I'm not worried about Harley staying in business. The name has too much value to die anytime soon. But they could become a much different company, selling 10000 scooters at $60K a year as opposed to selling 40000 scooters at $25K.
But the if then political make up in DC changes in the fall with the liberals having all three pieces of the triad, all bets are off. Harley could be one of the economic reset/global warming casualties. Along with a lot of other motor vehicle builders. The virus shut down already piled losses onto a socioeconomic down turn in the scooter market. Which puts Harley at risk. A return to the Obama era economy and a hard shift to carbon neutral will just add to the income woes companies like Harley are feeling. You all do remember those **** years after the crash? And don't forget what Biden's base is. He's a Banker. And he is directly responsible for legal interest rates above what the Mob used to charge. So financing cost could return the what we saw in the 80's. Remember 7-8-9-11% mortages? And that may happen anyway, just from the size of the national debt and the loss of Chicom money in the TBill market. So it could be a poor point in history to be selling luxury toys. But Harley won't be alone. What's left of the American auto industry has pretty much written off the economical motor vehicle.
To put it another way. Today a 30K scooter with $25K financed for 72 months at 2% will set you back $369 a month. Harley can sell scooters at those numbers and dealers are sending offers to past customers who have the credit numbers to qualify.
But if car loans jump to say 9.9% then its $462 a month. Some people are already paying that much because of the reset in the subprime auto loan market. And some people will continue to buy scooters at that rate. But quite a few will balk, and quite a few will no longer qualify for a loan at any rate.
So Harley needs to do some things just right, and they need some help from DC. They need to introduce some quality product free from defects. Then they need to create some market space. Product placement in tv and movies as well as reading the market correctly is under their control. But they also need for DC to leave them alone, not raise taxes and nor regulate them into extinction with healthcare expansion, gender rights, racial quotas, carbon taxes and other socialist bullshit. And they need congress to stop spending money they don't have, and get the debt in hand, before the debt starts setting the market the way it did in the late 80's and 90's.
www.bloomberg.com
