Harley-Davidson:Back to
the Bricks.
Down to
Breakeven.
What LiveWire costs the parent, and what the plan leaves out
- What they saidMay 2026, introducing the new plan: “Over the last several years, we leaned heavily into Touring and Electric.” Five pillars, six targets, $350 million of HDMC EBITDA in 2027.
- What it isAdd up the company’s own 2026 guidance and Harley-Davidson, Inc. lands between a $15 million loss and a $50 million profit. It made $779 million in 2023. Its electric subsidiary is guided to lose $70–80 million; its motor company to make $10–50 million.
- What decided itA finance company sold for cash, a five-year strategy that missed every quantified target, and a subsidiary that sits inside the income statement and outside the plan.
The plan is scored on the motor company. The income statement is not.
Hardwire release (2 Feb 2021) · Hardwire Stage II investor day (10 May 2022) · KKR/PIMCO partnership releases (30 Jul, 25 Aug 2025) · LVWR Form 10-K (FY2025), 10-Q (Q2 2026) · Ground Truth No. 01
- Part IThe arithmeticAdd up the guidance: about zero. The subsidiary’s loss exceeds the motor company’s profit.
- Part IIThe sale2025’s profit was the finance company, sold. $180M a year of earnings traded for $1.25B once.
- Part IIIThe subsidiary$422M consolidated. 0.6% of revenue, a third of the profit drag. Cash to May 2027; note due December.
- Part IVThe planFive pillars, six targets. The 2027 number is a 5% margin, below the year Hardwire was written to fix.
- Part VThe bet$1.6B of buybacks, and one motorcycle carrying the growth target: the 883.
- Part VIThe final wordLiveWire didn’t break Harley. It is what the new Harley can’t afford. The decision has a date.
The finding, and the trail that led to it
Ground Truth No. 01 read LiveWire’s filings. This one reads the parent’s, and asks what the electric bet cost, what the new plan promises, and what Harley-Davidson looks like if the plan works.
Start with the sentence the new CEO used to bury the old strategy. Artie Starrs, 5 May 2026, introducing Back to the Bricks: “Over the last several years, we leaned heavily into Touring and Electric. Going forward, we are shifting to a more rider-centric portfolio.” Fourteen words. That is the parent company’s verdict on Hardwire, on LiveWire and on five years of product decisions, delivered on an earnings call and never expanded on.
Then add up the guidance the same company published eleven weeks later. HDMC, the motor company: $10–50 million of operating income. HDFS, the finance company: $55–70 million. LiveWire: a $70–80 million loss. Segment operating income sums to the consolidated line in Harley-Davidson’s reporting. 2025 proves it: $(28.7)M + $490.4M + $(75.0)M = $386.6M, to the decimal. So the sum is the company’s own forecast: Harley-Davidson, Inc. is guided to somewhere between a $15 million loss and a $50 million profit for 2026. Three years ago the number was $779 million.
That is the finding. Inside it sits the sentence this brief is built on: the electric subsidiary is guided to lose more than the motor company is guided to make. At every point in both ranges.
- Open the FY2025 10-K segment note and the motor company lost $28.7M in 2025, the first HDMC operating loss outside the pandemic year in the modern history of the company. The whole consolidated profit came from HDFS, and HDFS’s profit came from selling its loan book.
- Ask what that sale did to earnings power and HDFS goes from a $248M run rate to a $55–70M guide. The company’s steadiest earner was converted to cash, once.
- Read LiveWire as H-D reports it and the consolidated losses run to $422M since 2022: a fifth of the 2025 profit drag, a third of the trailing one, from 0.6% of revenue.
- Read Back to the Bricks and there is no LiveWire target, no electric anything, and a 2027 EBITDA number that translates to roughly a 5% operating margin, below where HDMC stood in 2019, the year Hardwire was written to fix.
- Read Hardwire next to it: every quantified target missed. 15% margin promised for 2025; (0.8%) delivered.
None of that is a secret. All of it is in the filings, and almost none of it is in the coverage, which has been about Sportsters and dealer sentiment. Those matter; Part V is about them. But the arithmetic comes first.
The trail, in five documents
The order I read them in. Each one sent me to the next.
- The guidance. Raised across the board, and still adds to roughly zero. Nobody added it up on the call.
- Where the profit came from. HDMC $(28.7)M. LiveWire $(75.0)M. HDFS $490.4M. One of these three is not like the others, and it is the one that was sold.
- The sale. $5B+ of receivables, 9.8% of HDFS, two-thirds of future originations forward-sold. “Unlocks ~$1.25 billion.” Announced three months before the CEO who did it left.
- The plan. Five pillars, one dated target, five medium-term ranges. LiveWire appears only in the forward-looking factors. The word “electric” does not appear.
- The benchmark. “HDMC Operating Margin: 15% by 2025.” “+5% to +7% CAGR.” The plan the new plan replaces, in its own words.
The paperwork, on one screen
Four documents. Read the cards and you can skip the rest; every section below is the arithmetic they imply.
- Why Harley-Davidson. No. 01 followed the subsidiary’s money. It leads here: to the only company in American motorcycling whose filings carry the whole industry’s weight, in the first year of a new CEO and a new plan.
- Who this is for. Dealers weighing the next allocation. Suppliers sizing the York ramp. Investors deciding whether “transition year” is a floor. Anyone at LiveWire wondering what the parent’s numbers say about their runway.
- What I did. Read H-D’s FY2025 10-K and Q2 2026 10-Q line by line, the last five years of results releases and calls, the two strategy documents, the KKR/PIMCO releases, and the governance filings from the 2025 fight. Every figure links to its source. Twelve open items are listed in §16, not hidden.
- Who I am. Ex-Harley-Davidson product manager: Touring, CVO, Trike. Ex-Honda. Independent now. §16 has the rest, and the disclosure.
The arithmetic
The company’s own 2026 guidance, added up, and the five-year line it sits at the bottom of.
Three ranges that add up to about nothing
All three numbers come from the same release, the same day, the same table. No outside denominator, nothing to argue about. I add them; the company does not.
The motor company. Raised on 23 July from a range of $(40)M to $10M.
The subsidiary. Unchanged since February. 0.6% of revenue.
| 2026 guidance, 23 Jul 2026 | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| HDMC operating income | $10M | $50M |
| HDFS operating income | $55M | $70M |
| LiveWire operating loss | $(80)M | $(70)M |
| Implied consolidated operating income | $(15)M | $50M |
| For reference: consolidated operating income, 2023 | $779.1M |
DocumentedH1 2026 consolidated operating income was $99.5M, so the full-year guidance implies a second-half loss. Q4 is seasonally the weak quarter: HDMC lost $260M in Q4 2025 on a gross margin of (8.0%). Management has also beaten its own ranges twice this year. The guidance may be conservative. It is still the number they chose to publish.
Calculated“Segment operating income sums to the consolidated line” is checked against 2025 to the decimal, and against 2024 ($277.8M + $248.4M − $109.6M = $416.6M). No corporate eliminations sit between the segments and the total.
The subsidiary is guided to lose more than the motor company is guided to make.
13 more sections behind one form.
Name and email, once, and this browser is through for a year: the rest of the brief, every figure linked to its filing, the source index, and the whole thing as a PDF. The open items and the corrections log stay public; that is the method.
02 · The five-year line · 03 · Where the 2025 profit came from · 04 · The HDFS trade · 05 · What LiveWire costs · 06 · The seat change · 07 · The clock · 08 · Back to the Bricks · 09 · Hardwire, scored · 10 · Capital returned · 11 · The Sportster arithmetic · 12 · 2027, if it works · 13 · Analysis, not reporting · 14 · Sources
Who wrote this, and how
Left: the Low Rider on the freeway. Middle: leading a group through the canyons. Right: the day job on weekends.
I hold no position in LiveWire Group, Harley-Davidson, or any company named here: long, short, or derivative. I have no engagement, adverse or friendly, with any of them.
Where a conclusion rests on my time in the industry rather than a document, I say so. Where an earlier version of this was wrong, the fix is in the log at §16, not made quietly. If something here is wrong, tell me.
Primary documents first. Figures come from filed financial statements or are computed from them, and the computation is shown.
Derived figures are labelled. The guidance sum, LiveWire’s share of the drag, the EBITDA-to-operating-income translation, the buyback averages and the 2027 picture are arithmetic on filed numbers, identified in the captions.
Fact and opinion are separated. Sections 01–12 are sourced. Section 13 is judgment, and says so. Where an interpretation rests on my time in the industry, it carries the Industry context tag.
Major findings carry one of five tags, so a reader can see what kind of claim is being made and how to attack it.
What is not yet nailed down
Rev. 2 is a working draft. These ten items are flagged in the text where they bite and will be closed or corrected here, dated, before the brief is called final. Two closed on reading the Q2 2026 deck; the corrections are logged below.
| Open item | What is needed |
|---|---|
| 1. “Does not plan to make additional investments in LiveWire” | No. 01 quotes this from H-D’s FY2025 10-K. This pass could not re-locate it in the fetched text (MD&A/liquidity truncated). Confirm page and section; until then it is tagged Unverified in §06. |
| 2. Post-spin Q4 2022 LiveWire loss | Needed to state the “since spin” cumulative precisely instead of bracketing $337M–$422M. |
| 3. H-D ownership of LiveWire | ~88.6% is computed from share counts (181M of 204.3M); neither 10-K prints it. Confirm from the most recent LiveWire proxy. |
| 4. Sprint platform, plant and price | Hero X440 derivation and India build are trade reporting; the $6,000 vs “under $10,000” conflict is unresolved. Check the August 2026 dealer-meeting materials and the Q3 call. |
| 5. Sportster 883 price and plant | ~$10,000 and York are trade reporting only. The 883 designation itself is Starrs’s, on the record. |
| 6. HDMC vs HDFS debt split | Inferred by instrument at 12/31/25; read the consolidating balance sheet (10-K R131). |
| 7. 2025 annual meeting certified votes | “Over 48% withheld” is from press reports of preliminary results; pull the Item 5.07 8-K. |
| 8. Back to the Bricks “phases” | One summary described reset/growth/acceleration phases; the release does not contain that language. Not cited here; do not add unless found in the deck. |
| 9. Buyback average prices | Computed from annual $ and share totals; ASR settlement timing may shift the 2025/2026 split slightly. |
| 10. Rider demographics | No 2025/2026 company-disclosed median age located; the last is “45 years old” for 2023. Omitted. |
Corrections log
| What was claimed | What the document said |
|---|---|
| 8 Sep 2026 · Rev. 2 $350M of HDMC EBITDA translated to ~$180M of operating income using inferred “D&A and adjustments” of ~$43M a quarter. | The Q2 2026 deck gives HDMC D&A directly: $40M for Q2, $81M for H1, ~$160M a year. Restated to ~$190M; the ~5% conclusion is unchanged; 2027 consolidated moved from ~$200–270M to ~$210–280M. |
| 8 Sep 2026 · Rev. 2 An apparent conflict on Q2 U.S. 601cc+ share (32% vs 38%) was listed as an open item. | Seasonality, not error: 34% FY2025, 38% Q1 2026, 32% Q2 2026, 34% YTD (deck slide 6). Closed. |
| 8 Sep 2026 · Rev. 2 Restructuring expense stated as $15M (Q1) + $3M (Q2). | $17M for H1 2026 per the deck. |
| If something here is wrong, tell me; it will appear on this list with the date. | |