LiveWire, the electric branch of Harley-Davidson, has entered into a strategic partnership with Kymco, the Taiwanese manufacturer of (motor) scooters, quads and… yes, mobility scooters. According to Harley, this should lead to the creation of an electric maxi scooter, mainly intended for the European market.
The fact that Harley-Davidson was the first of the mainstream brands to come up with an electric motorcycle, the LiveWire, was not well received by die-hard Harley fans, but that step is small beer compared to the fiasco. therefore a terrible concept of what the first electric Harley scooter is. Well, a LiveWire electric scooter, but still.
LiveWire says it plans to launch the very first electric maxi scooter in the first half of 2026, which is currently being developed in collaboration with Taiwan’s Kymco. Kymco has a lot of experience with scooters and LiveWire says it has a lot of experience with electric drives, although we still have doubts about this given the waterfall of recalls.
The joint project uses the problem-plagued S2 Arrow powertrain. The S2 Arrow drivetrain therefore forms the basis for the completely new electric maxi-scooter, which, according to the Americans, should bring the benchmark performance and range options of the S2 engines to the maxi-scooter category.
What benchmark brand performance do we think?
“The belief that we could create a class-leading maxi scooter using our S2 Arrow powertrain has always been there,” said Karim Donnez, CEO of LiveWire. “Being able to leverage KYMCO’s expertise has turned belief into reality. We are excited to embark on this journey with such a globally recognized category leader.”
In turn, Allen Ko, chairman of Kymco, is of course extremely positive about LiveWire. “LiveWire is an iconic leader in electric solutions for urban mobility. We are excited to collaborate with them in the development of an S2-based electric maxi scooter,” said Ko.
The electric scooter is planned for the first half of 2026, but something tells us that sales will be just as fast as the current S2 models, which are not doing well.
– Thanks for information from Motorfreaks.