No better time to buy? LiveWire One is now more than half its launch price

Visordown first got its hands on the production Harley-Davidson LiveWire in 2019, at the official European launch in Barcelona. And on the whole, we loved it, although its near £30k price tag was a stumbling block.

And that’s an issue, because when you add a sky-high price with an emerging technology, early adopters can be hard to find. And they were; in the UK during its first year, the Harley-Davidson-badged LiveWire sold iat a snail's pace, and the story wasn’t much better in Harley’s homeland. 

In fact, in the entire time the bike was available with a bar and shield on the ‘tank’, it’s estimated that between 500 and 700 were sold globally. Whichever way you spin it, that’s a seriously low return for a bike that cost hundreds of millions to design, develop and manufacture.

The slow sales led to price cuts, and when LiveWire became its own standalone brand in 2021, the price of the rebadged (but technically identical) LiveWire One dropped just under £20,000. 

That helped sales somewhat, with global sales estimated to be between 2,000 and 3,000 units after the reduction. Still, it’s not really enough to get the champagne corks popping in the Harley boardroom.

Well, now there has been another price cut, and this one might actually start to move the needle. Here in the UK a brand spanking new LiveWire One, you know, the bike you’d be paying nearly £30,000 for just a few years ago, is listed at £12,990. That’s more than half the original list price, and just over £2,000 more than the cheapest S2 bike.

So, does that make the One more of an attractive proposition, or is buying an electric bike at this time still the wrong move?

Let’s get real, the LiveWire One isn’t suddenly a practical replacement for a petrol bike because of this. At least not for everybody. Range, charging times and the availability of reliable rapid chargers still need to be factored into the equation, particularly if you’re looking at it as an everyday bike or planning longer trips. 

At £12,990, though, those compromises are a lot easier to swallow than they were at £30,000. And that’s probably the most interesting thing about the LiveWire One now. 

It was always an impressive motorcycle, but its biggest problem was that Harley-Davidson tried to sell a relatively radical new idea at a very traditional, very premium price. 

At this money, the equation looks rather different. Whether that makes it a bargain or simply a cheap way into a bike that still has its compromises will depend on how, and where, you ride it.

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