s a seven-year-old platform, which would normally be ancient in EV development time. But its spec sheet isn’t all that bad. The LiveWire One hits 60 mph in three seconds, can charge from dead to full in just an hour, has a 30-inch seat height, and weighs 562 pounds. Honestly, this sounds a lot similar to some of the other electric motorcycles I’ve written about in recent times.

But unlike those new bikes, the LiveWire One has been around long enough that it’s known to be pretty reliable, and while LiveWire hasn’t sold a ton of them, they have a pretty strong support group of owners.

Of course, buying one of these will expose you to some quirks. The LiveWire One can feed from a Level 1 charger, a Level 2 charger, or a DC fast charger, but the catch is that the bike is incapable of actually charging at Level 2 rates. If you plug into a Level 2 charger, it will charge at a Level 1 rate. So, you can either charge in as little as an hour, or in as long as 11 hours. This sucks if, like me, you like to ride through rural areas where the hottest chargers might be Level 2 units.

Of course, if you were an early adopter of a LiveWire One, this price drop probably hurts a little. But that’s sometimes the unfortunate risk of being first in line to try new tech. The big question, of course, is if this latest price drop will bring LiveWire the sales it’s been wanting for so many years. Right now, I think that’s too early to say. I think that, at this new price, the LiveWire One might attract some urban riders.

I have no idea if LiveWire’s lower prices and its new affordable electric minibikes will be what finally pumps its numbers up. But I will say that, to date, the LiveWire One remains one of the best motorcycles I have ever ridden, and they’re now getting dangerously close to being within my personal range of “affordable.” That’s exciting. I hope that’s the case for other riders, too.

I also hope that LiveWire finds success; I really do. It probably looks like I’m being hard on LiveWire, but it’s actually one of my favorite electric motorcycle brands right now. I think in another reality, LiveWire could have been the future of Harley-Davidson. Who knows, maybe it still is. For now, it’s just great that the company is moving in the right direction on pricing.