5 YEARS IN.
1% OF
PLAN.

What Harley-Davidson said LiveWire would be in 2026. What it is. And the paperwork in between.

S2 Del Mar

Harley-Davidson's CFO, on the joint investor call announcing the merger:

2019. The bike the 100,000 plan was sold on, on a dealer floor

The deal valued LiveWire at $1.77 billion, described on that call as "1x estimated 2026 revenues."

On actual revenue, it was 57x.

The percentage isn't the accomplishment. It's what you reach for when the absolute number won't carry the story.

Next up: the $4,999 Honcho

Part 2: the walk from a $29,799 flagship to a $4,999 minimoto.

Full brief: 14 sections, every figure linked to the filing.
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FROM
$29,799
TO $4,999

LiveWire ONE · 2021

S2 Del Mar · 2023

S4 Honcho · 2026

Dust · acquired 2026

Seven years walking down the price ladder. The overhead didn't follow the price down.

Honcho on the stand

The Honcho isn't another rung on the ladder. It's a different business.

$4,999. Built by KYMCO instead of Harley-Davidson. Sold into the minimoto segment instead of the premium roadster segment. It shares a badge with the S2 and not much else.

Dust points the same way: off-road, light, cheap to homologate. Put those next to STACYC, the only segment that makes money, and the portfolio now describes a retreat from the premium on-road thesis that justified a $2.31 billion valuation.

A company that vacated the top of its own map, and hasn't built anything between $6,000 and $10,000, where the volume actually lives.

Dust Model_1 · bought May 2026

Part 3: two contracts, signed the same day, and why buying motorcycles costs this company money.

Full brief: every product image and price linked to source.
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TWO
CONTRACTS,
ONE TRAP

Why selling more motorcycles does not fix this.

KYMCO, Taiwan

Harley builds the motorcycles. LiveWire buys them at cost-plus: Harley's cost, plus a mark-up. Then writes them down to what they can actually be sold for. The filing proves the bikes were carried above what they would fetch; the contract supplies the mechanism.

Cost-plus in, write-down out. That is my reading of the two documents together.

Minimum annual volume commitments, per product, with a deficit fee.

To Harley-Davidson. And, under the agreement amended in May 2026, to KYMCO as well.

KYMCO · minimums from 2027

The exposure that already cost $6.1 million once now exists in duplicate, and stops being discretionary.

The economics were not decided by the market. They were decided by the terms.

Next: the loan

Part 4: the loan that settled it eight months before the quarter, and the people who did the work anyway.

Full brief: the KYMCO Exhibit A, redacted cell by cell, is in there.
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IT WAS
DECIDED IN
NOV 2025

The quarter was reported in July 2026. The outcome was settled eight months earlier, in a loan agreement.

S2, stripped

Built it, badged it, sold it, lent against it

In fifteen months, Harley-Davidson moved from parent to secured creditor.

Every step is a filed instrument with a date on it. What the sequence means is interpretation. That it occurred is not.

Interest accrues at SOFR + 4%, compounding, with nothing payable until maturity. The balance grows.

The bike that has to do it

Nothing below roughly 40,000 units changes any conclusion.

Same building, different chair

Harley didn't leave. It changed seats.

It still builds the bikes, at cost-plus. Still charges the services fee. Still floors the dealers through HDFS. Now collects SOFR + 4% on $76.8M secured on substantially all of LiveWire's assets, with a services agreement it can end on ninety days' notice.

It gets paid on the way up, on the way down, and on the way out. The 22% public float carries the risk without collecting a fee.

2026 was the year everything was supposed to happen. It is 2026. They are at one percent of plan.

Ground Truth No. 01

That's the series. Ground Truth No. 02 takes up the parent: what LiveWire is doing to Harley-Davidson's own numbers.

Full brief: 14 sections in six parts, 260 filings, every source linked, corrections log published.
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