Comments on: Opinion: Harley-Davidson’s challenge

By: Wild Blue

Wild Blue — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 14:44:14 +0000

Lets start with the v-Rod you had to be a master bike mechanic and have a full shop just to service the bike and the livewire wtf email me and i,ll send all you tree huggers an audio tape of me farting on a snare drum while you ride to the next charging station harley was king of the hill for many generations and got arrogant with sales down perhaps it will humble them and bring their prices down for the junk they have been asking top dollar for plastic tappit blocks for one example there is plenty harley could do to bring their sales up bring back the cross bones but make it chopped out drop fender you get the idea or make a crotch rocket sport bike style or make a 2 stroke 500cc motocross machine styled like the old ironhead hill climbers just step outside the norm

By: Relic

Relic — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 14:27:16 +0000

Another point is that pot legalization put a lot of small time dealers out of business . Are we seeing how big a share that was?

By: Willie

Willie — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 14:26:05 +0000

In reply to Peter.

LOL!

By: Relic

Relic — Wed, 12 Feb 2020 14:15:36 +0000

In reply to Nate.

The mid engine vette is a slow motion trainwreck. Almost a year since the intro and still no deliveries. There are issues, and gm doesn’t have the money to fix them.
GM had to go to mid engine after camaro & mustang got irs. Unfortunately the bankruptcy and costcutting left them without the means. If customers ever get their vet, it will be a half finished kit car.

By: ChairmanMaose

ChairmanMaose — Sat, 08 Feb 2020 04:45:26 +0000

In reply to BOB.

Did they kick Buell to the curb because HD knew they were going to develop a new line of bikes that include a sportier model and an adventure bike that were branded fully HD, or were they just paying attention to the market?

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 08 Feb 2020 02:30:31 +0000

The Jag/Land Rover comparison doesn’t hold entirely. For many,, there were Harley Davidsons and then there were those other things with two wheels and a motor. You couldn’t rightly call them motorcycles. As British as the Jag/Land Rovers were, I think their owners would acknowledge that there were other cars out there which were legitimate. Maybe not as good but still cars nonetheless. This is the level of prejudice that HD has to contend with. This prejudice has both sold their bikes and cost them sales. Now it is more the latter. But I hope they make it selling electrics or Bonxes or whatever.

By: Pat Wallace

Pat Wallace — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 21:46:46 +0000

harley has the pan and bronx bike. Meanwhile Indian has the FTR1200.
Love that Indian.
harley’s new motor looks like it got to hot and lost 30% of it’s detail.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 19:34:02 +0000

I’m not American, so the brand image they worked so hard to build does nothing for me. In fact, its more of a turn-off than anything. But that brand is very strong and I think it will be difficult for those who buy in, to accept the new products, and for those they are looking to attract, to believe HD can evolve.

As others have said, now that they are entering new markets, they need to be competitive with those already there. Nothing we have seen indicates that they will be competitive regarding price, weight and performance. Comparing the Livewire to the Tesla Model S is not relevant. When the S came out, it had the highest level of luxury and the longest range of any electric car of its time, justifying its higher price. When introduced, the Livewire didn’t offer the same features or range of the Zero SRF, but cost 1/3 more.

I don’t support HD’s R&D methodology. Absorb IP from innovative start-ups (Mission, Alta), then toss them to the curb to die once they have what they want. I’d be happy to watch them continue to falter because of this alone.

Maybe they should stop blindly flinging stuff at the wall to see what sticks, and focus on what they know best – T-shirts.