Rolling Thunder or Rolling Blunder?

Summer is finally here and no doubt you'll be taking advantage of it like most do -- getting out to enjoy the warm weather and doing all the cool stuff you can do outside.

I always notice a lot more motorcycles on the road during the Summer months. Yesterday Harley-Davidson released a video promoting the imminent launch of Project Livewire. It's a national tour promoting -- get this -- an electric Harley-Davidson.

As you'll see in the video, it's a really cool looking bike and at high speeds the noise it makes is what I imagine a UFO would sound like. It's generating a fair amount of controversy too -- motorcycle purists (Harley-Davidson purists in particular) don't seem to regard it as a 'real' bike. Although it's got power on par with a traditional motorcycle, it's only got about a 50 mile range (for now) and most importantly, it makes almost no noise so the 'Loud Pipes Save Lives' fans feel it's actually more dangerous.

Also, how are you supposed to roll up to your local roadhouse now? In complete silence? And you can't sit at a red light and rev your engine on it either, unless you want to go shooting silently out into cross traffic.

It's definitely a bold move by HD and I personally feel like anything that will advance electric vehicle development is a good thing.  Moreover, I imagine this will eventually bring new customers to Harley-Davidson that are outside of their demographic and perhaps a lot of first time riders.

What do you think about this e-Hogg?  See for yourself and check out the video above!