I Disagree

Harley-Davidson just showed off a coming set of electric bicycles. Writing at The Motley Fool, Rich Duprey muses:

The biggest problem for the company may be the Harley name itself. There are already plenty of e-bikes on the market manufactured by companies that have more street credibility in the space than a motorcycle specialist that has built its brand around gears, grease, oil, and leather.

I think he's got it exactly backward.

The electric bicycle space is still pretty small. Most people who are eventually going to have them aren't even thinking about them yet. And most people who start thinking about them for the first time will have heard of Harley-Davidson, but not necessarily of those existing e-bike manufacturers.

Harley has a distinctive brand and decades of positive name recognition in the larger transportation space. That gives it an advantage both in growing the e-bike space and in benefiting from the growth of that space.