personally I'd rather eat an armour hot dog than ride one of these anyway... 5's

I'm not specifically targeting Harley at all, but this design is for a niche market of Greenies that ride. I can't imagine that the avg Harley biker is gonna wanna ride this or accessorize this. No loud pipes, nothing to chrome, designed as a sportsbike instead of a cruiser, and automatic. Would seem to be a dead end as were previous auto bikes with ICE powerplants. I have only seen 2 V-Rods on the road since 2001 and one was in 2001 when it debuted. Good news is that Audi has a bike for production, so that should prove interesting ;-)

If I rode a bike, which I don't, no sense of balance, I wouldn't be able to get it from the nearest Harley dealership in Grandview, Missouri back to Kansas City, KS. Not only would you have to buy the bike, you would have to get a truck or trailer to haul it to Sturgis. Kind of defeats the tree-hugger imprssion, as well as the bad-ass biker image. Does this thing have training wheels?

Patrick, I live in Sacramento, Ca. which loves the entire Green Movement. We have a lot of electric cars and bicycles on the road and manufacture them and their components. There are electric stations too and Gov Brown is all for it. Electric motorcycles are nothing new just as electric cars that debuted in the early 20th century- it just wasn't practical compared to fuel driven vehicles. The overall design of the Live Wire is decent if it had a big 4-cyl engine but that electric core can only deliver for a max range of 50 miles. Normal motorcycles have ranges of hundreds of miles depending on the type and tank capacity. Can you imagine trying to drive the LW to Sturgis from anywhere? 50 miles for me is a 1 hr drive on errands and used to be to and from work daily! Bikers that actually live to ride go 100s a miles a day. And what makes me laugh is the fake crotch rocket design. At high speed the motor will simply lose all its juice fast and then what? Dead stop in the middle of nowhere or a busy freeway or intersection? The better futuristic idea is a chem engine that uses fuel pellets to produce fuel. No gas station as you can carry a bag of pellets in storage spaces, bags, or on yourself. German idea or fuel cell hybrid just like cars. 0-30 electric then switches to ICE and then 30 back to stop. Repeat. Range increased by 300 miles! Idle an option!!!