Another quarter and another year have passed, and Harley-Davidson’s electric motorcycle company LiveWire continues to disappoint investors and, apparently, potential buyers of its motorcycles. The LiveWire brand has never seen a profitable quarter, and Q4 2024 and its full-year financials continue this unfortunate trend. Despite the statements of LiveWire’s CEO Karim Donnez, the brand has been and continues to be a dismal failure. While an investor’s slide depicts terrible sales and revenue numbers, the bullets summarizing its results concentrate on reducing losses, not realizing gains. To sum up the bullets, LiveWire lost less money than the previous year and reduced selling expenses, including headcount. Not a word was said about profit and sales other than in the two charts depicted on the slide.
LiveWire couldn’t meet its previous year’s downgraded sales projection. Image: Harley-Davidson
From its beginning in 2021 to the present, the company has only sold around 2,300 motorcycles. Q4 and full-year numbers show LiveWire experiencing losses in sales and revenue. Quarter over quarter, motorcycle sales experienced a whopping 54 percent decline. Year over year, sales declined a more modest 7 percent. Still, despite having downgraded its sales number in 2023, LiveWire couldn’t even meet its previous full-year sales figures, selling only 612 bikes in 2024 versus 2023, where it sold 660 machines, down from its initially projected 1,000 to 1,500 bikes.
Unfortunately, LiveWire has consistently missed its sales projections during its lifetime. But for some reason, LiveWire and Harley-Davidson are again projecting an increase in the number of electric motorcycles they will sell in 2025. This time, LiveWire and Harley-Davidson are saying that they will sell between 1,000 and 1,500 motorcycles. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what LiveWire and Harley-Davidson said in 2023 after telling investors in 2022 that they would sell between 750 and 2,000 bikes. I guess hope springs eternal.
LiveWire has never met its sales projections but continues to hope that 2025 will bring more sales. Image: Harley-Davidson
Image: Harley-Davidson
Revenue Is Also Down
With fewer sales come fewer revenue dollars, and LiveWire tanked both its year-over-year quarterly and full-year results. Revenue dropped 32 percent quarter over quarter, while for the full year, revenue dropped 31 percent. Perhaps more unsettling is the fact that LiveWire’s STACYC children’s balance bike segment contributed $26.5M of the company’s full-year revenue of $38M. Without STACYC, LiveWire’s full-year revenue would be a measly $11.5M. That means that STAYCYC is literally generating more than twice the revenue as LiveWire. If you look closely at Harley-Davidson’s/LiveWire’s 2024 full-year results slide, you will see asterisked item number 3. It says: “Revenue is comprised of both LiveWire electric motorcycles and STACYC electric balance bicycles.”
LiveWire’s “2024 Highlights”
Perhaps the most discouraging of LiveWire investor’s slide is the one where it provides its “Business Update” and 2024 Highlights. Not one bullet concentrates on 2024 or 2025’s profit or sales. Telling investors about existing or upcoming products does little to help them understand LiveWire’s problems or its path ahead, with one exception. The slide does mention LiveWire’s previously announced plan to work with Kymco to develop an electric maxi scooter. According to both LiveWire/Harley-Davidson and Kymco, the new maxi-scooter will be built on the LiveWire S2 platform and will be launched in the first half of 2026. If you are wondering why Kymco got the nod to partner with LiveWire, you don’t have to look any further than the holders of LiveWire stock. It turns out that Kymco is LiveWire’s 2nd largest shareholder.
Image: Harley-Davidson
$89M US Government Grant
In the sea of red ink that is LiveWire’s financials, one significant revenue injection entered the company’s coffers. In July 2024, LiveWire received an $89M US government grant. According to a press release by US Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, the grant was to help LiveWire “…hit its goal of producing more zero-emission motorcycles…” That seems a bit strange since LiveWire’s limited sales don’t seem to reflect the need for LiveWire to produce more electric motorcycles. Specifically, Casey’s release said the grant funding would “…support the $178 million investment necessary to upgrade current electric model quality and to increase production of two existing models.” At the moment, unless LiveWire’s sales rocket, there doesn’t seem a need to increase production.
Harley-Davidson’s View
As you might imagine, LiveWire’s poor financial results and drain on Harley-Davidson’s cash have caught the attention of Wall Street market analysts. During this quarter’s conference call, analysts raised several pointed questions about LiveWire’s performance and what Harley-Davidson saw as the way forward. In response to a Wall Street analyst’s questions, LiveWire’s CEO Donnez responded with its cost-cutting measures. However, he really didn’t have any data showing how LiveWire would improve its sales and revenue performance, except for the company’s deal with Kymco to build a new maxi-scooter.
Harley-Davidson’s CEO Jochen Zeitz also jumped in and offered some clues about LiveWire’s future. He told investors that Harley was evaluating the business performance of LiveWire very carefully. He also said that LiveWire brings “a lot of benefits beyond electrification to Harley,” although he did not specify what those benefits were. But he did acknowledge that LiveWire was not achieving the targets that had been set for it. He also noted that Harley had invested a lot of money into LiveWire and that the performance needs to happen. Otherwise, Harley would obviously have to look at some “optionalities,” but Harley was still committed to the business at this point. Zeitz’s statements were the closest the Harley CEO has come to saying that LiveWire’s days may be limited.
Pulling The Plug
Zeitz’s response to the analyst’s question suggests that MoCo is growing weary of investing millions of dollars into its electric motorcycle division. His Hardwire strategy to end over-promising and underperforming is contrary to LiveWire’s years-long financial performance. Still, LiveWire is touting its relationship with Kymco for a 2026 release of its maxi-scooter, which also suggests that MoCo is willing to at least prop up the company until then.
Should Harley-Davidson pull the plug on LiveWire, or should they gut it out until the new maxi-scooter hits the market? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
