Ed Morse Automotive Group has acquired Renegade Harley-Davidson in Springfield, Missouri, the group's sixth 'Bar 'n Shield' store, joining locations in Daytona Beach, Ormond Beach, Grand Junction, Austin, Alamo City, and Beaumont.
Despite a € 1m equity investment by Indian electromobility company Motovolt in 2023, German "human-hybrid" two-wheeler concept designer eRockit Systems GmbH (Hennigsdorf, Brandenburg) has filed for bankruptcy. The news follows that of the failure (in bankruptcy or with production otherwise suspended) in 2024 or earlier of E-Mobility GmbH/Kumpan (Germany, 2023), e-scooter startup 'UNU' (by EMCO, Berlin, 2023), Energica (Italy), Cake (Sweden), Canadian electric snowmobile and PWC manufacturer Taiga Motors (bought by UK entrepreneur, Stewart Wilkinson in October 2024), Juiced Bikes (San Diego, USA), Onomotion (Berlin), vanMoof (NL - mostly e-Cycles, subsequently acquired by McLaren F1 in UK), Arc Motorcycles (UK - at one stage financially connected to Jaguar Cars, who, BTW, have now fully abandoned ICE automotive production in favour of Electric - it won't end well!), Sondors/Metacycle (USA) the Erik Buell conceived Fuell Motorcycles (USA) and a number of other ePTW projects around Europe and elsewhere. Harley-Davidson is losing a lot of money on its LiveWire operation after a largely failed SPAC flotation and has its fingerprints on two prior e-PTW bankruptcies in the San Francisco Bay area in the form of Mission Motors (2015) and Alta Motors (2018). Some Alta staff had left to found Damon Motorcycles of Vancouver (of well-regarded 200 mph HyperSport fame). Damon recently concluded a fund-raising SPAC vehicle IPO on the NYSE (Ticker:DMN) but at the time of writing (November 20, 2024) shares were trading at less than $2.00, well below their a target price of $12.00 having opened at around $5.00 at the time of the flotation. Its tough out there for the electric motorcycle sector.
LiveWire Chief Technical Officer Vance Strader has announced that he is retiring from Harley-Davidson and LiveWire. An important figure in the development of the S2 'Arrow' platform, the modular, scalable architecture that was developed from the ground up, without yet being sure of any specifics, he also said that he is "not done". Speaking to the achievements on his watch he said that "designing and owning all the hardware and software, fully understanding how it all works, and being able to change anything anytime should be a real competitive advantage. And though I'm admittedly biased, having ridden hundreds of different ICE and EV motorcycles over the years, I'm especially proud of the 'secret sauce' we put into every LiveWire that I believe enables them to deliver some of the best riding experiences on two wheels."
Respected Cycle Source Magazine and Grease & Gears TV publishers and owners Chris and Heather Callan have moved their business from Pittsburgh to drop anchor further west, with Brian and Vanessa Klock at their Mitchell, SD Klock Werks 'campus'.
For the first ten months of 2024, the Benelli TRK 702/X is the top-selling motorcycle in Italy with 6,226 units sold in a market that was +6.13%. The BMW R 1300 GS was second with Honda's Africa Twin in third. Total scooter sales were 167,539 units (+4.34%).
For the YTD through October 2024, H-D sat in 7th spot with a 4.94% market share in Germany, having sold 6,085 units. The top-selling model was the Street Bob 114 in 49th spot with some 663 units sold for a 0.54% German market share. LiveWire was the fifth best-selling electric motorcycle with just 44 units sold (3.36% of a very small market) - less than one each week in what is supposed to be progressive, environmentally conscious market. In order to boost international profitability, four years ago Harley reduced the number of international markets it sells into, including the number of markets the HDMEA subsidiary operates in. A recent financial report in Europe estimated that their HDMEA subsidiary is losing money for the Milwaukee balance sheet.
