The Max Noble 5 Minute Study · No. 0013
The Morning Brief Edition · The accounts: the cash runway
The silent Harley
Harley-Davidson built an electric motorcycle and priced it like a family car. Twelve years on, its electric company sells about 29 children’s bikes for every motorcycle, and warns it may not keep going.
By Max Noble · 2 November 2026 · 5 min read
The idea
New York, 19 June 2014. Harley-Davidson, the company that sells the loudest engine in America, showed a motorcycle that barely made a sound.
It was called Project LiveWire. The press release promised “tire-shredding acceleration and an unmistakable new sound”. The new sound was mostly silence, and from Harley that was the whole point.
Then it went on tour down Route 66, to more than 30 dealers, like a band that has not yet written its songs.
Twelve years later, Harley’s electric company sells about 29 children’s bikes for every motorcycle. On 29 October 2026 it warned that it may not keep going. This study shows you why in five minutes, with the one number in its accounts that matters most now.
The company
Harley’s quiet child
LiveWire designs electric motorcycles and is listed on the stock market.
It also makes STACYC electric balance bikes for small children, and these sell in far larger numbers than its motorcycles.
Harley-Davidson owns most of its shares, and its biggest loan, from a lender connected to the company, falls due in December 2027.
The promise
An electric guitar, not an electric car
The promise was made twice. In 2014 Harley’s marketing chief, Mark-Hans Richer, put it like this:
“Project LiveWire is more like the first electric guitar – not an electric car.”
On 13 December 2021 Harley announced that LiveWire would list on the stock market, in a deal valuing it at about $1.77 billion (about DKK 12 billion). Harley’s chief executive at the time, Jochen Zeitz, told Bloomberg Television: “We want to lead in electric.”
The plan behind it, Bloomberg reported from the investor presentation, aimed for “more than 100,000 electric motorcycles in 2026”. Bloomberg put the starting point at 387.
Some guitar. It was booked for a stadium tour before it had played a pub.
The moment
Thursday, 29 October 2026
In 2025 LiveWire sold 653 electric motorcycles. In the same year it sold 21,633 children’s bikes.
In the third quarter of 2026 it sold 241 motorcycles and 6,992 children’s bikes. That is about 29 children’s bikes for every motorcycle.
On 29 October its quarterly release said revenue was up 38%. Further down, it said there is “substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern”. In plain words: it may not be able to keep going.
It withdrew its forecast for the year. In February it had forecast an operating loss of $70–80 million for 2026 (about DKK 470–535 million).
Its shareholders’ equity fell below zero, to minus $5.5 million (about DKK 37 million). On paper, it owed more than it owned.
A week earlier its board had set up a Special Restructuring Committee and brought in Roy Gallagher as chief restructuring officer, to lead a rescue or a reshaping. The committee is looking at new money, partners or a sale.
The next day Harley’s chief executive, Artie Starrs, spoke on Harley’s own results call, RideApart reports: “We don’t intend to fund the operating losses of the team going forward.”
LiveWire has not filed in any court.
The moment, in one chart
Smaller losses, still losses
Loss from running the business (operating loss). 2024 and 2025: full-year 2025 release, 10 Feb 2026. January–September 2026: third-quarter release, 29 Oct 2026. Kroner at $1 = DKK 6.69 (30 Oct 2026).
The losses did shrink. They did not shrink to zero, and the cash kept leaving.
Sales rose 38%. The cash halved. Both are true.
The tool
The runway: cash ÷ what leaves each month
Forget the profit line for a minute. A company stops when the cash runs out, so the first number to read in a set of accounts is the runway: the cash in the bank, divided by how much leaves it each month.
| Line | US dollars | Kroner |
|---|---|---|
| Cash, 31 Dec 2025 | $82.8m | DKK 554m |
| Cash, 30 Sep 2026 | $39.9m | DKK 267m |
| Gone in nine months | $42.9m | DKK 287m |
| Gone per month, on average | about $4.8m | about DKK 32m |
| Runway at that pace | about 8 months, into mid-2027 | |
That is my arithmetic, not the company’s, and new money or deep cuts would change it. But read it beside one date: the related-party loan falls due in December 2027. At this pace the cash would run out first.
The runway is the one number in the accounts that comes with a clock.
Your verdict
LiveWire’s trouble was never the engineering; it was the price it started at.
Now the price. The first LiveWire went on sale in 2019 at $29,799, about DKK 199,000. Its new S4 Honcho Trail sells at $4,999, about DKK 33,000. Its first US deliveries came in August 2026.
Harley built a beautiful electric motorcycle and priced it like a family car. At prices like that the crowd stayed away: 653 motorcycles in all of 2025.
The crowd was there all along, at the bottom of the market: children on balance bikes, sold by the thousand. The cheap motorcycle came in the same nine months the cash halved.
So the question now is not whether the bikes are good. It is whether a partner with money and a factory arrives before the runway ends.
Your move
You are in the chair. Three moves.
- Find a partner with money and a factory. Harley says it does not intend to fund the losses. I would talk this month to makers who build cheap bikes in large numbers, while the brand still has value.
- Make the cheap bike the company. The S4 Honcho is the first LiveWire priced for the crowd. I would put the best engineers on its cost and quality, and pause the expensive line.
- Cut costs to fit the sales. A company selling a few hundred motorcycles a quarter cannot carry the costs of one that planned for 100,000 a year. I would cut until the runway reaches past the loan date.
The verdict and the moves are Max Noble’s analysis of the business, not investment advice.
The law it proves
Start at the Price the Crowd Can Pay
New technology wins from the bottom of the market. LiveWire started at $29,799 and brought a bike at about $5,000 to buyers only as its cash was halving. Launch at the price most buyers can pay, then climb.
— Max Noble
Sources
Every figure can be traced
LiveWire Group, third-quarter 2026 results, SEC Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, 29 Oct 2026: revenue $7.9m, up 38%; going-concern wording; 241 motorcycles and 6,992 STACYC units; operating loss Q3 $17.5m, nine months $53.2m; cash $39.9m (31 Dec 2025: $82.8m); shareholders’ equity −$5.5m; guidance of a $70–80m operating loss withdrawn; Special Restructuring Committee formed 22 Oct, Roy Gallagher CRO; the company is evaluating financing and other strategic alternatives, which may include capital raises, partnerships, investments or sales; debt maturity December 2027; S4 Honcho first US deliveries in August
sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001898795/000189879526000107/lvwrexhibit9919-30x2026.htm
LiveWire Group, fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results, SEC Form 8-K, exhibit 99.1, 10 Feb 2026: 653 motorcycles and 21,633 STACYC units in 2025; operating loss $75.5m (2024: $110.4m); year-end cash $82.8m; $75.0m related-party convertible loan
sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1898795/000189879526000016/lvwrexhibit99112-31x2025.htm
LiveWire Group, Annual Report on Form 10-K for 2025, Item 1A Risk factors (pp. 17–56): H-D “is our majority stockholder”
sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1898795/000189879526000028/lvwr-20251231.htm
Harley-Davidson, press release, 19 Jun 2014, “Harley-Davidson reveals Project LiveWire”: New York reveal; “an unmistakable new sound”; Mark-Hans Richer quote; “tire-shredding acceleration”; Mark-Hans Richer, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, “Project LiveWire is more like the first electric guitar – not an electric car”; Route 66 tour to more than 30 dealers
h-dmediakit.com · June 19th 2014 – Harley-Davidson reveals Project LiveWire (PDF)
Bloomberg (Gabrielle Coppola, Matthew Miller), 13 Dec 2021, filed by Harley-Davidson with the SEC under Rule 425: Jochen Zeitz, “We want to lead in electric”; “more than 100,000 electric motorcycles in 2026”, up from 387; value about $1.77bn
sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/793952/000119312521356464/d218526d425.htm
RideApart (Jonathon Klein), 30 Oct 2026: Artie Starrs on Harley-Davidson’s third-quarter call, “We don’t intend to fund the operating losses of the team going forward”
rideapart.com/news/813930/harley-davidson-will-not-save-livewire-ev-motorcycle-maker
BizTimes (Arthur Thomas), 8 Jan 2019: LiveWire suggested retail price $29,799
biztimes.com/harley-davidson-livewire-available-for-pre-order-with-nearly-30000-price-tag
Electrek (Micah Toll), 9 Jun 2026: S4 Honcho Trail US $4,999, S4 Honcho Street $5,499
electrek.co/2026/06/09/harleys-livewire-reveals-surprisingly-low-pricing-on-new-s4-electric-motorcycles
Exchange rate: USD/DKK mid-rate 30 Oct 2026, 6.6874 (rounded to 6.69, used on every dollar figure; the 2021 value converted at the same rate)
poundsterlinglive.com/history/USD-DKK-2026
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Five minutes. One company. One tool.
Now it is your call. One question, yes or no, and you see who was right.
Will LiveWire stay out of court until 31 March?
Max Noble Odds · Yes 2.33 (+50 XP) · No 1.75 (+40 XP)
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