Off The Grid, Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire Production Goes Dark And Then Comes Back To Life
By John W. Lyon, Wilkins Harley-Davidson
Last week, Harley-Davidson temporarily hit the proverbial “red button” on producing the Electric Motorcycle, LiveWire, based on a “non-standard condition” which “was discovered during a final quality check.” That move came with no shortage of criticism from media outlets like Reuters with its sensational clickbait headline “Harley struggles to fire up new generation of riders with electric bike debut” and the Wall Street Journal headline “Harley-Davidson Halts Electric Motorcycle Production.” There was also serious criticism from so called “financial services company” named Motley Fool, using phrases like “massive blow” and “short circuited.” Many of the headlines led the reader to believe that production was stopped and the product was dead on arrival.
Thankfully, not every news outlet saw it the same way, with Forbes jumping in with a more appropriate headline and observation of “Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire SNAFU Wasn’t A Death Knell, It Was Good QC.” Good Quality Control. A special thank you to Forbes Magazine for being the first (that I could find) outlet to recognize the positive perspective this decision lends. As a Harley-Davidson dealer, stopping production in these instances is exactly what I feel the Motor Company should do. It costs a great deal of money to shut the assembly line down. Suspending production upsets the dealer network that expects the product to be on their floor. The decision disappoints our customers who have prepayments on LiveWires they want to ride — now…
See more of John’s commentary in the next issue.
