Harley’s new LiveWire Del Mar electric motorcycles begin deliveries in US
The long-awaited deliveries of the new LiveWire Del Mar Launch Edition electric motorcycles have just begun, and we’re already hearing feedback on the rides from early customers.
The S2 Del Mar is LiveWire’s second model of electric motorcycle, though it holds special significance as the first to be launched purely under the LiveWire badge.
The LiveWire One, the brand’s first model, was inherited from Harley-Davidson after the company spun off LiveWire as a 100% electric sub-brand in 2021.
The original Harley-Davidson LiveWire was priced at nearly US $30,000, but was relaunched as the LiveWire One with a price tag closer to US $23,000.
The recently launched LiveWire Del Mar, which is priced at US $15,500, is designed to further open the market with a more accessible model intended for largely urban riders.
With an advertised 113 miles (181 km) of city range and a 63 kW (84 hp) motor propelling the bike from 0-60 mph (0-96 km/h) in 3.1 seconds, the LiveWire Del Mar still packs quite a punch for an urban-focused motorcycle.
The first Del Mars arriving now are part of the Launch Edition bikes, a limited series of 100 individually numbered motorcycles that sold out in 18 minutes when they were launched last year.
I caught up with Del Mar Launch Edition owner Diego Cardenas to learn about his delivery experience last week. Diego is a well-known figure in LiveWire circles, organizing owners groups as well as personally embarking on cross country rides on his H-D LiveWire, demonstrating the capabilities of DC Fast Charging for electric motorcycle touring.
Diego lives close enough to LiveWire’s Malibu Experience Center that he received a visit from the LiveWire team for delivery.
The inaugural LiveWire bike was handed over to its fortunate owner last Wednesday at the Malibu Experience Center in beautiful Malibu, California. Since then, there have been a handful of deliveries, including my own, which arrived at my doorstep last Friday. My residence is approximately 80 miles from Malibu, and I was fortunate to enjoy the Del Mar delivery experience. The team from LW spent around two hours at my home, providing me with a comprehensive tutorial on how to operate the bike. It was reminiscent of the Tesla delivery experience from the early days of the Model S.
Since then, Diego has been testing the limits of the machine, including on his 70-mile (112 km) commute to work with a mixture of freeway and street traffic.
While the Del Mar has a 113-mile (181 km) city range, motorcycles are known for significant range reductions at higher speed due to the drag effects of the rider’s body.
Diego’s experience give us our first in-depth look at the bike’s real-world range.
Diego shared a video on Facebook detailing his 70-mile commute, where he arrived at his office with 20% battery remaining. He recharged at work and left for home with a 90% charge. On the way back, he pushed it hard enough to roll into his garage with 2% battery remaining, and was already receiving messages from his bike that he should consider looking for a plug.
After several rides, Diego explained that his impression is that for a 200-pound (90 kg) guy like him, speeds of around 55-60 mph (88-96 km/h) result in a range of roughly 75-85 miles (121-137 km). That would make a Cannonball Run fairly difficult, but is likely sufficient for the vast majority of commuter riders that make up the Del Mar’s target market.
The Del Mar launches at a pivotal moment for LiveWire, and is expected to be the bike that sets the stage for a new era of lighter, more affordable electric motorcycles from the brand designed for deeper market penetration. While the H-D LiveWire and LiveWire One earned critical acclaim for their design and engineering, the bikes’ higher price tags limited their reach. With a new generation of more affordable bikes that maintain LiveWire’s signature performance and design, the company could be setting a new course.
LiveWire and Zero Motorcycles currently account for the majority of highway-capable electric motorcycle sales in the US, as well as a large segment of those motorcycle sales in Europe. However, companies like Italian sportbike maker Energica have seen their numbers grow while Asian upstarts also aim for a slice of the growing pie.
The LiveWire Del Mar is built on a modular platform around a structural battery pack that is expected to result in several new models over the next few years.
With only a week’s worth of bike’s delivered so far, it’s too early to say what this could mean for the brand. But so far, riders seem pretty pleased.
Oh, and in the next few weeks I’ll join those 99 other owners of Del Mar Launch Edition bikes receiving their deliveries. Stay tuned for my own thoughts.
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Paris’ bike-share system, Vélib has long been considered one of the shining success stories of urban micromobility. With a massive fleet of over 20,000 pedal and electric-assist bicycles around Paris, the service has helped millions of residents and tourists get around the City of Light without needing a car or scooter. But lately, a growing problem is threatening to knock the wheels off this urban mobility marvel: theft and joyriding.
According to city officials and the service operator, more than 600 Vélib bikes are now going missing every single week. That’s over 30 bikes a day simply vanishing from the system – some stolen outright, others taken on “joy rides” and never returned.
“At the moment we’re missing 3,000 bikes,” explained Sylvain Raifaud, head of the Agemob company that currently operates the Velib system. That’s nearly 15% of over 20,000 Vélib bikes across Paris.
The sticky-fingered culprits aren’t necessarily professional thieves or organized crime rings. Instead, they’re often regular users who treat the shared bikes like disposable toys.
The city estimates that many people have figured out how to pry the bikes out of the system’s parking docks, unlocking one for a casual cruise and then ditching it somewhere far from a docking station.
Once pried free, the bikes are technically usable for the next 24 hours until their automatic locking feature kicks in. At that point, the bikes are often simply abandoned. Some end up in alleyways. Others get tossed in rivers. A few just disappear completely.
And since the bikes are intended to be parked at their many docking stations around the city, they don’t have GPS chips, further complicating recovery of “liberated” bikes.
The issue started small but has grown into more than an inconvenience – it’s beginning to undermine the entire purpose of the service. With bikes going missing at such a high rate, many Vélib docking stations are left empty, especially during rush hours.
Riders looking for a quick commute or a convenient hop across town are increasingly finding themselves without available bikes, or having to walk long distances to find a functioning one.
That kind of unreliability chips away at user confidence and threatens to drive potential riders back into cars, cabs, or other less sustainable forms of transport at a time when Paris has already made great strides to dramatically reduce car usage in the city.
The losses are financially painful, too. Replacing stolen or vandalized bikes isn’t cheap, and the resources spent on tracking down missing equipment or reinforcing anti-theft measures are stretching thin. Vélib has faced theft and vandalism issues before, especially during its early years, but this latest surge has officials sounding the alarm with renewed urgency.
Officials acknowledge that there’s no easy fix. Paris, like many cities with bike-share systems, walks a fine line between accessibility and accountability. Part of what makes Vélib so successful is its ease of use and widespread availability. But those same features make it vulnerable to misuse – especially when enforcement is limited and the consequences for abuse are minimal.
The timing of the problem is especially unfortunate. In recent years, Paris has seen impressive results in reducing car traffic, expanding bike lanes, and promoting cycling as a key part of its sustainable transport strategy. Vélib is a cornerstone of that plan. But if the system becomes too unreliable, it risks losing the very people it was designed to serve.
Meanwhile, as Parisians increasingly find themselves staring at empty docks, the challenge for the city and Vélib will be to restore confidence in the system without making it harder to use. That means striking the right balance between freedom and responsibility, between open access and protection against abuse.
In a city where cycling is supposed to be the future of mobility, losing thousands of bikes to joyriders and sticky fingers isn’t just frustrating; it’s unsustainable.
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