Harley-Davidson Livewire suffered a powertrain shut down issue that triggered the recall.
The recall that was only announced yesterday will include all Harley-Davidson livewire models produced between 3/18/2019 and 8/20/2020. In a notice by the NHTSA , it appears that a failure in the electric motorcycle powertrain may cause it to unexpectedly shut down and not restart, due to a software issue in the Onboard Charging (OBC) system on the Livewire.
Harley-Davidson will of course notify their Livewire owners, and through dealers will update the OBC software, free of charge. This comes after two incidents were reported involving “an alleged unexpected loss of propulsion on LiveWire motorcycles“.
“Harley-Davidson has learned that software in the Onboard
Charger (OBC), used on 2020 Electric LiveWire™ (ELW)
models may initiate a shutdown of the Electric Vehicle
Powertrain (EVPT)“
There are continued bad news to the Harley-Davidson Livewire, as it already had stopped production for several days in 2019 after a charging anomaly in one of the bikes.The production quickly resumed.
The owners of these Livewire will be able to either contact Harley-Davidson customer service at 1-800-258-2464. (Harley-Davidson’s number for this recall is 0176). Owners may also contact the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Vehicle Safety Hotline; 1-888-327-4236 (TTY
1-800-424-9153), or through http://www.safercar.gov.
These safety issues are serious, but Harley-Davidson takes them with all seriousness as should be. The real amount of motorcycles that were actually affected by the problem is not clear yet. But since the issue is derived from software and not the actual powertrain that fails, the solution will be simple for the Livewire owners, and will may just be a small hurdle for Harley to overcome as they push forward with electric motorcycles.
