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Harley-Davidson to Research Electric Motorcycles in Silicon Valley

At the end of August, bike-builder Harley-Davidson announced it will try its luck in the electric mobility industry with the launch of an electricity-powered bike.
Harley-Davidson LiveWire 1 photo
Photo: Harley-Davidson
Now, only a few days later, another major announcement was made by the Milwaukee-based manufacturer, this time concerning the efforts that are to be made to make this new line of bikes a reality.

As per an official statement, Harley will be building a new research and development center in Silicon Valley. The facility will be a satellite of the Willie G. Davidson Product Development Facility in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and will likely begin operating be the end of this year.

The first thing on the new center’s order of business will be the development of electric two-wheeled vehicles. That includes battery, power electronics, and e-machine design, development and advanced manufacturing.

The center will be manned by “top talent in electrical, mechanical and software engineering,” a group of people already targeted by Harley with a recruitment campaign.

"Recently we shared with the world our accelerated plans to build the next generation of Harley-Davidson riders globally," said in a statement Matt Levatich, CEO of Harley-Davidson.

"This new R&D facility in the heart of Silicon Valley will help us deliver on those plans and demonstrate our commitment to lead the electrification of the sport."

The first electric product wearing the Harley-Davidson badge will be the LiveWire, a production motorcycle based on the model with the same name presented in 2014.

The LiveWire will be manufactured in York, Pennsylvania, and will at first only be available in North America and Europe. No actual technical details of the production version were released, nor any information on the pricing.

Harley says that the production version of the LiveWire will be making full use of all the lessons learned during the thousands of test rides taken by customers.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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