LiveWire Group, the publicly traded electric motorcycle company spun off from
Harley-Davidson, plans to consolidate its operations in Milwaukee.
The company announced plans to close its LiveWire Labs facility in Mountain View, California and move those operations to Harley’s headquarters on Juneau Avenue on Milwaukee's west side. Harley has only had a small number of employees working in person at its headquarters since the COVID-19 pandemic and is converting a large parking lot at the campus into a park.
The LiveWire consolidation move to Harley's Milwaukee headquarters would result in $1 million to $1.5 million in relocation costs and $2 million to $3.5 million in termination benefit costs. It would be done by September and will generate $3 million to $5 million in savings this year and $8 million to $10 million in annual savings going forward, the company says.
It is unclear how many jobs would relocate to Milwaukee as a result of the move. As of Dec. 31, LiveWire had 248 total employees.
Ryan Morrissey, president, ventures and investments at LiveWire, will leave the company as of May 10. He was previously the top executive at the company as it spun off from Harley and stayed on when
Karim Donnez was named CEO in June 2023. Morrissey will receive two years of his base salary of $475,000 in connection with his departure.
LiveWire expects to be able to reduce its headcount by about 10% as part of the move, Donnez said on Harley’s earnings call Thursday.
“We’re going to centralize all of the LiveWire operations in Wisconsin and this is going to deliver a fair bit of synergies and efficiencies across the business,” Donnez said.
At the same time it is relocating operations the company plans to streamline its organization and is also paying close attention to spending on design, engineering and sourcing to reduce the cost of its products.
“We are also planning to reduce spend and closely manage cash across the operation to get the most out of our strategic investment,” Donnez said.
LiveWire spent more than $54 million on research and development in 2023 and around $35 million per year in 2022 and 2021.
LiveWire started as a project within Harley-Davidson more than a decade ago. The company introduced its first production motorcycle in 2019 and spun off as its own entity officially in 2022. Harley retains nearly 90% ownership of the company.
Over the past three years, LiveWire has generated between $35 million and $47 million in annual revenue, primarily through sales of Stacyc electric balance bikes for kids.
While the Stacyc business has generated a small operating profit the past two years, the electric motorcycle portion of the company has seen losses grow from $89 million in 2022 to $116 million in 2023.
LiveWire sold a total of 660 electric motorcycles in 2023, up from 597 in 2022.
For the current year, the company is forecasting sales of 1,000 to 1,500 motorcycles. LiveWire is expecting an operating loss of $105 million to $115 million, a smaller loss from previous guidance of $115 million to $125 million.
In the first quarter, the company sold 117 motorcycles, up from 63 to start 2023. The electric motorcycle segment reported revenue of $1.2 million, down from $1.5 million the prior year.
As a company, LiveWire’s total revenue for the first quarter was $5 million, down from $7.8 million. Its operating loss in the quarter was $30.4 million.
[caption id="attachment_589264" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]
Harley-Davidson's corporate headquarters at 3700 W. Juneau Ave. in Milwaukee[/caption]
