Yahoo Autos 2024 LiveWire S2 Del Mar EV Motorcycle Is a Silent Gray Hooligan
"Hardly-Davidson." Even within Car and Driver, the LiveWire S2 Del Mar can't escape the sigh-inducing appellation. But judging the electric motorcycle by traditional Harley standards, much like assuming all H-D owners are try-hard Hells Angels cosplayers, does it a disservice. Because it's technically not a Harley-Davidson. And while it references some of the Bar and Shield's past and present, the Del Mar is a step toward LiveWire's future.
How LiveWire Relates to Harley-Davidson
First, though, some background. Similar to Genesis, LiveWire was originally the name of a single product. The first electric Harley was fast and fun but rather pricey. In 2021, Harley turned LiveWire from one bike to an all-electric brand. The OG LiveWire then became the flagship One. Then in 2022, a few months before it was spun off to become the U.S.'s first publicly traded electric motorcycle company, LiveWire announced a less expensive model: the S2 Del Mar.
Harley still maintains a majority stake in LiveWire, and the Del Mar is made at Harley's Pennsylvania factory. And while the name Harley-Davidson is prominently displayed in two places on the S2, the Del Mar isn't derived from a Harley-branded bike. Its Arrow platform is an all-new design. The platform is also modular—one reason why the Del Mar is less expensive than the One.
So, the S2 Del Mar is built by Harley, but it's not a Harley. It's also not a cruiser like its recently released platform sibling, the S2 Mulholland. It does, however, reference some other H-D history.
The Harley-Davidson XR750 was the most successful bike in American Motorcyclist Association Pro Racing history, and it was also one of the LiveWire team's design influences for the S2 Del Mar. Hence why the electric bike is called a "street tracker": It's intended for urban riding and gravel sliding.
Riding the S2 Del Mar on the Street and in the Dirt
To tackle both kinds of roads, the S2 Del Mar has an adjustable Showa suspension with 4.7 inches of travel front and rear, a flat handlebar, metal underbody protection, and Brembo brakes—four-piston calipers in front, single-piston in the rear—with an adjustable brake lever. Being electric, the S2 lacks a clutch lever, though it does have regenerative braking. It has all-LED lighting, too, because it gets dark out there.
But the Del Mar's on-/off-road qualifications aren't limited to hardware. Thanks to a six-axis accelerometer, the Del Mar considers the bike's lean angle in its ABS, traction control, and rear-wheel slip-control algorithms from Bosch. And they—as well as the regen level, power delivery, and throttle response—change with the riding mode. You get two custom modes and some built-in ones: Rain, Range, Road, and Sport (which features a Flat Track submode).
For stop-and-go city traffic, Range works well, with a gentle throttle setting and a high regen level that mean you only need to graze the physical brakes to promptly stop. Rain mode has less aggressive regen but similar power delivery and a higher level of traction control. In Road mode the Del Mar responds more eagerly to throttle inputs and mimics an ICE bike's engine braking via a lower regen level.
You could call Sport the "street hooligan" mode, because it makes the Del Mar rip. Whereas in Road mode, the S2 whispers temptations of wheelies, in Sport, the bike is itching to lift off. Max power, max response, and less intrusive traction control mean stomach-compressing-into-your-spine acceleration accompanied by uncontrollable cackling. And all without making everyone's eardrums bleed.
Because our usual testing site doesn't allow motorcycles, we couldn't verify LiveWire's 3.0-second 60-mph estimate. But the seat of my pants believes it. Its 84 horsepower doesn't sound like much, but it gives the 430-pound S2 Del Mar a fractionally better power-to-weight ratio than a C8 Corvette Z06. And 194 pound-feet of instant torque doesn't hurt either. I never really had to use more than half-throttle to rocket away from everyone in Sport. And I was honestly a little scared to use more.
This Is No Soulless EV
Quiet, effortlessly brain-scrambling acceleration is nothing new for two- or four-wheeled EVs. But it's so much more visceral on the former than in the latter. Believe EVs are soulless appliances? Ten minutes on the Del Mar, the smell of water and wildflowers rushing into your nose with the shrieking air, will make you think otherwise.
And there'll be plenty of wildflowers when you hit the dirt in Flat Track mode. It has Sport's response and power delivery but permits more front-wheel lift and rear-wheel slip. Oh, and it disables rear-wheel ABS. Ya know, for maximum slides.
If Sport is "street hooligan," Flat Track is "gravel hooligan." On some unpaved roads around Ann Arbor, the S2 Del Mar is a riot. Taking off from a stop sends a quick pebble spray from the rear wheel—and then you're off, maniacally giggling.
That capability isn't all down to power and torque, though. The Arrow platform makes the Del Mar fairly narrow and uses the lithium-ion battery as a stressed member of the chassis. That, combined with the Showa suspension, means this motorcycle is a blast to ride down twisting paths. The Del Mar responds eagerly to handlebar pressure and counter-steering. You'll be carving corners with a smile. It's not quite sport-bike sharp, but it's at least the equal of Indian's flat-track-inspired bike, the FTR. Whether you're taking an on-ramp at speed or zooming around in the dirt, the Del Mar is rock-solid stable. You only notice the weight at walking-pace speeds and extreme lean angles. And if you get going too fast, it takes just two fingers pulling on the brake lever to call the front Brembo to action in all modes.
Admittedly, the ride is on the stiffer side, particularly in the sportiest compression and rebound damping settings. And even in the plushier states, deep cracks and large bumps will make themselves known. But the bike's rear end stayed firmly in contact with the gravel no matter how ham-fisted I rode. Plus, the seat itself is surprisingly comfortable. So are the fins on the sides of the battery—think of them as built-in tank grips.
Overall, the S2 Del Mar is well damped and decently compliant on crumbling pavement and packed dirt. Silently scything through the city streets astride this Tron: Legacy–meets–Cyberpunk 2077 two-wheeler gave me the urge to stream "Derezzed" through the bike's standard Bluetooth to complete the dystopian-fiction image.
S2 Del Mar Features
Besides playing music, hooking your phone up to the Del Mar lets you take calls through your headset and access navigation. If you want to use the GPS functionality, including turn-by-turn directions and zoomable maps, you need to run the LiveWire S2 app after you connect your phone. If your phone's battery runs low, the Del Mar has a USB-C outlet.
Once you get to your destination, unless you're securing the seat or forks, you don't need to remove the key from your pocket, as the Del Mar has keyless start. If you want to lend the bike out, you can set up a PIN rather than hand over the fob. The fob and PIN disable the onboard security system, and you can monitor the bike's location via the app.
The app also lets you check on the S2 Del Mar's charging, which brings us to the electric bike's pain points. The first is range. LiveWire says the Del Mar has a 113-mile range in the city. That's more than enough for the average American's daily commute. But urban range isn't the issue.
Our Range Test Results
EVs tend to have worse highway than city range, and the Del Mar is no different. The bike's battery capacity—we estimate it at 9.0 kilowatt-hours usable—exacerbates this. In our 75-mph highway range test, the Del Mar traveled a mere 50 miles. Not great, even if it is at the top end of LiveWire's 35–50-mile highway range estimate. Riding at highway speeds on it isn't exactly pleasant, either, owing to the lack of wind protection. At least your hand won't be cramped when it's over, because the Del Mar has cruise control.
The other pain point is charging. Unlike the One, the S2 Del Mar doesn't accept DC fast-charging, although the S2 charges faster on a Level 2 outlet (up to 5.2 kilowatts). LiveWire claims a 20-to-80-percent recharge at a Level 2 charger takes 1.3 hours.
But you don't necessarily need a Level 2 charger if you're mostly commuting around town. LiveWire says the S2 can fully recharge from zero on a regular household outlet in under nine hours. And it's way easier to find space to recharge an electric motorcycle than an electric car.
There are more nits to pick. The TFT display is decently bright and responsive—apart from the map lagging—but it washes out in direct sunlight. There's no onboard storage, but LiveWire now offers Del Mar–specific cargo racks and bags (as well as a solo seat). Also, while it's great that the turn signals auto-cancel, the switch itself needs to be more prominent and feel less flimsy. And the downside of that suspension travel and ground clearance is a 32.2-inch seat height. Shorter riders, take note.
We also had to get two S2 Del Mar testers from LiveWire. Our first one developed some software issues, including an inability to display tire pressures, and wouldn't accept over-the-air updates. The solution was restoring it to an earlier operating-system version followed by manual updates. Our second bike had to visit the dealer due to a power-electronics-unit fault that prevented charging. However, both bikes were pre-production models, and LiveWire assures us these problems were addressed before production began.
Finally, there's the price. The S2 Del Mar starts at $15,499 before destination charges or incentives. That's $7300 cheaper than the One and $500 less than the S2 Mulholland.
As for alternative American electric options, Zero's SR/F is arguably the closest street-focused thing. It has 29 more horsepower and a 176-mile claimed city range, thanks to its 15.1-kWh battery. The SR/F starts under $21K but has no off-roading capability.
The S2 Del Mar, therefore, is an unusual sell. LiveWire is up front about it being a city bike, and in that regard, it's fantastic. There's something deeply appealing about its ability to silently explore dirt back roads too. If you expect this motorcycle to do typical Harley stuff such as eating up long highway days and rumbling through town, you'll be disappointed.
But that's the thing. The Del Mar isn't a Harley. It doesn't trace its heritage back to something Panhead powered—LiveWire has been electric from the start. I daresay H-D's founders might've approved of the S2 Del Mar. After all, the first Harleys didn't even have V-twins. And with their gray paint schemes and quiet mufflers, they were dubbed Silent Gray Fellows. Makes you think, huh?
The S2 Del Mar isn't perfect, but it's something fun and, almost more importantly for American motorcycling, fresh. The badging hardly matters.
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