Harley – after having lost $75 million last year alone trying to sell electric “motorcycles” – is back to selling motorcycles again. A new bike called the Deadwood is apt to sell a lot better than the LiveWire, which hardly did at all. (In the first quarter of 2025, only 33 of Harley’s electric simulations of a motorcycle were sold.)

The Deadwood is what a Harley motorcycle ought to be – functionally. Frame, engine and attitude. There’s not much chrome. There aren’t even saddlebags. It’s almost Easy Rider elemental. It’s the kind of bike a guy under 60 might want to ride – and that matters (as far as Harley’s future) at least as much as the fact that there’s a an engine and a transmission rather than a battery and a motor. If Harley wants to be in the motorcycle-selling business ten years down the road, it has got to figure out how to sell bikes to people who won’t be collecting Social Security ten years down the road.

This, as the saying goes, is a start.

There’s a problem, though. The Deadwood’s base price is $1 shy of $18k and that’s probably going to keep most younger guys of this bike. Middle-aged guys too, probably. Because just shy of $20k is a lot of money to spend on a bike. For most people. Because most people primarily drive a car – because motorcycles (especially stripped won cruisers like this one) aren’t the right tool for carrying much more than just you and your wallet. They’re the wrong tool on snow days and – unless you live in Southern California or Arizona, you probably have to have a car for those days.

Most people can’t afford an expensive bike given how expensive cars have gotten.

The hard-to-understand thing is why this Harley is so expensive. There’s not much there, after all. A frame made of tube steel and a big V-twin engine, plus wheels and tires. It ought not to cost $1 shy of $18k. It looks like it ought to cost maybe $10-12k. So why does it cost $1 shy of $18k? It might be because Harley badly needs the money back it has lost trying to sell the LiveWire. If so, that’s a good way to lose even more money. The Deadwood’s a nice bike; an appealing bike. Neither of which are worth a dime if people don’t buy the bike.

It might not be Harley’s fault, though. While it ought not to cost so much to sell a bike like this, it probably costs a lot to make it – in the United States. Royal Enfield is able to make bikes for vastly less and so sells them – at a profit – for vastly less – because it doesn’t make its bikes in the United States. They are made in India where  it costs much less to make bikes (and everything else) to a great extent because India’s regulatory costs are much lower. Harley could probably make the Deadwire for a lot less in India, too – and then it would be able to sell it for a lot less than $1 shy of $18k here and then it would probably be able to sell more bikes and make more money. It makes sense, doesn’t it?

Of course, there is the problem of America’s Motorcycle being made in India. But why should it be a problem? It hasn’t been a problem for Royal Enfield, which used to make bikes in Britain but went bankrupt trying to sell them for essentially the same reasons that now beset Harley Davidson. Would it not preferable to make Harleys in India than for Harley to stop making Harleys altogether?

Of course, the problem could and arguably should be addressed by addressing the  problem of the costs of making bikes and other things in America, so that American companies like Harley don’t go out of business or end up having to move their manufacturing operations to India (or China). President Trump could do a lot more good by cutting regulatory costs than by imposing tariffs on stuff made elsewhere that he believes has an “unfair advantage” because it costs less to make stuff elsewhere. This is stupid and self-destructive, which amounts to the same thing. Tariffs are just a different kind of tax but we pay them just the same. Making imported stuff cost more by tariff-taxing it does not make domestically made stuff cost less. It just makes everything cost more.

You may have noticed, as a case in point, that the cost of cars is going up rather down, on account of Trump’s tariff/taxes.

Harley is on the right track at last – but it’s going to take more than just that to save Harley – and America. It will take leadership that understands you have to be able to make money selling things – and you can’t sell things if the regs make them so expensive to make that they have to be sold at a price most people aren’t willing (or able) to pay.

. . .

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