Harley-Davidson is continuing their slow slide into obscurity with another quarter of falling sales.
Things are not looking good for America’s motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson. People just aren’t buying fat hogs anymore. Last year, sales were down over 10% compared to the previous year, with their stock price getting chopped in half over the past two years. And the culprit is Millennials: they’re just not buying loud and obnoxious motorcycles.
Harley unveiled their answer to the Millennial apocalypse earlier this year. Called the Live Wire, it’s an electric motorcycle with a range of 110 miles and a zero to sixty time of 3.5 seconds. No clutch means no gears to swap, making it an attractive option for new bike owners that don’t want to have to worry about the intricacies of old-school manual driving.
Or it would have, had Harley not priced the thing at $29,799. At that price, any curious newcomer to biking could afford a near-racing bike, let alone an electric one with half the range of any real motorcycle. And if they were more interested in motorcycles for the smaller carbon footprint, that’s just $5,000 away from a base Tesla Model 3, which has a significantly longer range and also doesn’t require a helmet.
Needless to say, the Live Wire hasn’t rejuvenated Harley-Davidson’s brand nearly as much as executives would have liked. Profits for the second quarter of 2019 are down 19.3%, according to Reuters, which has prompted Harley to alter their 2019 forecasts.
Weak US demand and rising tariff costs are to blame for Harley reducing their expected yearly margin from 8-9% down to 6-7%. Expected sales were also reduced from 217,0000-220,000 down to 212,000-217,000.
But Harley has a backup plan. If the Live Wire fell through (which it certainly seems to be doing), Harley would invest in smaller e-scooters and e-bikes to appeal to a younger, greener audience. It’s a far cry from the burbling motors that Harley is known for, but in a changing world, the law is adapt or perish.