2021 Harley-Davidson Discontinues 3 Softail Models + CVOs

[totalmotorcycle]

Rumors for 2021 model year:

No CVO motorcycle models for 2021. And 3 Harley-Davidson motorcycles to be discontinued, the Harley-Davidson Breakout 114, Harley-Davidson Softail Deluxe and Harley-Davidson Softail FXDR 114.

What do you think of these Harley motorcycles potentially being discontinued?

https://www.totalmotorcycle.com/motorcy ... son-models

[avensis]

this motorcycle is beautiful I love it!

[jstark47]

What do you think of these Harley motorcycles potentially being discontinued?

Harley-Davidson clearly has some serious challenges ahead, with the general decline in motorcycle sales in USA, coupled with the aging-out of the demographic that was traditionally the target of their marketing. Their new CEO, Jochen Zeitz, said as much when announcing their "Rewire" business strategy last month. The LiveWire is an impressive piece of engineering, but it costs too much and isn't selling that well. Apparently their roll-out of the new Pan-American adventure tourer bike that has been in development for awhile will now be delayed. "Zeitz said H-D would be rolling back most of the previous corporate programme and refocusing 'to move forward with the highest potential elements of More Roads, but our strategy must be reassessed'” To me, that means they're concentrating on their highest-margin models for the time being. I'm guessing there was a cost-benefit analysis, and these Softails didn't make the cut. It's analogous to Ford dropping all passenger cars (except the Mustang) in North America: when times are tough and profits are down, companies don't have the luxury of products with suboptimal margin.

Dropping the CVOs kind of puzzles me, as I would have thought their margin on those would be high. But maybe they just haven't been selling? $44,000 is a lot for a motorcycle... (price of a 2020 CVO Limited)

[ZooTech]

A Harley Davidson "model" often consists of a mere handlebar and seat change from another model...not really a whole new model at all...

Discontinuing the CVO models is good CYA practice as these new M8 engines begin to fail left and right, demonstrating that higher performance versions are a bad idea until HD acknowledges and addresses the horrific design flaws.