LiveWire $17,000 Price Cut Might Be The Deal of The Century. Or a Portent of Doom

The LiveWire One is getting old, and sales have not been great.

By: Jonathon Klein

Aug 21, at 8:47am ET

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Unlike a lot of motorcycle journalists, I actually liked the LiveWire One when it first debuted. It wasn't called the LiveWire One at the time; it was the Harley-Davidson LiveWire.That's all changed thanks to LiveWire being spun off from Harley, but when I got the opportunity to ride it on the Brooklyn Formula E circuit back in the day, man, it was a solid motorcycle. A little underbraked, but through the corners, you barely felt its quarter-ton curb weight.

What wasn't good, and what everyone rightly pointed out, was the motorcycle's asking price: $30,000 and change. Even as Harley called it a "halo" model, it was too "halo" for what the bike offered, for what the bike was, and for what Harley needed the motorcycle to do for the space. And that's with it being in The Avengers, too.

Since that introduction, though, it's seen price slash after price slash, because LiveWire just cannot sell them. It can't really sell any of its EV motorcycles, but that's a different issue, one they seem to finally be addressing. But the news out of LiveWire today is that the LiveWire One's price is now over half its original price, with the company cutting it by a whopping $17,000.

This, however, feels like the end of the line to me.

The MSRP of the original LiveWire was exactly $29,799, before tax, title, and registration. LiveWire now says that the One will cost you just $13,999. And with a host of state incentives that are still active—I'm looking at you, California—that price could drop even further.

But the latest price—spotted by our friends at Motorcycle.com—comes at a juncture for LiveWire, as sales have remained abysmal for the EV motorcycle manufacturer. Everything in its lineup barely sells, with the One being the worst of them all. And with parent company Harley-Davidson's "Back to the Bricks" business plan going into full effect, the price cut could be a portent of doom for the EV motorcycle, as well as the company as a whole. Maybe.

What do you think?

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You see, Harley's trying to right its course after three decades of decline. Caused by numerous factors, with the main being catering to a single, solitary demographic that's fast aging out of riding, Harley needs to course-correct and do so ASAP. That includes its plan for LiveWire as a whole, but also its lineup. It's already made one good decision, in my opinion, with acquiring Dust Moto and its forthcoming Dust EV dirt bike, as those motorcycles are literally the hottest market around. They also solve for a bunch of the issues many have with EV motorcycles, in that you don't need a ton of range to have fun, and they don't cost an arm and a leg.

What this could mean is getting rid of the One's old stock and killing it to reduce its already very high overhead. But if Harley is looking toward a rebrand, it could mean LiveWire's reacquisition into the larger Harley-Davidson portfolio. It could also just be another price slash, as we've seen the company do over and over and over and over again. Who knows? Again, it was a good bike, it just doesn't...quite work as a regular motorcycle. And that price still feels high.