Harley-Davidson’s Spinoff Has Two Reasonably priced Electric Motorcycles Coming This Summer season And They Look Like A Barrel Of Enjoyable

Electric bikes are such an effective way to get pleasure from life on two wheels. They’re quiet, highly effective, and emit no fumes. But electrical bikes are sometimes prohibitively costly. LiveWire, Harley-Davidson’s electrical motorbike spinoff, needs to alter that. This summer time, it’s launching two electrical mini bikes that ought to carry out equally to a Honda Grom, but in addition be reasonably priced. Meet the LiveWire Honcho, the little electrical cutie that LiveWire has lastly revealed extra details about.

As I’ve written a number of occasions prior to now, electrical motorbike adoption has confronted a bumpy street in America. One of the ways in which motorbike producers get extra vary out of their ‘lectro steeds is by loading them down with batteries. This works, but it surely additionally leads to heavier bikes which may value $15,000 and even typically twice that. The American motorbike market is normally seen as one which favors using for pleasure somewhat than major transportation. Thus far, a couple of firm has discovered it laborious to promote the American biker on a pricy electrical motorbike, particularly since a few of these costly bikes will see their vary drop under 100 miles when ridden on a freeway.

Many firms are pivoting to promoting cheaper, extra reasonably priced bikes. One of them is Harley-Davidson’s electrical spinoff, LiveWire. As of the time of publishing, LiveWire doesn’t promote a present mannequin yr motorbike that’s cheaper than $11,999. Last yr, LiveWire’s most cost-effective bike was $9,999. Even Harley-Davidson itself has a motorbike that’s $2,000 cheaper than that, and the Motor Company shouldn’t be precisely recognized for affordability.

To illustrate the state of electrical bikes in America, our buddies at RideApart cite the Motorcycle Industry Council in saying that LiveWire is the primary vendor of electrical bikes with 50 HP or higher in America. The twist? LiveWire offered 653 electrical bikes in 2025, solely 41 extra models than in 2024. LiveWire has lengthy had a plan to make itself extra accessible, and it’s by producing a line of smaller, extra reasonably priced bikes. Now, we’re lastly attending to see them take form.

Small Is The New Big

When I first wrote concerning the minibikes final yr, they didn’t have a reputation or actually any laborious info to go along with it. LiveWire simply rolled out the prototypes and instructed the world that we’d get one path bike and one road bike, each with roughly 125cc-like efficiency.

Late final yr, LiveWire confirmed that the bikes would fall beneath the title of “Honcho” and be the corporate’s first bikes to experience on its S4 platform. This was fascinating information for quite a few causes. Back when LiveWire was spun off into its personal firm in 2021, it introduced a scalable structure known as Arrow. The thought was that LiveWire’s engineers might take the identical bones and stretch them out or decrease them to create a complete lineup of bikes. The good thing about the Arrow was that it had fewer elements than the Harley-Davidson LiveWire and might be constructed 44 % quicker.

LiveWire mentioned that its Arrow derivatives could be the S1, the S2, the S3, and the S4. The LiveWire One is taken into account to be an S1 “premium” bike. The S2s, which at present encompass the Del Mar tracker, the Mulholland cruiser, and the Alpinista sport normal, are middleweights. The S3 bikes are supposed to be light-weight machines developed in partnership with Kymco. Finally, there was the S4, which LiveWire mentioned was the designation for a heavyweight flagship.

Well, the S4 Honcho is neither large nor heavy, however perhaps LiveWire sees it as a form of halo mannequin. The time period “Honcho” is derived from the Japanese time period 班長 (hanchō), which roughly interprets to “group leader.” So, these are small bikes with large names.

Some of what we realized final yr hasn’t modified since my final report. LiveWire intends to promote the bikes because the S4 Honcho Street and the S4 Honcho Trail. Both bikes have tubular frames and use their battery packing containers as structural members. They even have the identical hydraulic disc brakes which have their capabilities linked and are activated with a left and proper lever, no foot pedal.

Power comes from a pair of swappable batteries that weigh 40 kilos every. LiveWire has not mentioned something about cost occasions or capacities, however did say that the prototype Honchos have batteries from Kymco. At the very least, having swappable batteries means you possibly can personal a Honcho with out having a storage. You’ll simply must get used to lugging as much as 80 kilos of batteries into your house.

While unconfirmed, the truth that the batteries of the prototypes have been made by Kymco suggests Kymco might need had a hand in a number of the design. Here’s what I wrote about LiveWire’s relationship with Kymco final yr:

Back in 2022, LiveWire partnered up with Taiwanese scooter large Kymco, with each firms throwing a ton of cash and expertise at one another. Kymco will get to play with the Arrow structure whereas LiveWire will get to borrow Kymco’s scooter experience. In 2023, RideApart reported that Kymco’s Ionex EV platform, which options swappable batteries, might be shared with LiveWire. Cycle World reported in 2024 that Kymco was additionally main the event of LiveWire’s Arrow-based light-weight S3 platform.

The variations between the Street and the Trail are few, however vital. The Street has a telescopic fork up entrance, a monoshock within the rear, 12-inch wheels, road tires, and a 30.5-inch seat peak. It additionally has all the lighting, flip indicators, and mirrors to make it street-legal.

The Trail does away with all the street-legal stuff and trades the street-friendly suspension for a taller fork and a taller rear shock. The Trail model’s off-road tires have meaty lugs, and the seat peak is a barely taller 32 inches. The Trail model even has a reverse mode. It’s mentioned that the Honchos are sized to be greater than a pit bike, however not full-size. So, about on par with 125cc gasoline-powered bikes.

LiveWire’s advertising reveals fashions having fun with the S4 Honcho Street such as you would a Honda Grom and the S4 Honcho Trail such as you would one thing like a Coleman minibike. Apparently, this advertising may not be incidental. Cycle World has reported that, at reveals, they’ve heard the Honcho unofficially known as an “electric Grom” and LiveWire’s web site describes the Honchos as “mini-motos.”

This, I believe, is nice. The Honda Grom is a superb benchmark for a 125cc-style motorbike, and I hope the Honchos are simply as enjoyable. LiveWire hasn’t printed the ultimate specs but, however the specs from the prototypes have been promising. LiveWire mentioned the prototypes might go as much as 100 miles on a cost, had a high pace of 53 mph, and will speed up to 30 mph in three seconds. I’d anticipate to see within the ballpark of 12 HP to fifteen HP. LiveWire additionally mentioned that the prototype Honchos weighed “around 250 pounds,” which might make them just a little heavier than the Grom, however not by a lot.

Of course, the 100-mile vary determine is optimistic and certain assumes rolling slowly round a metropolis. But even in the event you obtained 50 miles of vary ripping across the Trail model, that’s some good off-road enjoyable proper there!

All of that assumes that LiveWire can nail the worth down. A Grom-like bike ought to have a Grom-like worth. Sadly, LiveWire has not revealed pricing both. The S4 Honchos have been additionally supposed to come back out this spring, however LiveWire delayed the launch to possible someday this summer time. I hope that, every time these do come out, they’ve a worth far under $10,000 and even far under $7,000. You can get a Honda Grom for $3,899, together with vacation spot cost, and that form of low worth goes to be laborious to beat.

I believe these little bikes might be winners if LiveWire doesn’t screw up the worth. I might see the Honcho Trail being a cool little experience you set into your truck mattress and use for a weekend of searching. The Honcho Street could be a enjoyable, cheap-to-run city experience. It’ll be much more interesting if it could do stunts like a Grom can. I assume I’ll have to attend and see.

Top graphic picture: Harley-Davidson/LiveWire