Engineering Harley’s Electric 2020 LiveWire

Sean Stanley is one of a new generation of motorcycle engineers who are as fluent in battery cooling and electronics integration as their predecessors were in optimizing cam profiles and compression ratios. As Harley-Davidson’s EV Systems chief engineer, Stanley, along with EV Platform chief Glen Koval and their teams, have brought the 2020 LiveWire e-bike from a bold concept in 2011 to production, which is getting underway at H-D’s York, Pennsylvania, assembly plant.
LiveWire is nothing like your granddad’s Shovelhead, aside from the brand name on the faux ‘gas tank.’ There are five ECUs on board controlling seven rider-selectable and customizable ride modes. Rear-wheel lift mitigation is managed by a 6-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU). The 15.5-kWh Samsung SDI lithium-ion battery, liquid cooled 78-kW (108-hp) Magneti-Marelli permanent-magnet motor, 1400-watt SAE J1772 ‘Combo’ charging setup, 4.3-in. (109-mm) color thin-film display, and hollow-cast aluminum ‘exoskeleton’ chassis, represent just some of the top-flight systems engineering that is the hallmark of this novel bike.
The $29,799 LiveWire is a radical departure for The Motor Company, and the first step in Harley’s transformation into electrified-and-connected riding. But even with a fighterjet-like high-speed whine (created by some clever machining in the Schaeffler-supplied spiral-bevel gear primary drive) replacing the “potato-potato” exhaust thud of the classic V-twins, the LiveWire delivers thrust that any motorcyclist will love. Claimed 0-to-60 mph acceleration comes in 3.1 s and the critical 60-80-mph highway ‘roll on’ accel takes under two seconds. There is a claimed 146 miles (235 km) of city-riding range or 95 miles (152 km) of combined stop-and-go and highway range as measured using the SAE J2982 Riding Range Test Procedure.
Automotive Engineering spoke with Stanley (who’s an E/E) during LiveWire’s recent media launch in New York. Some excerpts:
Does the LiveWire program have its own dedicated development team?
We’re organized similar to other engineering organizations — we have advanced engineering, systems and components, and platforms. With EV Systems there’s a separate group to do those things — it’s my team along with a group of engineers in our new California facility [located in Mountain View, it’s called LiveWire Labs and is currently focused on electric-motorcycle R&D including battery, power electronics, and e-machine design, development and advanced manufacturing]. But this product really exercised Harley-Davidson’s entire product engineering team, in all disciplines.
To what degree has the LiveWire program helped attract engineers to the Harley enterprise—both internally, as well as from the outside?
Oh man, a lot! It’s generated a lot of interest and excitement, to be able to do products like this. People are aspiring to work on the LiveWire project.
What role did simulation play in your development?
We took everything good about Harley-Davidson’s flexible product-development process and advanced it for LiveWire. That includes simulations for crash performance. Our sim work told us up front in the development where we needed to beef up suspension, the chassis, and various parts around the RESS [the battery, in LiveWire parlance] aimed at increasing its safety. We then went into a round of
physical testing. Updating the simulation we were able to, within a couple cycles, get it to where we needed it to be in terms of crash performance.
LiveWire has an air-cooled battery pack with liquid-cooled power electronics and traction motor. Do you see liquid cooling for future batteries at Harley?
It’s interesting the role that simulation in development of the RESS in this motorcycle has taken. We did have conversations about air versus liquid cooling. And we pushed the envelope in terms of what air cooling could do for the RESS. Liquid cooling for the motor and power electronics is required, in my mind— it’s a mainstay in high-performance applications like this to get the package space we wanted, while keeping the weight down and making sure the product lives for a good long time. But I think that as we develop the other vehicles [various new e-bikes], some with lower power levels, you may see use of air cooling only, to help keep down cost and complexity.
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