Preview: Harley-Davidson Project LiveWire

Harley-Davidson has developed a bit of a reputation for a lack of innovation. Many of its bikes are filled with technologies that were state of the art several decades ago, but are now anachronisms of a bygone era. So you can imagine everyone's surprise when Harley-Davidson announced last week that they were going to be diving into the world of electric motorcycles. Called Project LiveWire, this initial effort will primarily be to gauge customer interest and determine if the market exists for a full-scale effort. The goal was more than to just create an electric version of one of Harley's existing bikes, but rather to create a whole new bike that marries the latest electric motorcycle technology with design traits that are classically H-D.

Out of sheer good fortune, I had the opportunity to go and check out the bike in-person and get not only some photos, but also a quick demo of it, although a test ride was not possible at the time.