A decade ago, Harley-Davidson embarked on a journey to make an electric motorcycle a reality. The brand now has an entire spin-off company, LiveWire, to be the home of its electric efforts. LiveWire is adding a new motorcycle to its lineup that’s getting rave reviews. The 2025 LiveWire S2 Alpinista sounds like the apex of electric motorcycles with its 84 HP power, low center of gravity, and quick agility, but I’m not sure who is going to buy it.
Now, let me be clear here. I’m generally a fan of Harley-Davidson’s products. I think the Pan America is a total blast and I had the time of my life scraping the floorboards of a Street Glide ST on a race track. I was one of the lucky people in the media to get to ride the LiveWire electric bike when it hit the circuit in 2019. I keep rooting for the Motor Company from Milwaukee even if some of its decisions miss so hard that they’re like the 2024 Chicago White Sox.
So, I really want LiveWire’s latest to succeed. The new LiveWire S2 Alpinista is an electric sportbike, something normally outside of Harley’s wheelhouse, and pairs a respectable 84 HP with good handling and that addictive instant torque EVs have. Early reviews seem to praise it, but I’m not sure it fixes the biggest problem with LiveWire bikes thus far.
Different Flavors Of The Same Thing
The 2025 S2 Alpinista is the third motorcycle in LiveWire’s middleweight S2 lineup. Like the S2 Del Mar and the S2 Mulholland that came before it, the S2 Alpinista is based on the scalable Arrow architecture. This architecture is the next generation of the platform that underpins the old LiveWire and has upgrades including a battery and motor that are structural elements. Likewise, Harley engineers simplified the platform so that the newer Arrow bikes can be built in 44 percent less time than the old LiveWire. Perhaps even better, Arrow was designed so that it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to make S1 heavyweight motorcycles or S3 lightweight motorcycles all on the same platform.
In other words, Harley-Davidson has done to electric motorcycles what automakers have done with cars. As such, all of the S2 middleweights have the same basic specifications. Every S2 has the same 10.5 kWh lithium battery, the same 84 HP and 194 ft-lb of torque motor, the same charging system, and nearly the same performance. If you go to LiveWire’s website you’ll find that all three S2 models will go 113 miles to 120 miles on a charge in a city, hit 60 mph in around 3 seconds, and take two hours and 20 minutes to charge fully at the fastest. All of them even weigh roughly around 430 pounds and change.
At its core, the S2 Alpinista is the same motorcycle I’ve been writing about since 2023. However, LiveWire has been able to give these bikes their own character through changes in bodywork, wheels, fork rakes, and headlights. The S2 Del Mar is the street tracker while the S2 Mulholland is a power cruiser. The S2 Alpinista is being pitched of the most sporty of the trio.
Here’s the Mulholland, for reference:
To give you an example of how this works. The 2025 S2 Alpinista has a pair of 17-inch wheels shod in Dunlop Roadsmart IV tires. The smaller wheels and grippy rubber are supposed to make the Alpinista a bit of an urban superbike. Meanwhile, the Mulholland has a big 19-inch wheel up front and is followed by a 17-inch rear wheel, a configuration befitting a cruiser style and ride. Finally, S2 Del Mar with a pair of 19-inch wheels and dirt-style rubber.
These changes alone should give the Alpinista a more sporty ride compared to its siblings, but there are more changes that you do not immediately see with your eyes. For example, the S2 Mulholland has a fork rake of 29 degrees while the Alpinista is a more aggressive 24.5 degrees, about on par with the 24 degree rake of the S2 Del Mar.
When you look at the specs, the S2 Alpinista actually looks like an S2 Del Mar with a wheel package. The ground clearance is the same at 6.5 inches, the seat height is an inch shorter at 31.2 inches, and both bikes even have the same trail of 3.6 inches. The Alpinista manages to have a wheelbase of 56.8 inches, 0.4 inches shorter than the S2 Del Mar.
The tech is also the same. You get Showa suspension and Brembo brakes paired with four riding modes, a color display, and cornering-sensitive riding aids including ABS and traction control. In short, the folks of LiveWire have been hitting copy and paste a lot, but that’s what you’d expect when given the promise of a single platform to underpin many motorcycles.
Cycle World had this to say from its press ride:
It’s an exciting and capable motorcycle, but the fun doesn’t last as long as an ICE motorcycle. And even doing our best to remember it’s not supposed to directly complete or replace one, it’s hard not to wish it were one as we loft the front wheel skyward exiting tight corners in the mountains. LiveWire’s all-new S2 Alpinista is a punk rock song: fast, fun, and short.
[…]
An initial crack of the throttle delivers a surge of power that propels the rider forward in a way a gas motorcycle simply cannot. Power comes on strong like a big twin (but perfectly smooth) and continues to pull relentlessly like an inline-four. With electrics there is no shifting and no messing around with a clutch. Just twist and go. Throttle response is direct and allows the rider to predictably send power to the rear wheel. But while power delivery is potent at any speed, it’s still tractable and manageable.
[…]
Handling is sporty and precise. On twisty roads, the Alpinista requires a fair amount of rider input to initiate lean, but once the bike is on the side of the tire it feels planted, stable, and easily holds a line. The Showa suspension is taut and provides plenty of holdup during spirited riding while still managing to be comfortable on city streets. Damping adjustments make a noticeable change and it was easy to find a setup that worked for my 120-pound weight.
Cycle World concludes its review by calling the Alpinista the sportiest LiveWire yet, and I believe them. The middleweight category is quite receptive to electrification and in my experience, middleweight electrics are very fun. I want to be excited for this motorcycle, but I can’t help escaping the feeling that this is more of what American motorcycle buyers don’t want.
The Hole Electric Bikes Are Trapped In
I had an illuminating experience when I got to ride Can-Am’s new electric motorcycles last year. At that event, the company’s engineers were pretty honest in that as of now, electric motorcycle companies are sort of stuck. Their engineers can add more battery, but that adds weight and cost. If you take some battery out, the bike gets cheaper but won’t go very far.
BRP’s engineers told me that there simply isn’t a good way around today’s battery limitations. It was their belief that car manufacturers have it easier because nobody buying a GMC Hummer EV cares that it weighs as much as a tank. But nobody is going to want to buy a $40,000 motorcycle that weighs over 1,000 pounds. Remember, most Americans buy motorcycles as a fun luxury toy, not a daily driver.
So, because of the limitations of battery technology, electric motorcycle companies try to figure out which levers to pull, and buyers in America aren’t really latching on. LiveWire, like BRP, has chosen to find a sort of middle-of-the-road option. According to Cycle World, the Alpinista will return about 68 miles of range on canyon roads or about 79 miles if you do a mix of riding around town or freeway riding. This tracks with the battery storage on hand. The Zero DSR/X I tested for a year and a half was able to almost double that canyon range with 6 kWh more on deck.
In my experience, a range of about 70 miles is more than enough to have a fun blast outside of city limits. But the next problem is a hard one. On a Level 1 charge, a LiveWire S2 takes 9 hours to charge. That goes down to about 6 hours if you’re charging from 20 percent to 80 percent. Level 2 is faster, requiring two hours and 22 minutes to fully charge or about an hour and 20 minutes to get from 20 percent to 80 percent.
In my experience, this makes any sort of distance riding a major pain. If you’re out trying to have a day of riding, it’s you’ll spend more time charging than riding. Electric cars get around this by having bigger batteries and access to faster charging. This bike cannot fast charge at all.
As our friends at RideApart note, the press imagery for the Alpinista was taken on mountain roads the bikes don’t even have enough range to handle in a satisfying manner. But it should be noted that LiveWire isn’t alone here. When I did the press ride for Can-Am’s new motorcycles, we rode close to 100 miles on bikes that largely ran out of juice in 40 to 60 miles depending on riding style. How did BRP get around that? BRP dragged around giant battery trailers to charge the bikes at each stop.
This is a long way to say that, for now, the majority of the electric motorcycles on the American market today are purely urban rides. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! Motorcycles can be a secret weapon for threading through city traffic.
The issue that compounds all of these limitations is pricing. The LiveWire S2 Del Mar is $16,249, the S2 Mulholland is $16,499, and the S2 Alpinista is landing on the market for $15,999. So, here’s an electric motorcycle that’s designed to carve canyons that doesn’t have the range to reach the mountains. Or, you can use it as your urban assault vehicle. But you’d have to pass up a bunch of Royal Enfields and a ton of other more affordable urban bikes to pay $15,999.
More Unknowns
Ultimately, I’m left wondering who is the ideal buyer here. The other electric Harleys are not selling. LiveWire sold 597 motorcycles in 2022, burning $85 million of its parent’s money. LiveWire sold 660 bikes in 2023, but deepened its losses to $125 million. LiveWire is not going to release 2024 full-year data until February, but the fact that it sold just 99 motorcycles in quarter three of 2024 is not a good sign. Analysts are expecting LiveWire’s losses to equal up to $115 million for 2024. We’re also not sure what’s going to happen to LiveWire given the changing political climate.
What I can tell you is that things at LiveWire are going odd enough that the company moved its headquarters to Harley’s property in Milwaukee while the company is now “outsourcing” most of its operations to Harley-Davidson. In other words, LiveWire is pretty much not a Harley in name only now.
Again, I’m not trying to bash the company here. I’m seemingly one of a few writers with a love for Harley products. I’m just puzzled at the S2 Alpinista. Buyers are not scooping up the other S2s and I’m not sure the Alpinista is different enough to change that. Time will tell, but I hope I’m wrong.
hmmm. at 220 pounds I get 40+ miles on my pedal assist Specialized bike. I could carry an extra battery that costs about 500 and increase my range to that of this Harley. Battery power is not for this niche yet. Also I want another Aeromachi 350 Sprint in my life.
When I take my Spyder RT out, I typically put on 150-250 miles on a ride in the countryside – where’s there’s also not a lot of charging infrastructure. Only having 60 miles of range would really not be practical for anything but some city riding.
The KTM 390 Supermoto was just officially announced with a retail price of $5500. I really hope they survive long enough for me to pick up one as a commuter bike.
Hey Harley; take this platform and get the Pan American engine in it. Maybe even the 975. There’s your new XR/XG
Mercedes… interesting that you mentioned the 2024 White Sox. As a lifelong, die hard fan of the southsiders myself, I found that they helped my bottom line. I bet against them for the last 100 games of the year and made a pretty decent profit. Guess I love them more now that they also made me some cash.
WHAT!? I could have made money off of the Sox sucking? Does anyone have a time machine?
Only this sports almanac, but it expired in 2015.
If the Sox are gonna lose, I at least want to get paid for it.
It seems like electric bike may be a niche thing for a while until the technology gets better. They still use less gas than cars. At this point I would buy an e bike for the around town stuff for only a couple thousand and if the battery runs out I can pedal for a while.
oh boy i can only wait for spite to say its the next greatest thing all while playing with its engery port.
I feel like Harley is dropping the ball on style of these electric bikes. The Livewire kills it in speed, and there’s little touches that are so cool like the pulse when you turn it on, and the beveled gears for an authentic sound.
But they have the style of a Zero, which is fine, people buy Zero’s, but this is Harley(well Livewire now), they could drop the seat down, give is some forward controls, pull the bars back a little and give it more of a cruiser vibe, custom tank options and all.
Then you’ve got something for cruising around town and toasting Ninjas at stop lights, heading to work on sunny days for a nice ride home. Then who cares about range? You’re riding up main street to the local hang out where it won’t look so out of place next to all the other bikes.
Harley has been dropping the ball for over a decade on this. I did the demo ride in 2014 and afterwards they asked us what the price range should be. the majority wanted that 15k-20k price. It debuted at 30k and I think that harmed the brand ever since
Especially considering the Zero at the time was going for $16k, and the Livewire specs, particularly range, was about the same.
I think Harley fell into the same hole that car brands did with Tesla, they saw Zero, and said that’s kinda working, let’s do that, only we’re “Harley” so let’s sell it for $10k more.
But it doesn’t even look like any other Harley, not even a V-Rod, which is a huge selling point of their brand, to the point that Kawasaki and Yamaha made bank selling Harley clones.
The Bronx was the closest thing we got to an ICE harley looking like a livewire
What $16k Zero had similar specs to the LiveWire back then? When the LiveWire was actually introduced, the most comparable Zero–the SR-F–was ~$9k cheaper, not $14k cheaper. Plus, anyone that has ridden both always says the LiveWire was a lot better. Now, I don’t think it was $9k better, but it was better.
Agreed the Livewire had better specs, but not $9k better, 0-60 in less than 5 seconds, over 100 miles of range, and also considering the Zero S, not the SR, only cost $14,995, that’s literally double the price, and again it doesn’t look like a Harley, just cost as much as a Harley, maybe they thought that was their selling point? “Sure it’s got no range, but it costs $30k so you know, that’s worth something!” 😀
A LiveWire One costs $22,799 today, not twice the price.
Also, while on paper the Zero S is a fair competitor, in the real world it really should be the SR/F, which is $20,459. Mostly because the Zero’s have heat soak issues with the battery due to the air cooling, while the LiveWire’s liquid cooling and prismatic battery don’t have those issues. The Zero will get more range though.
Again, is that worth the price premium? I’ve got no idea; both are still too expensive for the range they offer if you ask me.
I meant when it launched, the Harley Davidson Livewire was almost $30k, now they’ve brought the price down, which is great as they haven’t been able to improve range, but as you say still too much for what they are. I feel like the S2’s are getting there price-wise but still the styling is just not there. I get the tuck position is better for aero, and Cafe racers were the style years back so going for a futuristic one of those, and now it’s the Livewire brand so not really Harley, but think they’d have done better to have it look more Softail or V-Rod.
I actually think it wouldn’t take much to give it similar ride posture as a BMW R1200C. Give it a rear fender and move the seat down, move the pegs forward, paint the ‘tank’. Maybe someday when the used ones get cheap enough and I get more money than I should, may be a while though.
Harley could try to pull a Dodge.
Slap a plastic chrome impression of a V-twin around the battery pack and pipe some sound out of the speakers. At a minimum, the sound will be better than whatever “music” most Harley riders prefer to blast while riding.
H-Donic exhaust?
Yeah, if they wanted to go all fancy. The plastic engine casing and sound out of the speakers is more of a Wish solution.
Why is the performance and battery the same after 2 years on the market? Is Harley just not investing any money into constant development of the tech?
Agreed, I feel like they’re in the ‘cheapening’ phase now. They got the tech ‘good’nuff’, so working on the S2 bikes to be a little cheaper, which if that’s the easier way to go then ok, but still a niche product.
Development of tech? Harley? lololololol (new liquid-cooled motor excepted)
A big part of the trouble for HD is the fruits of its 2000s business strategy of producing retro bikes and ’50s/’60s outlaw pretentions. It worked well to sell to boomers at their peak monetary power, but now it faces a market where that’s no longer in demand.
And since brand association is such a huge part of motorcycling in America, no matter how advanced its products become in the short run, HD still has a while before buyers see more than chrome, skulls, and flames.
I’m not sure I agree. HD under Zeitz has been designed to operate under a decrease in sales volume, and so far it’s working. They’ve been selling fewer bikes, but at higher and higher transaction prices and margins. Is it a strategy that will work for ever? Who knows. But it’s been working for the past 4~5 years so far.
It’s a good point, and I definitely want HD to succeed, but I always feel HD is kinda in a catch 22.
Here in the states, most of us buy motorcycles for fun, not practicality (though I actually know a guy who solely commutes on his, and isn’t really that into bikes as a thing!), and the emotion factor – as Spikedlemon points out – is huge and for a younger generation, HD isn’t perceived as particularly futuristic. And abroad, HD survives against a ton of competition as a piece of Americana, not something particularly modern or practical.
I don’t think HD needs to be perceived as futuristic; their success is because they are perceived as the opposite; hence one of the main reasons LiveWire was spun off as a standalone brand. The average age of the HD customer has barely changed in years, which would imply they are doing just fine staying relevant to to younger people (as they get older).
https://www.revzilla.com/cdn-cgi/image/onerror=redirect,format=auto,q=75,w=697/blog_content_image/image/94687/gallery/HD_Q2_age_slide.png
Plus, for as much as people rag on HD for being basic old garbage:
I’m not even an HD fan; never even owned one. I just think it’s great a company actually listens to their customers, and appears to be on somewhat stable financial ground (for the near future at least) doing it. Imagine if Tesla kept turn signal levers, or VW actually replaced their shitty controls, or…
Shame a Harley is slightly heavier than a miata while having approx none of the features.
“Every S2 has the same 10.5 kWh lithium battery, the same 84 HP and 194 ft-lb of torque motor, the same charging system, and nearly the same performance”
“Their engineers can add more battery, but that adds weight and cost. If you take some battery out, the bike gets cheaper but won’t go very far.”
These two statements combine inside my head into a whole lot of dumb. 84/194 hp/torque is more power and a LOT more torque than a bike in this class needs. Cut those figures in half and you still have *plenty* of poop for urban riding. You also wind up with more range on the same battery or the same range with a lot less battery. Harley (and lots of other electric motorcycle builders) need to quit shooting for the moon when all they should be shooting for is downtown.
I think they need the performance because they can’t get price low enough to justify otherwise. If you’re looking at 40-50hp machines then you’re at half that $16k asking price. Even with increased range and the expected EV premium, they can’t reach that.
“84/194 hp/torque is more power and a LOT more torque than a bike in this class needs. Cut those figures in half and you still have *plenty* of poop for urban riding. You also wind up with more range on the same battery or the same range with a lot less battery.”
DO you though? I don’t think electric motors work that way.
In a word, yes. Bigger motors will be less efficient at part loads than smaller ones, the inverters will have bigger losses etc.
However, and as with everything engineering there is always nuance to it, the differences are probably a few % at most so it’s not in the orders of magnitude that you see with ICE. And some of that gain will be be lost in mechanical losses because smaller motors tend to spin faster and therefore the gearbox will probably have a little bit more in terms of loss.
“You also wind up with more range on the same battery or the same range with a lot less battery.”
That does not appear to be true in practice. Can-Am’s motorcycles have half the power and close to the same battery capacity, yet worse real world range.
The engineers seem to think this is a problem with current battery technology running up against the expectations of the average American rider.
“84/194 hp/torque is more power and a LOT more torque than a bike in this class needs.”
False. Realistically, the one thing electric motorcycles do better than ICE bikes is ridiculous, effortless acceleration. I can’t imagine it would sell any better if you eliminate the one thing it does really well, even if you reduced the price by a few thousand dollars. If anything, these bikes need more power.
I found it interesting that the Zero essentially had no thermal management of its battery and was unable to charge if temps were too low. I assume the Harley also lacks any sort of thermal management / cooling system? Or the ability to warm the battery and condition it prior to charging – even using the power from a charging source – when plugged in? If so, that’s a huge fail for so much money. And I don’t think going to 15kWh battery would add that much weight or cost. Battery cells aren’t THAT expensive.
The LiveWire One had liquid cooling for the battery. Not sure what this one has. But that was a huge leg up for the One over the Zeros.
Make it a supermoto, the perfect urban assault vehicle.
Too bad it missed peak SM in the mid-00’s
Arguably dirtbikes may make a good usecase for casual riding.
Absolutely. The ergos are what make it – effortless, and better leverage on the bars for slicing and dicing in urban environments, something no highway cruiser or racetrack specialist can match.
I miss the supermoto era!
I think first block is the unrealistic expectations of the public. Nobody wants to admit that a huge chunk of the driving and riding we do is commuting. We don’t need five gajillion miles of range, yet we refuse to look at an EV that doesn’t offer said range.
The other choke point is most likely the HD dealerships. Just look at what has happened to just about every non vtwin cruiser that HD has made in the last few decades. It gets stuck in a corner gathering dust while the salesmen tell people they need a “real bike”. The HD dealerships have killed off quite a few very nice bikes by the unwritten rule to not sell them.
American public doesn’t really buy motorcycles for practical purposes. They’re purchased as a 2nd/3rd/4th vehicle that is used casually on weekends. Where people aren’t as constrained on timing/distance. They’re very often emotional purchases which have no basis in logic.
It’s hard to sell.
HD issues of “bigger = better” seems to resonate well with their traditional demographic, but don’t translate to the current state of EV bikes. And probably explains the death of Buell. Which, if we had to mourne one model, it would be the Blast – arguably a low-threat entry motorcycle into the HD brand to get people to learn without fear and embarassement of dropping an 800lb behemoth of chrome (but didn’t command margins).
Well put, and a better on the details version of what I tried to say above. And totally agree on the Blast – if HD had really believed in it back then, it would have made the transition now so much easier for the firm.