Harley-Davidson Should Resume Production Today

[advrider]

After a two-week shutdown, production at two US-based Harley-Davidson plants is supposed to resume today.

Actually, the initial shut-down was announced a bit more than two weeks ago. The news dropped on May 19, when we got the statement below, issued to Harley-Davidson’s investors:

MILWAUKEE, May 19, 2022 / Yesterday, Harley-Davidson, Inc. (“Harley-Davidson”) (NYSE:HOG) took the decision to suspend all vehicle assembly and shipments (excluding LiveWire) for a two-week period. This decision, taken out of an abundance of caution, is based on information provided by a third-party supplier to Harley-Davidson late on Tuesday (5/17) concerning a regulatory compliance matter relating to the supplier’s component part.

Note the wording of the bolded section (we added it for emphasis). It doesn’t really say anything useful at all. In the weeks since, we’ve had no update from the Motor Company explaining which part was the potential problem, no word on really anything at all.

At the time of the shutdown, Harley-Davidson’s media reps supposedly told the press that it was the Menomonee Falls and York factories that were shutting down (the York factory builds the Pan America). It also said that LiveWire electric motorcycle production would continue. This led some to believe that the part Harley-Davidson blamed for the shutdown was related to internal combustion engines, perhaps part of the emission control system. However, that’s just a guess.

A few weeks before the shutdown, Harley-Davidson had told its investors that it was having supply chain issues related to the ongoing chip shortage, which certainly isn’t what the shutdown was blamed on in the news release. So, who knows?

What we do know is, the plants are supposed to be up and running today, which is good news for dealers, for waiting customers, but most of all for the employees who haven’t been able to work for the past half-month.

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