Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12
Results 31 to 55 of 55

Thread: The Electric Suicide of Harley-Davidson

  1. #31
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    “Clean energy”. Where’s Ocasio-Cortez? Maybe she can explain where that magic electricity comes from to charge electric vehicles. I suspect it’s a mystery to her, but it might be unicorns shooting electric rainbows out their asses.
    Your comment is a good example of why the politicization of science and technology is stupid. Because people will remain ignorant for political reasons and virtue signal over it as if ignorance isn't a vice.

    Nuclear power plants are how you produce clean energy. And modern nuclear power plants are incredible, they even have systems that are meltdown proof. Transitioning out of millions of pollution machines and reducing overall air pollution by millions of tons is better for everyone, not to mention how depending on less oil leads to less foreign wars and the weakening of the military-industrial complex. Which, in retrospect, is probably exactly why Republicans are cleaner energy it and Democrats only pay lip service to it. Anything that threatens their unending wars threatens them.



  4. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  5. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by PierzStyx View Post
    Your comment is a good example of why the politicization of science and technology is stupid. Because people will remain ignorant for political reasons and virtue signal over it as if ignorance isn't a vice.

    Nuclear power plants are how you produce clean energy. And modern nuclear power plants are incredible, they even have systems that are meltdown proof. Transitioning out of millions of pollution machines and reducing overall air pollution by millions of tons is better for everyone, not to mention how depending on less oil leads to less foreign wars and the weakening of the military-industrial complex. Which, in retrospect, is probably exactly why Republicans are cleaner energy it and Democrats only pay lip service to it. Anything that threatens their unending wars threatens them.
    There will always be something to go to war about.

    War is big business.
    1. Don't lie.
    2. Don't cheat.
    3. Don't steal.
    4. Don't kill.
    5. Don't commit adultery.
    6. Don't covet what your neighbor has, especially his wife.
    7. Honor your father and mother.
    8. Remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy.
    9. Don’t use your Higher Power's name in vain, or anyone else's.
    10. Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

    "For the love of money is the root of all evil..." -- I Timothy 6:10, KJV

  6. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    I am looking at it from Efficiency, Practicality, and some nostalgia.

    I watch 60+ trains pass this house every day hauling untold tons of product,,, on electric motors.

    I would like to replace the inefficient gas sucking Iron Weights with electric motors and Keep the classic Cars on the road.. as daily drivers.

    and electric bikes would supply the personal autonomous transportation in urban environs.

    I don't care for self driving cars,, but am not opposed to useful tech.
    Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for electric vehicles of all kinds. But I am also familiar with the current limitations.

    There is this propaganda that electric vehicles are so “green”, yet the electricity itself has to be created somehow, and that is usually via fossil fuels. It is great that the vehicles themselves make less noise and don’t pollute as they drive.

    On the downside, the range and need to constantly charge them is very limiting. I know people with Teslas and they have a heck of a time getting them charged. There are not enough chargers during the day, and they must charge while at work in order to get home. Their lives revolve around waiting for chargers.

    To extend the irony, there are portable charging services which will come to your vehicle to charge it. They come to your vehicle and run a generator. So they run a gas generator to create electricity and charge the car, so that the owner of the vehicle can feel good about being “green”.

    Personally, I have a Prius, which bridges that gap. Great gas mileage and great range.

    This is a little old, but you can imagine how mobile charging services have expanded in the past few years:

    AAA has a little-known program for which it equipped trucks with Level 2 AC chargers, and even some with a CHAdeMO DC fast charger powered by onboard generators, in order to help electric vehicle drivers stranded without power.
    ...
    https://electrek.co/2016/09/06/aaa-e...harging-truck/
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  7. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for electric vehicles of all kinds. But I am also familiar with the current limitations.

    There is this propaganda that electric vehicles are so “green”, yet the electricity itself has to be created somehow, and that is usually via fossil fuels. It is great that the vehicles themselves make less noise and don’t pollute as they drive.

    On the downside, the range and need to constantly charge them is very limiting. I know people with Teslas and they have a heck of a time getting them charged. There are not enough chargers during the day, and they must charge while at work in order to get home. Their lives revolve around waiting for chargers.

    To extend the irony, there are portable charging services which will come to your vehicle to charge it. They come to your vehicle and run a generator. So they run a gas generator to create electricity and charge the car, so that the owner of the vehicle can feel good about being “green”.

    Personally, I have a Prius, which bridges that gap. Great gas mileage and great range.

    This is a little old, but you can imagine how mobile charging services have expanded in the past few years:
    Marketing.. and I don't care for the tactic either.
    a few of us have always liked the idea, and Many more are afraid of change..
    I would like Hydrogen as a fuel for my Range extending generator... But there is not a hydrogen Fuel dealer on every corner.

    But Electric Motors for Motive power beats the ICE engines all to hell,, and eliminates a lot of transmission and differential inefficiency.

    Energy storage being the current issue,, and that is improving.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  8. #36
    And I don't think this will be the Death of Harley Davidson.

    any more than electric vehicles are the end of Mercedes, Volkswagen or any of the major producers marketing Electric cars.

    They just need to find their place in the market. and it is a fluid landscape.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  9. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    Marketing.. and I don't care for the tactic either.
    a few of us have always liked the idea, and Many more are afraid of change..
    I would like Hydrogen as a fuel for my Range extending generator... But there is not a hydrogen Fuel dealer on every corner.

    But Electric Motors for Motive power beats the ICE engines all to hell,, and eliminates a lot of transmission and differential inefficiency.

    Energy storage being the current issue,, and that is improving.
    Agree. Many advantages to electric vehicles.

    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    And I don't think this will be the Death of Harley Davidson.

    any more than electric vehicles are the end of Mercedes, Volkswagen or any of the major producers marketing Electric cars.

    They just need to find their place in the market. and it is a fluid landscape.
    Back to the OP, I tend to agree that right now, putting the Harley badge on a lesser bike is probably not a good idea. Hurts the brand image. If the state is going to force them to make more fuel efficient or electric bikes, it would be nice if they could rebadge them.

    In the future, they may be able to make a respectable electric Harley, once the range and recharge times are improved.

    I’d assume those electric super bikes don’t have much range.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  10. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    I’d assume those electric super bikes don’t have much range.
    Variable,, and the Harley offering is not one of the best, But that will improve as Tech does.

    The Brutus has good range and power..
    and of course,, I have my own configuration ,, if I can ever build it.

    Lots of room for innovation and improvement.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  11. #39
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  12. #40
    Oh dear...


    Harley-Davidson Halts Electric Motorcycle Production Due to Charging Problems

    https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/...ging-problems/

    Lucas Nolan 15 Oct 2019

    Motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson has reportedly halted the production of its first electric motorcycle after discovering a problem related to the vehicle’s charging equipment. The company also warned consumers not to charge the bikes at their home.

    The Wall Street Journal reports that motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson has halted the production of its Livewire electric motorcycle as the company conducts tests to investigate an issue with the vehicle’s charging equipment. The company stated on Monday that tests were going well but did not clarify when production of the vehicle would resume.

    The legendary motorcycle manufacturer is banking on the LiveWire electric motorcycle to jump-start sales in its U.S. market after it recently cut its forecast for motorcycle shipments and reported weaker results in its latest quarter. Michelle Kumbier, the company’s chief operating officer, wrote in a memo sent to dealers last week: “This is disappointing for all of us.”

    The company clarified that the LiveWire bikes, which have a suggested retail price of $30,000, are still safe to ride. So far, LiveWire owners have been able to charge their bikes via standard wall outlets, a process that takes ten hours to complete. But according to the Journal, consumers are now advised not to charge the bikes at home, and only to use dealerships’ official charging system. Direct-current charging station at Harley dealerships can charge the bike in just one hour, giving the bike 140 miles of urban riding range.

    James Hardiman, an analyst for Wedbush Securities, commented on the production halt stating: “It’s just a bad look for a company that has struggled for years to get their house in order.” Hardiman estimated that Harley is building a first run of approximately 1,600 LiveWire bikes, which would account for less than one percent of the number of motorcycles that the company shipped globally last year.

    The LiveWire was planned to be distributed to dealers in August but it delayed deliveries to early this month when a smaller number of the vehicles were delivered to dealers according to Hardiman. Harley-Davidson is distributing the LiveWire through a select number of approximately 200 dealers mainly located in urban areas.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



  13. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  14. #41
    The DeadWire

    https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2019.../the-deadwire/

    By eric - October 15, 2019

    People aren’t getting a charge out of Harley’s first electric motorcycle, the LiveWire . . . literally.

    Owners – and there aren’t many – have been advised not to plug their bikes in at home or anywhere else except a Harley Davidson dealership, where “special equipment” is available.

    This means the LiveWire’s already limited radius of action due to its being electric is now limited to no more than about 70 miles away from a Harley dealership – the there and back trip amounting to the LiveWire’s maximum best-case range of about 140 miles. (Italics to emphasize the fact that best case assumes low-speed, “urban” use; on the highway the bike’s actual range will be considerably less.)

    Once you’ve made it to there, you’ll wait for about an hour while your bike recharges on the dealership’s “special equipment.”

    But what if you’re not within range of a Harley store?

    What if you haven’t got an hour to kill?

    So much for the freedom of the open road – which is what Harleys used to be all about. Now HD is about being trendy – and stupid.

    That being defined as not understand who you’re selling to.

    People can be forced to buy electric cars because most people have to have one – to get to work, to live. Almost no one has to have a motorcycle.

    It is a want.

    And what person who likes motorcycles would want one of these overpriced, underperfoming gimps?

    Harley has halted production and won’t deliver any more LiveWires until this problem is sorted out. But the company has a a bigger problem – and it’s essentially the same problem that is belly flopping electric cars, only worse because we’re dealing with bikes.

    Which almost by definition are indulgences rather than necessities. People buy them for fun primarily and for transportation secondarily. Almost everyone who owns a motorcycle also has a car – because it rains and it gets cold and sometimes it’s too hot to ride or you just don’t feel like it.

    But most people haven’t got $30k laying around to spend on an indulgence.

    There are a few people who spend $30k on bikes, but most of those are the age 50-plus people who are Harley’s traditional and aging-out demographic. They are also exactly the people least likely to be interested in a bikini-faired electric sport bike with short legs, no storage and not even a passenger seat for the Old Lady.

    They want a long-range cruiser with the legs (and bags) to handle a cross-country trip.

    Not a stripped-down bikini-faired electric sport bike, something Harley couldn’t sell gas-powered versions of. See Buell.

    The young and “diverse” crowd that Harley says it wants to attract with this next-to-useless bike can’t afford to spend $30k on a car.

    Forget a $30k motorcycle – one that’s only good for short hops. And long waits.

    An electric motorcycle that hasn’t even got the “sell” of much lower fueling costs that an electric car can tout.

    Even a Hog costs almost nothing to gas up. The worst of them still get better mileage than almost any economy car (40-plus average) and most get better gas mileage than a hybrid (50-plus). Some middleweight bikes – in the 650 cc range – easily average 60 and commuter bikes with 250 cc engines can deliver 80 MPG.

    Most take about 3.5 gallons of $2.40 unleaded gas to fill up. And cost tens of thousands less than the LiveWire.

    You do the math.

    An electric bike offers no economic or functional advantage to a prospective buyer.

    And eliminates practically every reason for owning a bike. Including the sound. A silent Harley is like a cat that doesn’t purr – or won’t chase mice.

    What’s the point?

    No rumble, no vibration – and almost nothing to do. An electric motorcycle isn’t even a motorcycle – if that term means something different than scooter.

    Motorcycles have transmissions and gears and a clutch as well as engines that rumble and bellow. The rider syncopates the action, which is part of the art as well as the appeal.

    Scooters have a grip you twist to make it go faster.

    The rest is mostly just sitting there. It’s “gay” – in the South Park, Cartman sense.

    Motorcycles are also about spontaneity, which is an aspect of the fun and so part of the point – but it’s hard to be spontaneous when you’re tied down by a power cord. It’s not much fun to have to restrict and plan your travels accordingly.

    Meanwhile, one can find gas practically anywhere – without having to plan ahead for it. The remotest backcountry road will eventually lead to a fillin’ station – almost always before you run out of fumes. The worst case scenario – if you don’t quite make it to the fillin’ station – is having to thumb a ride or hike to the fillin’ station, which will be down the road just a bit.

    And bring back a gallon.

    You can’t bring back a gallon of volts.

    Sigh. At least you can push your LiveWire to wherever the charging hub is – one of the few upsides of the electric bike vs. the electric car, which is much to heavy to push.

    But why would you want to?

    The whole thing is ridiculous – and sad.

    That the people running Harley – including its female chief operating officer, Michelle Kumbier – no longer understand what motorcycles and Harleys are all about tells you all you need to know about the future of Harley.

    There isn’t one.

    The brand will live on – in memory – like other great names (Pontiac, Plymouth) that now sleep with the fishes.

    Sic gloria transit mundi.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  15. #42
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    The DeadWire

    https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2019.../the-deadwire/

    By eric - October 15, 2019

    People aren’t getting a charge out of Harley’s first electric motorcycle, the LiveWire . . . literally.

    Owners – and there aren’t many – have been advised not to plug their bikes in at home or anywhere else except a Harley Davidson dealership, where “special equipment” is available.

    This means the LiveWire’s already limited radius of action due to its being electric is now limited to no more than about 70 miles away from a Harley dealership – the there and back trip amounting to the LiveWire’s maximum best-case range of about 140 miles. (Italics to emphasize the fact that best case assumes low-speed, “urban” use; on the highway the bike’s actual range will be considerably less.)

    Once you’ve made it to there, you’ll wait for about an hour while your bike recharges on the dealership’s “special equipment.”

    But what if you’re not within range of a Harley store?

    What if you haven’t got an hour to kill?

    So much for the freedom of the open road – which is what Harleys used to be all about. Now HD is about being trendy – and stupid.

    That being defined as not understand who you’re selling to.

    People can be forced to buy electric cars because most people have to have one – to get to work, to live. Almost no one has to have a motorcycle.

    It is a want.

    And what person who likes motorcycles would want one of these overpriced, underperfoming gimps?

    Harley has halted production and won’t deliver any more LiveWires until this problem is sorted out. But the company has a a bigger problem – and it’s essentially the same problem that is belly flopping electric cars, only worse because we’re dealing with bikes.

    Which almost by definition are indulgences rather than necessities. People buy them for fun primarily and for transportation secondarily. Almost everyone who owns a motorcycle also has a car – because it rains and it gets cold and sometimes it’s too hot to ride or you just don’t feel like it.

    But most people haven’t got $30k laying around to spend on an indulgence.

    There are a few people who spend $30k on bikes, but most of those are the age 50-plus people who are Harley’s traditional and aging-out demographic. They are also exactly the people least likely to be interested in a bikini-faired electric sport bike with short legs, no storage and not even a passenger seat for the Old Lady.

    They want a long-range cruiser with the legs (and bags) to handle a cross-country trip.

    Not a stripped-down bikini-faired electric sport bike, something Harley couldn’t sell gas-powered versions of. See Buell.

    The young and “diverse” crowd that Harley says it wants to attract with this next-to-useless bike can’t afford to spend $30k on a car.

    Forget a $30k motorcycle – one that’s only good for short hops. And long waits.

    An electric motorcycle that hasn’t even got the “sell” of much lower fueling costs that an electric car can tout.

    Even a Hog costs almost nothing to gas up. The worst of them still get better mileage than almost any economy car (40-plus average) and most get better gas mileage than a hybrid (50-plus). Some middleweight bikes – in the 650 cc range – easily average 60 and commuter bikes with 250 cc engines can deliver 80 MPG.

    Most take about 3.5 gallons of $2.40 unleaded gas to fill up. And cost tens of thousands less than the LiveWire.

    You do the math.

    An electric bike offers no economic or functional advantage to a prospective buyer.

    And eliminates practically every reason for owning a bike. Including the sound. A silent Harley is like a cat that doesn’t purr – or won’t chase mice.

    What’s the point?

    No rumble, no vibration – and almost nothing to do. An electric motorcycle isn’t even a motorcycle – if that term means something different than scooter.

    Motorcycles have transmissions and gears and a clutch as well as engines that rumble and bellow. The rider syncopates the action, which is part of the art as well as the appeal.

    Scooters have a grip you twist to make it go faster.

    The rest is mostly just sitting there. It’s “gay” – in the South Park, Cartman sense.

    Motorcycles are also about spontaneity, which is an aspect of the fun and so part of the point – but it’s hard to be spontaneous when you’re tied down by a power cord. It’s not much fun to have to restrict and plan your travels accordingly.

    Meanwhile, one can find gas practically anywhere – without having to plan ahead for it. The remotest backcountry road will eventually lead to a fillin’ station – almost always before you run out of fumes. The worst case scenario – if you don’t quite make it to the fillin’ station – is having to thumb a ride or hike to the fillin’ station, which will be down the road just a bit.

    And bring back a gallon.

    You can’t bring back a gallon of volts.

    Sigh. At least you can push your LiveWire to wherever the charging hub is – one of the few upsides of the electric bike vs. the electric car, which is much to heavy to push.

    But why would you want to?

    The whole thing is ridiculous – and sad.

    That the people running Harley – including its female chief operating officer, Michelle Kumbier – no longer understand what motorcycles and Harleys are all about tells you all you need to know about the future of Harley.

    There isn’t one.

    The brand will live on – in memory – like other great names (Pontiac, Plymouth) that now sleep with the fishes.

    Sic gloria transit mundi.
    As predicted by many....a Harley FAIL.

  16. #43
    New and improved usually isn't....

  17. #44
    That the people running Harley – including its female chief operating officer, Michelle Kumbier – no longer understand what motorcycles and Harleys are all about tells you all you need to know about the future of Harley.
    Wokesters and pointy headed bean counters running H-D into the dirt...yeah sounds about right.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  18. #45
    Coal powered Harley!

  19. #46
    Hard to store enough energy to make the amplifiers go.....

    Loud speakers save lives!

  20. #47
    The Deadwire Departs

    https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021...dwire-departs/

    By eric - May 12, 2021

    Harley—Davidson just admitted that a Harley without an engine is like a beach without the ocean. Not many, apparently, want to go there.

    So the DeadWire – the Harley without an engine – will go somewhere else.

    Putting lipstick on this pig – which could never be a Hog – the iconic motorcycle manufacturer says the Deadwire will be “spun off” as a “stand-alone” brand.

    To get it out of Harley-Davidson showrooms. Which will henceforth be “virtual.”

    In part because almost no one was buying it in Harley stores. Because who would? The Deadwire isn’t even a motorcycle, let alone a Harley. Motorcycles have engines, first of all. And Harley motorcycles have V-twin engines. These engines make a very specific sound, generate a very specific rumble.

    A trademarked sound.

    It’s a sound that many have tried to imitate but which remains the beating heart of a Harley. Not the chrome, not the bags. The potato-potato-potato sound of the Harley-Davidson engine.

    It is what defines a Harley. You hear it coming. You know your neighbor just fired his up.

    Everyone knows what it is – because it doesn’t sound like anything else.

    Without that sound – and that feel – you have . . . something else. Something not-Harley. Something anodyne. Like a man without testosterone.

    A strange thing, indeed.

    And without a clutch and a transmission to shift, you haven’t even got a motorcycle.

    You have a scooter pretending to be one.

    In this case a very expensive scooter – without the scooter’s usual merits, especially its usefulness as a way to get around. For well under $10,000 you can buy a scooter that averages 70 MPG that is capable of being ridden across the state in one day – because it does not take all day to recharge one.

    The Deadwire can go maybe 70 miles – from a Harley store, where you must return to if you need to recharge in less than overnight, due to the Deadwire’s finicky electrics.

    Seventy miles being the extent of its best-case halfway-to-empty maximum range of 140 miles.

    A real Harley’s range is about the same – but it can go all the way there – because it can be refueled anywhere and in just minutes.

    Its range is effectively unlimited. Which gives its owner the freedom to ride wherever he wants, whenever he likes – and as far as he likes. A $30,000 scooter pretending to be a motorcycle that restricts your freedom? Yeah, that’ll sell.

    Like Bibles at Mecca.

    Scooters also have capacity – because the available space is not taken up by a massive battery. This makes them very practical – even more so than motorcycles, which generally have limited space for stuff because of the way they’re laid out – even if they have bags attached to their flanks.

    A couple of years ago, BMW sent me one of their big scooters – a C650 – to test ride. My write-up of that one is here. Not only was this thing capable of traveling several hundred miles in a day, because it didn’t make you wait before you could go – and could go in one direction, because it didn’t make you return – it could carry several full bags of groceries under its seat, where there was almost space enough for a passenger.

    The Deadwire hasn’t even got that – because bags add weight, which reduces range and . . well, you know what’s next.

    The C650 wasn’t a motorcycle – and didn’t pretend to be. It was a scooter – and sold itself on those merits.

    Harley has been trying – and failing – to sell something that isn’t a motorcycle as a Harley, which is both preposterous and insulting.

    What biker worth his leathers wants to be seen on a scooter pretending to be a motorcycle? Bikes aren’t like cars. Including electric cars, which are fundamentally transportation appliances. Motorcycles are fundamentally different. They do serve as transportation. But transportation is secondary to the ride.

    To the experience. To the sound and the feel and freedom . . . the not-being-a-scooter.

    If ever there was a case of a company having lost touch with its history – and in peril of losing touch with its customers – the Deadwire Debacle is it.

    “Harley Davidson is interested in letting its electrified models stand on their own terms,” reads a statement released earlier this week.

    Italics added.

    At least Harley appears to understand that a model is not a motorcycle, much less a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Then again, not so much. HD chairman, president and CEO Jochen Zeitz says “Deadwire” – the new line of Harley models – “will pioneer the future of motorcycling for the pursuit of urban adventure and beyond.”

    More italics added.

    “Urban adventure”?

    For reals, as the Millennials sometime say?

    Yeah, there’s all kinds of “adventure” to be had on a motorcycle in an urban setting.

    Put-put-put from light to light. Then to a dead stop, to plug. Forget the open road. Forget freedom.

    That’s an adventure, all right – just not the kind that people who ride motorcycles are into.

    There are scooters for that, Herr Zeitz.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  21. #48
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



  22. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  23. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by tod evans View Post
    New and improved usually isn't....
    in the 70s,, I put an aftermarket Electronic Ignition in mt brothers 66 T-Bird.

    Vast improvement over Points.

    and now Engine Management computers handle Fuel and advance and spark timing.

    Enamel and Lacquer gave way to acrylics and urethane. and you have to keep up training to keep up in the trade.

    Has ever been.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  24. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    They could just build vibrators into the seats, so you could flip a switch or something if you want one of the seats to vibrate.
    Basically a Sybian seat? LOL.
    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  25. #51
    This belongs here. On my favorite sci-fi TV show of all time, Babylon 5 (though The Expanse might overtake that), there is an episode where Mr. Girabaldi is restoring an old motorcyle. He has problems finishing the project because he can't find parts or fuel. Lennier, one of the aliens on the show, finds out that the last gasoline powered motorcycle was built in 2035 and that the motorcyle was a sign of masculinity and "sexual prowess."



    Lennier later takes it upon himself to finish the project for Girabaldi with using a clean energy source. Girabaldi is pissed at first, but then enjoys the experience and he and Lennier ride around the space station.

    9/11 Thermate experiments

    Winston Churchhill on why the U.S. should have stayed OUT of World War I

    "I am so %^&*^ sick of this cult of Ron Paul. The Paulites. What is with these %^&*^ people? Why are there so many of them?" YouTube rant by "TheAmazingAtheist"

    "We as a country have lost faith and confidence in freedom." -- Ron Paul

    "It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute." -- Ron Paul
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No need to make it a superhighway.
    Quote Originally Posted by osan View Post
    The only way I see Trump as likely to affect any real change would be through martial law, and that has zero chances of success without strong buy-in by the JCS at the very minimum.

  26. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by pcosmar View Post
    in the 70s,, I put an aftermarket Electronic Ignition in mt brothers 66 T-Bird.

    Vast improvement over Points.

    and now Engine Management computers handle Fuel and advance and spark timing.

    Enamel and Lacquer gave way to acrylics and urethane. and you have to keep up training to keep up in the trade.

    Has ever been.
    Points, vacuum advance and lacquers were all serviceable by the home mechanic for minimal cash outlay..

    'Puters and urethane not-so-much although the aftermarket 'puters are very flexible they're far from cost effective.

  27. #53
    The Alternatives We’re Denied

    https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021...s-were-denied/

    By eric - May 15, 2021

    If electric cars are the ducks guts – the better alternative – then why is the government doing everything it can – shy of actual bayonets in the back – to deny us the freedom to choose?

    Obviously, the worry is we might choose something else – if the government were to allow us to do so.

    Can’t have that.

    Which ought to raise questions – not about electric cars – but about this business of denying people the freedom to choose the alternative that works best for them. As opposed to the one forced upon them by government.

    Interestingly, the reasons electric cars are being forced onto the market is because people aren’t free to choose economically sensible and practical electric cars – because none such exist.

    And the reason they don’t exist is . . . because the government is forcing electric cars onto the market.

    It requires a bit of explaining.

    If a free market existed, there might well be a market for electric cars – just not the electric cars that are being pushed onto the market, like Teslas and their emulators from the other car companies.

    Those cars are mandated cars; their electric propulsion systems are almost incidental. What defines them is their trying to “compete” – in air quotes to emphasize the absurdity of anything mandated into existence and maintained in existence by subsidies – with the non-electric cars they cannot directly compete with.

    But which they’re – irony! – forced to try to do, precisely because they’ve been mandated and subsidized as the replacement for non-electric cars.

    Thus, they must try to be capable of doing the same things as non-electric cars – which they can’t – because of the limitations of electric cars. Which are magnified when they try to compete directly with non-electric cars.

    On the highway, for instance.

    Electric cars cannot go as far, as fast, as non-electric cars – and they take much too long to get going again when they try to.

    But because they are being mandated, their manufacturers are forced to try to make them capable of doing what they cannot. Which has made them monstrously heavy – and preposterously expensive.

    It takes 1,000-plus pounds of batteries to give an electric car the capability to go farther than 150 miles on the highway and those batteries are extremely heavy as well as extremely expensive. It is why the least expensive electric cars cost twice as much as the least expensive non-electric cars . . . and they still can’t compete with those cars directly.

    A new Nissan Versa that stickers for $14,980 can go almost 400 miles on the highway and can be ready for another almost 400 miles in less than five minutes. A new Nissan Leaf electric car stickers for $31,670 and can go 150 miles, but not on the highway. And when it stops, you will wait several times longer than five minutes and possibly overnight, if a 480 volt direct current “fast” charger isn’t handy.

    Which they aren’t because almost no home chargers can supply 480 volts of direct charge to anything.

    This is true of all electric cars vs. all non-electric cars.

    They cannot compete as all-around cars with non-electric cars. City and highway. Go anywhere, anytime – without worrying about how soon you’ll be forced to stop.

    And wait.

    The state of battery/recharging technology makes it not only impossible but counterproductive to make the attempt. See that part above about weight and cost.

    But EVs might compete very effectively if they were free to offer indirect competition.

    Electric cars could be a better alternative – if they weren’t designed to try to emulate the long-range/high-speed capabilities of non-electric cars. Forget about that – until it is possible for them to do that. In the meanwhile, focus on what electric cars do well – or could, if their designers weren’t being forced to try to make them do things they’re not suited for.

    Like travel several hundred miles at 75 MPH and be able to travel another several hundred miles, in minutes.

    Instead, focus on traveling about 100 miles – at speeds around 50 MPH or less. Such an electric car wouldn’t be a highway-capable car. But it would be an affordable electric car as well as a practical one . . . for people who do not need a car that can travel hundreds of miles on the highway at 75 MPH.

    It would be an excellent alternative car for people who want to spend less on a car than the $14,980 it costs to buy a non-electric new car like the Nissan Versa.

    Which would be feasible, from both a technical and economic point-of-view, if Nissan didn’t have to design and build it to try to be directly competitive with the Versa.

    Such a car would not need 1,000-plus pounds of batteries and so wouldn’t weigh 3,501 pounds (vs. 2,599 lbs. for the Versa) and so wouldn’t have to cost more than twice as much as the Versa . . .

    As the electric Leaf does.

    It would also not need a whole new from-the-ground-up infrastructure of 480 volt direct current “fast” charging stations, which doesn’t exist – and which we’re all going to be forced to pay for, in order to bring it into existence.

    Such a car could be plugged into ordinary 115 volt household outlets in between short hops and would rarely run out of range – or make its owner wait – for precisely that reason.

    It is uncommon for people who make short hops to ever need to drive farther than 50 miles, one way – well within the range of affordable and practical electric car technology.

    The problems with electric cars only manifest when they are expected to drive beyond the capabilities of battery technology and compete on equal terms with cars that don’t rely on electricity for locomotion.

    But because electric cars are being forced onto the market – so as to end eliminate alternatives to them – we end up with electric cars that can’t compete on economic or practical grounds with non-electric cars – and we’re denied the alternative of electric cars that would be more affordable and practical than non-electric cars, if designed so as to take advantage of the things they can do better while not expecting them to also do the things they can’t.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  28. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    The Alternatives We’re Denied

    https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021...s-were-denied/

    By eric - May 15, 2021
    Phuck a Bunch of Gearhead Butthurt..

    Hear the same thing about carburetors when Fuel injection came out..

    he alternatives have been denied..that is True.. Big Oil had been fighting technology for 50 that I am aware of..

    Suppressing, Outlawing or outright stealing anything that would Threaten their Monopoly.

    Electric Cars Predate Gas Cars..

    Tech has caught up to the Oil Dealers.. and there is much Butthurt.
    Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.
    Ron Paul 2004

    Registered Ron Paul supporter # 2202
    It's all about Freedom

  29. #55
    //
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

Page 2 of 2 FirstFirst 12


Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 19
    Last Post: 06-27-2018, 08:32 PM
  2. First VW now Harley Davidson
    By Anti Federalist in forum Open Discussion
    Replies: 12
    Last Post: 08-28-2016, 04:11 PM
  3. Harley-Davidson introduces electric motorcycle
    By Suzanimal in forum Open Discussion
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 06-23-2014, 08:38 AM
  4. Replies: 11
    Last Post: 07-13-2013, 12:21 PM
  5. Harley-Davidson axes 1,000 as profits hit skids
    By disorderlyvision in forum U.S. Political News
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 07-16-2009, 03:01 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •