With a range of around 100 miles, the electric Harley-Davidson LiveWire certainly wouldn’t be your first choice if you were going to cover distances more suited to a touring motorcycle but that doesn’t stop some people from trying to prove you can achieve endurance while being kind to the environment.
This is what Swiss rider Michel von Tell has attempted to show by covering the furthest distance recorded on an electric motorcycle in 24 hours.
We’ll give the benefit of the doubt while we wait for Harley-Davidson to provide data that show exactly what distance was covered in a day, but Elektroauto-News reports von Tell left Zurich on March 11 and successfully made it to Stuttgart in less than 24 hours (23 hours and 48mins to be exact).
A trip that took him through Liechtenstein, Austria and into Germany, the distance covered was 1,070 miles, which unofficially surpasses the previous record set by seven riders who took turns on a Zero SR at a closed circuit to notch up 818 miles in 24 hours.
Elektroauto-News reports he covered 124 miles on his first charge, so using that as an approximate base we calculate he had to stop around nine times to give the LiveWire some electronic juice.
However, this depends on whether his fast charges were simply 40mins to charge the battery to 80% or waiting a full hour to get 100%.
It goes some way to prove you needn’t fear the dwindling battery dial on a machine in areas where there are plentiful opportunities to stop and charge. Though you wonder what would have happened if he came to charging stations that were already being used and just how frugally he was having to ride.
Either way, it’s an impressive distance not least because your bones will certainly be feeling such a long journey on any motorcycle, not that we expect people to choose a LiveWire for regular touring…
