Harley-Davidson LiveWire owner Diego Cardenas just might have more U.S. miles in the saddle than any other LiveWire owner so far, since he’s crisscrossed the nation.
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He’s actually owned two LiveWires and has retrofitted his latest Harley to look like a 2022 LiveWire One. Harley is spinning off the LiveWire into its own publicly traded brand, while maintaining 74% of ownership.
Diego has been following the EV’s development since the Project LiveWire concept bike. Harley’s EV development, which started with Project Hacker, stretches all the way back to 2010.
Diego has even ridden in California with the Long Way Up Apple TV+ series team, which rode their LiveWires between Argentina and Los Angeles.
“I was following it since they originally showed a concept, was which was the project Livewire back in 2013, 2014. And like most concepts that you see, you go, ‘Oh my God, this is beautiful.’ Just like when you go to an auto show and you see this beautiful Porsche and you’re like, ‘nope, it’s not for sale is just a concept,’” Diego said.
But in this case it did come to be. And, not only did it hold true to the concept – which I also got to ride back in 2014 – but it turned out much better than what was first shown to the public.
“I like Harleys, my other my gasser bike, as I call it, is a V-Rod, so it’s the Porsche slash Harley-Davidson venture. It’s a high-performance bike. It’s one of those bikes that 20 years later I still stop by a light, people look at it and they go, ‘oh my God, what a beautiful bike.'”
Diego believes the LiveWire will have a similar impact. “20 years from now, even though we have a small battery size and all that stuff, it’s going to one of those bikes that people are going to go, ‘oh my God, what a gorgeous electric bike you have.’”
Although Diego is a fan of EV motorcycles in general, in his opinion the LiveWire had some advantages the standalone EV brands just couldn’t match – including Italy’s Energica and Zero Motorcycles, which is a U.S. brand.
“[I] didn’t go for the Energica because even though they were nice – they’re great bikes – they have lots of bells and whistles that the LiveWire may not have, I looked at the dealer support, he said, adding, “a great bike, but if it was broken, where did I have to cart it out to if I’m in the middle of Iowa somewhere? Where do I have to ship it to? So you know, things like that that.”
Energica has said it is expanding its footprint of U.S. dealerships, but right now it has relatively few dealers across the U.S.
While the LiveWire was rolled out as a Harley, now that it is being rebranded, it’s unclear what percentage of Harley dealers will end up carrying the 2022 LiveWire One models, since dealership agreements are still being worked out and some standalone LiveWire showrooms are being created.
Here in Jacksonville, Adamec Harley-Davidson, which has four area dealerships, had four Harley-Davidson LiveWires on display the day EV Rider visited its Baymeadows showroom.
The other big electric-only brand, which does have a fairly strong dealership network in the U.S., is Zero Motorcycles. Diego ruled Zero out early because the California EV motorcycle maker doesn’t offer Level 3 DC fast-charging, which is where he sees America’s charging network heading.
“Being a Tesla owner I know the importance of DC fast charge and I’ve had a Tesla since 2014 so I can’t live on in that [slower charging] world anymore.”
To Diego’s point, his LiveWire can charge to 80% in about 40 minutes using any CCS Level 3 charger, while the majority of U.S. Level 2 J-1772 stations – which are the only ones Zeroes can use without after-market modifications – will take about an hour-and-a-half or so to charge to 80%.
Zero’s decision to not support CCS means riders have far fewer choices when it comes to charging locations.
Although the LiveWire doesn’t support fast Level 2 charging, it does at least support slow charging using the J-1772 standard, meaning in a pinch it can still charge everywhere a Zero can, plus at thousands of additional CCS stations.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy reported there were more than 2,000 CCS stations with more than 5,000 plugs in the U.S., which Zeroes can’t use – and that number is growing fast with Electrify America, EVgo and others expanding quickly.
For example, Electrify America plans to have more than 10,000 CCS Chargers in the U.S. and Canada online by 2025, more than doubling the stations it had in July of 2021.
“Now mind you, there’s guys now who are now designing dual plug connectors and making these bikes a little bit more competitive when it comes to the charging apparatus. But you’re still doing a max of 10, 11, 12 kilowatts, which Harley is doing 19 to 20 kW and Energica is doing 20, 21, 24 – depending on who you use. So there’s still an advantage and that to me is gold, even though you’re getting out there, you’re half an hour or an hour, you know, stretching. It’s still minutes that you can shave off whatever you need to do so.”
Diego also noted when he rode a few Zeroes they didn’t feel as solidly built – in his estimation – as compared to the LiveWire and he had seen reliability and customer service complaints on social media about Zero Motorcycles that left him concerned.
“So I ended up going with what I liked, my passion, Harley-Davidson, and what better partner than the 800 pound gorilla in the industry.”
As a long-time motorcyclist, Diego says he’s also noticing the mindset about electrics is starting to shift.
“Instead of being negative, like resistant, now they’re more accepting.”
As for the next generation of motorists and motorcyclists, Diego predicts the tide is turning toward EVs.
“I have a 9-year-old daughter who was born to a system where there’s Teslas. So she gets in the Tesla and she goes all over the place, she loves the autopilot. She loves all the bells and whistles, but when she goes to Uncle Sam’s house to get into his 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302, she looks at me, she goes, ‘Daddy.’ I go, ‘what honey?’ She goes ‘this car smells, it’s slow and it’s loud.’ See, so we’re in that shift right now between one generation to the other getting acquainted to that.”
If you’re in Southern California and have an EV motorcycle of any stripe, Diego would love for you to join his Southern California Facebook electric motorcycles owners group. They’re planning a Cannonball run between San Francisco and Coronado. You learn more about the group in the video at the top of this story or by visiting Facebook.
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