Even though it was born from the world’s most prolific cruiser company, the all-electric LiveWire brand’s catalog has been curiously devoid of any cruisers… until now. Get a load of the new $15,999 LiveWire S2 Mulholland. LiveWire calls it an electric performance cruiser—which is fine, provided you’re happy to play fast and loose with the term ‘cruiser.’
Available immediately in North America, the LiveWire S2 Mulholland is the second electric motorcycle to use LiveWire’s S2 platform. It follows the S2 Del Mar, but trades the Del Mar’s street tracker style for a laid-back, cruiser-inspired layout.
To get that right, LiveWire raised the front end with longer forks, reduced the rear shock’s travel, and swapped out the Del Mar’s 19F/19R wheels for a 19F/17R combo. The Mulholland still wears alloy wheels with Brembo brakes, but trades its Showa suspension for Hitachi parts, offering full adjustability and 5.3 inches [135 mm] of travel up front, and preload and rebound adjustability with 2.9 [74 mm] inches of travel out back.
It comes specced with Dunlop Sportmax Roadsmart IV tires, with a claimed lean angle of 55° and 50° on the left and right respectively. The seat dips to an accommodating height of 30.25 inches [768 mm], and the bars have been raised to create a knuckles-in-the-breeze riding position.
The muscular 6” bar risers and low-rise handlebars look great, as do the bar-end mirrors and the clever positioning of the Mulholland’s round TFT dash. Combined with the tall forks and tucked headlight (which looks to be borrowed from the flagship LiveWire One), the entire front end is a clear nod to club-style performance cruisers.
The rear fender is equally easy on the eye, but it’s in the middle of the bike where the design falls flat. According to LiveWire, they have “reimagined the profile and silhouette of the motorcycle—traditionally informed by the gas tank.” So, with no need for a fuel tank, the bike simply features a neatly dressed hump up top that serves to hide a handful of components, and to connect the seat and battery casing to the bike’s steering neck, visually.
That small area is a great piece of design on its own, but its diminutive size leaves the seat to fill the rest of the real estate on top of the Mulholland. The result is a saddle that attempts to mesh the look of a supermoto with the look of a cruiser—but ends up looking janky instead. (TL;DR: The Mulholland has a lot of nice details, but they don’t mesh.)
Add to that the Mulholland’s relatively short wheelbase (57.8 inches; longer than the Del Mar but significantly shorter than a Harley-Davidson Evo Sporty), and the bike doesn’t quite nail the concept of a cruiser. Plus it looks notably cramped—particularly if you add the optional pillion accommodations and take a passenger along.
The passenger kit includes a rear seat, backrest, and passenger footpegs. Other aftermarket add-ons include different windscreens, soft and hard luggage, luggage racks, and a handful of dress-up parts.
The LiveWire S2 Mulholland is also the brand’s first motorcycle to use sustainable materials in its construction. And while dyed-in-the-wool bikers are likely to write that off as a marketing spiel designed to reach a younger and more enlightened audience, it’ll certainly pique the interest of eco-conscious riders who see electrification as a means to sustainability.
The Mulholland’s fenders are made from a hemp bio-composite material, while the radiator shrouds and wiring caddies are made from Hylon—a recycled material that’s made using discarded ocean fishing nets. The seat cover uses a petroleum-free and recyclable silicon, eschewing the typical leather or vinyl options.
Taking the concept one step further, the Mulholland’s ‘Lunar White’ color option uses no paint, showing off the hemp-based material instead. (You can get it in a painted ‘Liquid Black’ finish too.)
Performance-wise, the 432-pound LiveWire S2 Mulholland trades a smidgen of the Del Mar’s zest for a smidgen of extra range. Its motor kicks out the same 84 horsepower and 194 fl-lb of torque, but it lists a zero to sixty time of 3.3 seconds and a maximum range of 121 miles (the Del Mar’s numbers are three seconds and 113 miles, respectively).
121 miles is listed as the Mulholland’s city range; LiveWire lists a range of 73 miles of highway riding, or 91 miles of combined riding. Those numbers will vary according to how you ride in the real world, and which of the LiveWire’s myriad riding modes you use. (There’s a full suite of electronic rider aids, including ABS, traction control, and rear wheel anti-slip control.
The 10.5 kWh battery pack can charge from 20 to 80 percent in 5.9 hours and from zero to 100 percent in 9.1 hours on a Level 1 charger. Plug it into a Level 2 charger, and you’ll get it from 20 to 80 percent in 78 minutes and zero to 100 percent in two hours and 22 minutes.
If you’re based in the US or Canada, you can snag your own LiveWire S2 Mulholland right away. But if you’re in any other part of the world, you’ll have to wait until next year, which is when LiveWire says they will roll it out to other (undetermined) parts of the world.
The big question is whether there’s a market for an electric performance cruiser that doesn’t quite feel like a performance cruiser—especially when its stablemate (the Del Mar) looks heaps better and costs $500 less. As my friend Jensen Beeler is fond of saying, only time will tell.
Source: LiveWire
