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Hardly Able
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2023/02/05/hardly-able/
By
eric -
February 5, 2023
People who ride motorcycles still care about motorcycles – as opposed to all-too-many-drivers, who view cars as appliances. Who have been conditioned to view them as such.
Evidence of this disparity in attitude comes in the form of what sells – and what doesn’t.
Like electric “motorcycles” – the latter being an absurdity on par with a meatless vegan double “cheeseburger.” Those don’t sell, either. And neither has the Harley LiveWire, which is the electric scooter Harley hilariously thought people who like motorcycles would buy.
To be fair, Harley has sold a few LiveWires. As in 69 of them in the last quarter of 2022. Probably comparable to the number of “plant-based” (i.e., meatless) Impossible Whoppers sold by Burger King. Does anyone bother to wonder why a person who doesn’t want a burger would go to Burger King?
Harley apparently hasn’t thought about essentially the same question. An electric scooter being essentially the same thing (on wheels) as an Impossible Whopper on your plate; i.e., something ersatz. And even that isn’t quite accurate since “ersatz” simply means substitute, as in margarine rather than butter. An electric “motorcycle” – like a meatless “burger” – is a kind of fraud. A thing that wants to be taken for the real thing.
Motorcycle people won’t abide it.
Chiefly because there is no point to it.
A motorcycle being, to those who love them, much more than an appliance – i.e., a means of transportation.
As cars have in the main become, creating – interestingly – a kind of feedback loop of buyers who don’t care much about cars, who regard them as appliances. This has resulted in cars becoming more and more appliance-like. The apotheosis of this trend being the electric car. A thing as devoid of personality or differentiation as a cell phone, beyond its size, shape and color. Drive one – if you can call it that – and you have driven them all. Take that from a guy who test drives new cars – thousands of them, over the years, including a number of electric cars. The latter differ from one another much as a Makita electric drill differs from a DeWalt electric drill; close your eyes and see whether you can tell the difference.
The car companies fail to understand the import of this. What happens when this wonderful “transition” to electric vehicles is concluded and every vehicle is essentially the same vehicle? Does anyone remember what happened to GM’s Oldsmobile and Pontiac divisions? To Ford’s Mercury and Mopar’s Plymouth divisions? After they had been reduced to selling ersatz iterations of the same things?
The last “Oldsmobiles” and “Pontiacs” were Chevys, differing only in color and price, with a few minor trim/cosmetic embellishments. And the same for the final run of “Plymouths,” which differed even less from Dodges – even to the extent, in the case of the Neon, of having the exact same name.
It didn’t sell.
Well, what happens when everyone is trying to sell the same thing – an electric whatever-it-is – under different labels? What will be the difference between, say, the forthcoming electric “Camaro” crossover SUV and the “Ford” Mach e, so-called “Mustang”? Both being what they are named to the same extent that an Impossible Whopper is a burger.
Then again, maybe they will sell – to people who do want an appliance. Fifty years of effort toward that end has achieved its intended purpose. Over that span of time, cars have been systematically shorn of most of what once made them interesting and so desirable as opposed to merely useful.
An appliance is useful. A Lotus 7 is less so – but far more interesting and so, much more desirable. The latter is a thing valued by people who like to drive because they like cars. It is, for them, about much more than just getting from one point to another point (which, interestingly enough, electric vehicles are not especially good at, even as transportation appliances). Such people drive without having anywhere to go specifically. It is about the drive, itself.
It is even more so for people who ride motorcycles. It is in fact the main point of the thing. Motorcycles being less adept at being appliances, by definition. Most don’t carry much – including passengers. They expose the rider to the weather. They require more of the rider, who cannot ride unless he knows how to shift – the latter a thing all-but-eliminated from cars, even “sporty” ones. The Chevy Corvette, for instance, is now automatic-only, rendering it a very fast appliance. An electrified one is in the hopper, which will complete the transition.
But the transition lags with regard to motorcycles – thank God – probably because of the fact that to ride, you do still need to know how to shift. The near-ubiquity of the automatic transmission – in cars – is more than any other single thing the reason for the transitioning of them into appliances. At least two generations have learned to “drive” – if you can call it that – without ever having learned how to shift. This, in turn, accelerated the transition to almost-automatic-only new cars and to cars as appliances, on the verge of becoming moving versions of the stove in your kitchen, the dryer in your laundry room or the cell phone in your pocket.
Motorcycles are nothing like that – yet – because motorcycle people do not want that. They want to shift for themselves and – thank God – all of them know how. Because they have to know how. You cannot ride a motorcycle without knowing how. And the reason for that – the saving grace, as it were – has to do with the handsome fact that motorcycles (even big Harleys) get good gas mileage, which has thus far immunized them from having to become appliances, like cars, in order to “comply” with federal fuel efficiency mandates. The latter being almost entirely responsible for the automatic-only’ing of most new cars.
That has created a different kind of feedback loop. One that kicks an Impossible Whopper on wheels such as the LiveWire to the curb, where it belongs.
And where – with any luck – it will remain.
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2023/02/05/hardly-able/
By
eric -
February 5, 2023
People who ride motorcycles still care about motorcycles – as opposed to all-too-many-drivers, who view cars as appliances. Who have been conditioned to view them as such.
Evidence of this disparity in attitude comes in the form of what sells – and what doesn’t.
Like electric “motorcycles” – the latter being an absurdity on par with a meatless vegan double “cheeseburger.” Those don’t sell, either. And neither has the Harley LiveWire, which is the electric scooter Harley hilariously thought people who like motorcycles would buy.
To be fair, Harley has sold a few LiveWires. As in 69 of them in the last quarter of 2022. Probably comparable to the number of “plant-based” (i.e., meatless) Impossible Whoppers sold by Burger King. Does anyone bother to wonder why a person who doesn’t want a burger would go to Burger King?
Harley apparently hasn’t thought about essentially the same question. An electric scooter being essentially the same thing (on wheels) as an Impossible Whopper on your plate; i.e., something ersatz. And even that isn’t quite accurate since “ersatz” simply means substitute, as in margarine rather than butter. An electric “motorcycle” – like a meatless “burger” – is a kind of fraud. A thing that wants to be taken for the real thing.
Motorcycle people won’t abide it.
Chiefly because there is no point to it.
A motorcycle being, to those who love them, much more than an appliance – i.e., a means of transportation.
As cars have in the main become, creating – interestingly – a kind of feedback loop of buyers who don’t care much about cars, who regard them as appliances. This has resulted in cars becoming more and more appliance-like. The apotheosis of this trend being the electric car. A thing as devoid of personality or differentiation as a cell phone, beyond its size, shape and color. Drive one – if you can call it that – and you have driven them all. Take that from a guy who test drives new cars – thousands of them, over the years, including a number of electric cars. The latter differ from one another much as a Makita electric drill differs from a DeWalt electric drill; close your eyes and see whether you can tell the difference.
The car companies fail to understand the import of this. What happens when this wonderful “transition” to electric vehicles is concluded and every vehicle is essentially the same vehicle? Does anyone remember what happened to GM’s Oldsmobile and Pontiac divisions? To Ford’s Mercury and Mopar’s Plymouth divisions? After they had been reduced to selling ersatz iterations of the same things?
The last “Oldsmobiles” and “Pontiacs” were Chevys, differing only in color and price, with a few minor trim/cosmetic embellishments. And the same for the final run of “Plymouths,” which differed even less from Dodges – even to the extent, in the case of the Neon, of having the exact same name.
It didn’t sell.
Well, what happens when everyone is trying to sell the same thing – an electric whatever-it-is – under different labels? What will be the difference between, say, the forthcoming electric “Camaro” crossover SUV and the “Ford” Mach e, so-called “Mustang”? Both being what they are named to the same extent that an Impossible Whopper is a burger.
Then again, maybe they will sell – to people who do want an appliance. Fifty years of effort toward that end has achieved its intended purpose. Over that span of time, cars have been systematically shorn of most of what once made them interesting and so desirable as opposed to merely useful.
An appliance is useful. A Lotus 7 is less so – but far more interesting and so, much more desirable. The latter is a thing valued by people who like to drive because they like cars. It is, for them, about much more than just getting from one point to another point (which, interestingly enough, electric vehicles are not especially good at, even as transportation appliances). Such people drive without having anywhere to go specifically. It is about the drive, itself.
It is even more so for people who ride motorcycles. It is in fact the main point of the thing. Motorcycles being less adept at being appliances, by definition. Most don’t carry much – including passengers. They expose the rider to the weather. They require more of the rider, who cannot ride unless he knows how to shift – the latter a thing all-but-eliminated from cars, even “sporty” ones. The Chevy Corvette, for instance, is now automatic-only, rendering it a very fast appliance. An electrified one is in the hopper, which will complete the transition.
But the transition lags with regard to motorcycles – thank God – probably because of the fact that to ride, you do still need to know how to shift. The near-ubiquity of the automatic transmission – in cars – is more than any other single thing the reason for the transitioning of them into appliances. At least two generations have learned to “drive” – if you can call it that – without ever having learned how to shift. This, in turn, accelerated the transition to almost-automatic-only new cars and to cars as appliances, on the verge of becoming moving versions of the stove in your kitchen, the dryer in your laundry room or the cell phone in your pocket.
Motorcycles are nothing like that – yet – because motorcycle people do not want that. They want to shift for themselves and – thank God – all of them know how. Because they have to know how. You cannot ride a motorcycle without knowing how. And the reason for that – the saving grace, as it were – has to do with the handsome fact that motorcycles (even big Harleys) get good gas mileage, which has thus far immunized them from having to become appliances, like cars, in order to “comply” with federal fuel efficiency mandates. The latter being almost entirely responsible for the automatic-only’ing of most new cars.
That has created a different kind of feedback loop. One that kicks an Impossible Whopper on wheels such as the LiveWire to the curb, where it belongs.
And where – with any luck – it will remain.
