
Believe it or not by the Livewire will not be the first electric HD motorcycle. In fact the first of its kind was originally created in 1978 by Steve Fehr of the Transitron Electronic Corporation as a one off model. The factory 900cc combustion engine was replaced with a variable speed electric motor and a series of deep cycle batteries. The 24volt Baldor electric motor was paired up to a four speed automatic transmission via a drive chain that was linked to the rear wheel. The setup apparently allowed the Harley MK2 to reach of top speed of 50mph. The four deep cycle lead acid batteries were said to provide a run time of up to six hours. A total of $70,000 was spent to during the MK2's development, and it recently sold at an auction in 2014; the same year the LiveWire prototype was introduced.
