LiveWire S2 Del Mar Reivew
I recently hit 3000 miles on my 2024 S2 Del Mar, and I wanted to share my personal thoughts on what its been like to own one of the newest motorcycles from LiveWire. I’ve watched just about every Del Mar review video on the internet, and naturally there are a few aspects of actual ownership not covered by other reviewers, so be sure to watch all the way through so you have all the information before you buy your next motorcycle.
Purchasing a motorcycle in today’s market is a hard and often complex choice, especially if you’ve never owned an electric motorcycle. There are lots of new terms and unfamiliar concepts that are not only foreign to experienced riders, but especially brand new riders. To be honest, it can be quite overwhelming to figure out exactly which electric motorcycle is right for you, your riding style, and more importantly - your wallet.
If you’re struggling to decide or are just curious about electric motorcycles, I know exactly how you feel - which is why I’ve consistently chosen LiveWire for the last 3 years. In terms of build quality, customer service, riding experience, low maintenance, dealer network, design, and a thriving community eager to help newcomers - LiveWire is the pinnacle American electric motorcycle company for me and the adventures I love to take. The Del Mar is my fourth electric motorcycle, and the 3rd one I’ve bought from LiveWire. I want people to enjoy these bikes just as much as I do, but I also want to help people figure out if this is the right bike or not for them.
I’ll admit that electric motorcycles, and electric vehicles as a whole, are still largely too overpriced for the average consumer. The national charging infrastructure and range capacity are nowhere near ready for the masses But, that doesn’t mean this motorcycle isn’t worthy of ownership by those that are ready to experience this amazing technology. The S2 Del Mar, in my opinion, is one of the most well balanced, exhilarating, and premium electric motorcycle experiences at the moment.
Priced at $15,499, the S2 Del Mar is LiveWire’s inaugural launch of the S2 Arrow architecture. The S2 platform is so unique to the EV motorcycle industry in that it features a modular design, enabling LiveWire to pivot the overall aesthetics, ergonomics, and performance in a short amount of time. LiveWire recently launched the S2 Mulholland, which is a ‘performance cruiser’ with nearly identical performance, but completely redesigned ergonomics.
The Del Mar is a flat tracker style bike built for velocity, agility, and linear acceleration. It’s 10.5kWh battery is equipped with Level 1 and 2 charging. You can charge from home in just under 8.5 hours from a 110v outlet, or from a 240 volt level 2 source in just 142 minutes. It’s 84 horsepower motor delivers 194 ft-lbs of torque with a top speed of 103 mph, and you can accelerate from 0-60mph in just 3 seconds. Equipped with 19” front and rear tires, the S2 Del Mar is able to handle both on and off-road riding conditions. Suspension travel is just under 5 inches, so I’ve learned quickly adjusting the SHOWA suspension is a must for negotiating more variable and rocky terrain. The overall ground clearance is 6.5 inches, which makes the Del Mar more than capable of handling your off-road adventures.
In my extensive time with the Del Mar, I have found LiveWire’s estimated range to be quite accurate, if not a little understated. LiveWire claims that city riding will get about 113 miles, highway riding at a constant of 55mph is 70 miles, and a mix of highway and stop and go is 86 miles per charge. My average range for a mix of 45mph and 55mph is right around 90 miles - which is impressive considering the battery size. Wearing full gear, I weigh about 250 lbs, so smaller riders can expect better range.
Even though the bike weighs 436lbs, the majority of the weight is carried low so maneuvering at low speeds isn’t a challenge thanks to the narrow profile and large wheel set. The seat height is just over 32 inches, and compresses down to around 30 inches with properly set up suspension settings. At 6’1, I find that the seated position is quite comfortable, although the stock seat is a little too hard for my liking. If you buy the Del Mar, I strongly recommend picking up the sport seat, which provides a much better seated experience.
S2 Del Mar near the James River outside of Richmond, Virginia.
The Del Mar is a premium motorcycle built with premium parts and precision manufacturing. You can feel the quality of every part on each ride you take, and that’s because there’s over a hundred years of experience behind the Del Mar. LiveWire motorcycles are manufactured and assembled by Harley-Davidson employees in Milwaukee, WI and York, PA right along side every other motorcycle made by the Motor company. The Del Mar is thoughtfully designed, expertly assembled, and is just an all around exceptional motorcycle.
I really dig the flat tracker style and love how it has a balanced feel of upright riding and aggressive controls. The overall feeling of the bike’s ergonomics are quite confidence inspiring and have always felt in complete control. The only change I would like to make to the ergonomics is some bar risers, as I’m a little hunched over when standing on the pegs. At the moment, there really isn’t any other electric motorcycle on the roads that looks, handles, and rides like the Del Mar.
The bike is equipped with a robust and well tuned selection of preset riding modes. You can switch between any active ride modes on the fly using the mode button, or you can disable them in the menu settings. Throughout all of these riding modes, except for the secret mode, you have access to the Del Mar’s integrated safety technology via the 6 axis IMU, which monitors everything the bike is doing and softens output braking, power, and acceleration to ensure the rider is safe during cornering and low traction situations.
What I really love about all of these riding profiles is just how different the bike reacts to the different settings and how much it changes how the bike feels when you ride. The one caveat to riding profiles is that you can’t disable all of them in favor of just one. Overall I’ve found that the Del Mar riding presets are better implemented than any other electric motorcycle I’ve ridden and it’s quite fun to switch between modes when riding. Unfortunately, road mode is always active and can’t be deactivated like the other modes. Hopefully this is something that will be corrected in a firmware update.
Speaking of updates, the S2 Del Mar is the first motorcycle capable of receiving over the air updates. You don’t need an app or a cell phone connected for the bike to update itself, as you ride it downloads the updates and will prompt you to install when the bike isn’t in propulsion mode. It’s really quite simple to use and LiveWire provides update notes via the S2 LiveWire app so you can see what changes are being made.
LiveWire is constantly working on new updates for the S2 platform, and has some new software features in the works that are quite revolutionary for motorcycles that no one else has done yet. I can’t say more, but just know that if these features are really exciting and I hope they come to fruition. There are some features I wish the Del Mar had, but I’ll get to those in a second.
One area of the Del Mar that both excites me and frustrates me is the technology integration. One of the most impressive features is the integrated navigation in the 4inch TFT, and it’s a feature I wish ALL motorcycles had. Having one screen that displays your speed, range, and navigation instructions makes me feel safer and is less distracting while riding.
When paired with your smartphone via bluetooth, you can control music, handle phone calls, get text notifications, and use voice commands if your phone supports it. An annoying part of the bluetooth is that the bike serves as a bridge between your phone and headset, so if you don’t have a headset connected, you won’t hear audio like music, navigation, or anything else. I wish there was a way to play audio from phone without wearing a headset.
Another aspect of the tech integration that annoys me is that LiveWire omitted some gauges and instrument readouts that were really useful on the LiveWire One. Things like consumption rates, motor and battery temperatures, key activated trip mileage, ride mileage history, and many other little helpful bits of information for riders are missing. These are all correctable via a firmware update, and I really hope LiveWire includes them soon.
There are lots of other tech features that I’ll cover in an upcoming video, both good and bad, but what I want you to take away is you could completely ignore all of the tech features and still have fun with the bike. You could never download the app and you wouldn’t impact your experience.
Like most electric motorcycles, there is very little maintenance to keep up with. There are considerably less moving parts in EV motorcycles, which means there’s less things that can wear out or break through use. There’s the obvious parts that need to be changed eventually, like tires, brake pads and brake fluid - but that’s pretty much it. LiveWire has a nationwide dealer network with authorized service technicians to handle any servicing issues that come up, although most of the service interval checks are simple enough to do at home. Even if a component does break, the bike has a 2 year warranty for parts, the battery is warrantied for 5 years, and both come with unlimited mileage.
Speaking of the battery, let’s talk about charging and range. The most popular on-line criticism I’ve seen about the Del Mar is the lack of DCFC charging and a limited range capacity. While I understand this argument, as we could all use more range on ALL vehicles, it’s just not something that has impacted my enjoyment with the bike and I think people need to be a little more realistic on how much they actually ride.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, the average mileage per motorcycle in the US is right around 3000 miles a year. That’s just 250 miles a month in regions where you can ride nearly year round. I’ve already proven in multiple videos on my channel that 250+ miles in a day is certainly possible on the Del Mar and I certainly do more than 20k miles a year between my two electric motorcycles.
The only caveat to this argument is group rides and single rides that are always more than a full charge can manage, so if the ONLY riding you do is in large groups and ALWAYS exceeds single charge range, then the Del Mar definitely isn’t for you. However, this is such a minute percentage of the rider population and most people on the road I encounter are riding solo and can afford to stop for a short time to grab a charge and continue riding. Speaking of stopping to charge, lets talk about the lack of DCFC.
While I can’t speak for most regions of the US, there are far more Level 2 AC charging than there is DCFC where I live. According to the Alternative Fuels Data Center, there are just under 10k DCFC stations currently in the US, with just over 41k DCFC ports active. However, there are well over 57k Level 2 stations, and over 140k level 2 ports available, and more are being installed daily. So despite some people’s criticism, LiveWire was wise to go with an AC Level 2 platform as it is more widely available.
One criticism I do have regarding charging is the inconsistent speeds between public level 2 charging and other 240v sources. When charging at public stations, my average speeds have been right around 4.3kW. When charging from home on my 240v outlet or at RV campgrounds - my speeds are faster at 5.2kW when using my Webasto Go EVSE. Now there are no differences between the public chargers as they are all capable of 6kW and above, so the bike should be pulling more. This has something to do with the communication between the Del Mar and these public stations, and I hope it’s something LiveWire can correct in the future.
Now, in regards to charging wait times, I won’t pour over this topic in this video, but just understand that starting at 100% battery, riding to 0%, then waiting to charge all the way back to 100% is an inefficient way to ride any EV motorcycle. The exception is when the only available charging stations are at the edge of available range on one charge. When switching to EV motorcycles, you really have to relearn refueling habits and behaviors to save yourself from charging headaches.
Overall, I absolutely love the Del Mar. It’s quick, nimble, and incredibly responsive. Anytime I need to run into town to run some errands, go for a cruise in the mountains, or explore some desolate back country roads - I immediately reach for the Del Mar. While some can complain about the small battery size, I feel this is what gives the bike it’s nimble feel and responsive controls - anything heavier and it would diminish the feel when riding.
It’s no question that there isn’t a one size fits all when it comes to motorcycles. Some people enjoy ripping long distances on the interstate, while others prefer a quick jaunt in their local area. In fact, there are more riders in urban and rural areas than those that travel on the interstate. According to the FHA, in 2021 there were over 4 million more miles accumulated on on slower, rural and urban roads than on the interstate. And it’s no wonder, while riding on the interstate is the fastest way to get somewhere, it’s also the most boring way to travel, and the data reflects that. Riding in rural and urban areas is by far the most enjoyable way to ride, and the Del Mar is best suited on those types of roads, both in range capacity and overall enjoyment.
When you factor in the low maintenance cost, a healthy availability of level 2 charging, the fun riding experience, and a decent asking price - it’s no wonder that I highly recommend the S2 Del Mar as your first, or next electric motorcycle. There are accessories coming for the S2 platform, and LiveWire has been hard at work for the last year to develop OEM parts to enhance the riding experience and I can’t wait to see what they have in store.
As those accessories become available, you can be sure I’ll review them here on this channel, so be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on all things LiveWire. If you want to see how far you can travel on the Del Mar in a day, click this video here!
