The wave of electric mobility is coming, and transportation companies are paddling hard to catch that wave. One of those companies is Harley-Davidson-owned LiveWire Group. With the backing of the MoCo, the LiveWire Group produces both full-size electric motorcycles and electric child-sized balance bikes.
2023 Financial results
Recently, the LiveWire Group released its 2023 final results. As with most new startups, especially those with significant capital and development expenses, profitability is more of a long-term goal than a short-term one. So, the fact that LiveWire posted an operating loss of $116,000,000 is not that big a deal since LiveWire has the funding and assistance of its parent company, Harley-Davidson, to fall back upon. Harley-Davidson is by far the largest shareholder in LiveWire.
LiveWire’s STACYC kid-sized balance bikes brought in more revenue than the full-sized LiveWire motorcycles in 2022. Image: LiveWire
But what about sales?
More concerning are the sales of actual motorcycles. LiveWire’s first full-size electric motorcycle was initially produced and branded as a Harley-Davidson. Called the “LiveWire” at its initial launch and later called the ” LiveWire One,” the bike came with a nearly $30,000 price tag.
To say the least, sales were not brisk. It’s difficult to determine how many LiveWire and LiveWire One motorcycles have been sold. However, the LiveWire Group’s 2022 full-year results show that only 50 Harley-Davidson LiveWire One motorcycles were sold. 2023 was even worse with zero (i.e., none) Harley-Davidson LiveWire One motorcycles sold. Depending on whose data you believe, in total, Harley-Davidson and LiveWire have only sold somewhere around 1,700 motorcycles since inception. This includes their “newly released” S2 Del Mar middleweight motorcycle.
Could the S2 Del Mar boost LiveWire’s sales significantly?
The S2 Del Mar is a LiveWire Group manufactured motorcycle. It was the first LiveWire motorcycle to use the company’s new “Arrow” architecture, which the company claims has an all-new in-house developed battery pack, power electronics, motor, telematics, and associated software. Better still, the LiveWire Group claimed that the S2 architecture could be used for other LiveWire motorcycles, including the in-process and yet-to-be-officially-named S3. Priced initially at $16,999 and later at $15,499, the Del Mar was nearly half the price of the original LiveWire. The new machine was supposed to offer a more affordable route to the LiveWire brand.
For the full year of 2023, LiveWire managed to sell only 660 motorcycles. Image: LiveWire
So when it went on sale to the public, the LiveWire Group hoped that the new machine would sell out and contribute to the LiveWire Group’s coffers significantly. However, the reality is that the S2 Del Mar underperformed in the sales department.
In a 2022 financial outlook for 2023, the LiveWire Group said it expected to sell between 750 to 2000 Del Mar electric motorcycles. But when the year closed, the LiveWire Group had only sold 660 electric motorcycles.
Adding in the mere 597 motorcycles LiveWire sold in 2022 and the 461 sold in 2021, the LiveWire group had only sold 1,718 electric motorcycles in three full years. While LiveWire electric motorcycle sales did increase year over year, selling 63 motorcycles more than in the previous year is nothing to crow about.
But what about 2024?
From the LiveWire Group’s perspective, perhaps things aren’t so bad. In the past few years, there have been some significant obstacles to overcome. The effects of COVID undoubtedly impacted product development, parts availability, manufacturing, and even labor. But while COVID-19 raged in earnest in 2020, things were levelling out by the end of 2021.
So, 2022 should have been the beginning of LiveWire’s recovery and bigger sales. But it didn’t happen. With three years of sales behind them and only 1,718 unit sales completed, now LiveWire is telling investors that it plans to sell only between 1,000 and 1,500 revenue units in all of 2024.
In 2022, LiveWire said its sales would increase phenomenally to about 190,000 units by 2030. Image: LiveWire
That number is a far cry from what the company had previously told investors in early 2022. At that time, a LiveWire investors document projected that LiveWire’s electric motorcycles would boom. According to that document, sales in 2023 should have been 7,236 motorcycles, and in 2024, that number would more than double to 15,736 unit sales.
While doubling sales in a single year would be phenomenal, the LiveWire Group also claimed that the following year, sales of LiveWire units would more than triple 2024’s sales and grow to 53,341 units. And in 2026, the LiveWire Group said that they would nearly double 2025’s sales and ship 100,961 units. Ultimately, by 2030, the LiveWire Group projected sales of their motorcycles would reach about 190,000 units.
Reasonable initial Projections?
When a company projects that in a year, it will double its unit sales, that’s a big deal. But it’s not an impossible feat. It’s challenging but not impossible. But when the same company then says unit sales will triple the following year and then double again the following year, many people would really start to question whether the company’s projections are reasonable.
Current projection
With the benefit of hindsight, the LiveWire Group’s projection seemed to have fallen to more reachable goals. Currently, the LiveWire Group says that it expects to sell between 1,000 and 1,500 revenue units. That’s substantially less than the 15,700+ motorcycles it previously said it could sell.
There is another
In the original Star Wars trilogy, Obi-Wan says to Yoda, “That boy is our last hope,” to which Yoda replies, “No, there is another.” The same goes for the LiveWire Group. The S2 Del Mar is not the end of the LiveWire Group’s model lineup.
The LiveWire S3 is in process but has yet to be publicly released. Rumors say that the bike will be named the “Mulholland” and that it will use the Arrow architecture to build a smaller version of the S2. Perhaps this bike is what LiveWire thinks will drive its sales.
Reality
Up until now, LiveWire’s sales have not gone as predicted. That said, its stock currently resides at about $10/share, which is about the same as it was when issued in November 2020. The stock was as low as $4.85 in December 22. So, considering today’s stock price, some people must think that LiveWire can make a go of it and succeed in the electric motorcycle marketplace.
But for now, LiveWire’s previous giant sales projections look to be unattainable. The question is, how long will Harley-Davidson back a company that continues to incur high costs and return little? Is LiveWire a dead man walking or perhaps a zombie looking for more cash to eat? Or will they grow, just more slowly than initially expected? What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
