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Comment by jseliger | Hacker News Reader

An interesting set of points. It seems HD is still missing the boat:

And Harley’s response—an electric bike called the LiveWire set to debut next year—isn’t so much of a Hail Mary as it is a capitulation. It also won’t be nearly enough.

Zero Motorcylces: www.zeromotorcycles.com is shipping electric bikes right now and has ten, or almost ten, years of experience actually doing so. What's HD going to add to that besides branding?

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It's interesting to watch these scenarios unfold, I bet there isn't a manager within the company that doesn't recognise the hurdles they face yet they are completely unable to rise to the challenge.

In some ways they may be better off by just doubling down on what they are good at. It's similar to the situation Kodak faced, should they embrace the new technologies knowing they probably won't be very competitive or just soldier on and make the most of a declining market.

I read recently that the chairman of Fiat said they aren't working on electric cars at the moment because they would rather be late than wrong.

Maybe theirs can make louder noises. As far as I can tell that's the main selling point.

Great, then we'll have to listen to inverter whine all summer when the next generation hits their midlife crisis.

Wouldn't that be similar to the sewing machine noise ofa BMW K-bike? :-)

And there's the new slogan - loud whines save lives

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