I'm all for technological leaps and improvements in the industry, but they have to be based in reality. Before the LiveWire came out, little was known about it. It's no secret that I took some pot shots at it and didn't give it a chance. When it came out, a couple things happened that were very sobering for me:
1.) I got a chance to ride and study one up close for several weeks.
2.) An unnamed person quite involved in the design of the bike reached out. Not only did he let me know how hurtful what I was saying was with the amount of effort he personally had put into this project, he went above and beyond to explain a lot of the technical hurdles and how they overcame them. Without breaking any confidentiality agreements, he answered my questions and corrected a lot of misconceptions I had. I've experienced this before, from certain engineers at Zero.
I was wrong. I admit it, and I ended up making a very positive video review of the LiveWire and still, to this day, I speak very favorably of the bike. Any parsing of my post history here or any other social media platforms will reflect this. Since then I've decided to be a lot more careful. When Damon showed up we had questions. Lots of questions. The claims made were outlandish. Didn't seem real. But I didn't want a LiveWire v2. I asked questions and dug around as much as I could. The answers I was given were, at best, unsatisfactory and, at worst, bullshit. I know how to run basic numbers on bikes and components. I reached out to various industry professionals and contacts and, without bringing up Damon's name, asked what they thought of a claim of X, Y, or Z components with this capability at this weight and these dimensions.
Universally they all either rolled their eyes or just straight up laughed at the absurdity. Over time I was able to relay some of these questions even to Jay himself and he would respond with a straight-up lie. More than once. Repeated lies over a dozen different topics. This is me being a lot more careful because I don't like being wrong; no one does. I'm sorry; there are far, far too many red flags. I am being MORE than fair about this.