6 • May 2025 • Powersports Business

Harley-Davidson CEO told the board he plans to retire in 2025 and will stay on until a replacement is found.( Photo: Harley-Davidson)

With the markets in turmoil as President Trump waged his tariffs across the board, and with the EU looking to retaliate against the administration, putting Harley-Davidson in the crosshairs of European lawmakers, the news came out that the Motor Company’ s president and CEO, Jochen Zeitz, plans to retire this year.

Zeitz has been a polarizing figure at Harley-Davidson over the past few years since he took the reins of the iconic American brand during the Covid pandemic in 2020. Reuters and other news outlets, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, reported that Zeitz is stepping down from Harley after five years at the helm.

According to a statement from the company,“ The search process was initiated in Q4 2024 with the retention of a leading executive search firm after Zeitz expressed his interest in retiring from the company in 2025 after five years in the CEO position,” The statement also notes that Zeitz will remain as CEO until such successor is identified“ to ensure an orderly leadership transition.”

The board thanked Zeitz for his many contributions to the company as CEO. These contributions included the creation and successful execution of the Hardwire, the company’ s five-year strategic plan( 2021−2025), reinvigorating the brand, and his leadership during one of the most challenging operating environments in the company’ s history.

“ In motorcycling, when you want to get more out of an engine, you upgrade it by adding a Stage II kit, that is what we are doing with our Hardwire strategy, tuning the engine of our business for improved acceleration and increased performance,” Zeitz said in 2022 as the Hardwire strategy was being implemented.

The Hardwire strategy aimed to revive the brand as it has struggled to connect with young riders. Harley’ s key customer base is the baby boomer demographic, which are aging out of two-wheel products. The five-year strategy prioritized high-margin products, and the company also left markets where volumes and margins were low.

Harley forecasts that its 2025 profit and motorcycle revenue will be flat to down by 5 % as consumers hold off on big purchases.

And with the threat of retaliatory tariffs from the EU potentially adding as much as 54 % to the cost of a Harley in Europe, it would be untenable, according to recent testimony from Harley’ s chief financial officer Jonathan Root, who testified about being a target to Congress.

“ The launch of our new Street Glide and Road Glide touring motorcycles contributed to nearly 5 % growth in the U. S.,” he says in a statement.“ Touring segment drove H-D’ s market share to 74.5 % in 2024. The decisions we have made and the bold actions we have taken as part of our Hardwire strategy are continuing to strengthen our foundation for the future. The industry has faced many challenges over the past couple of years, impacting at all levels, but we believe we are best positioned to take advantage of any uptick in consumption.”

Prior to being named CEO in 2020, Zeitz was a member of the Harley-Davidson board of directors since 2007 and established the company’ s brand and sustainability committee. He served as chairman and CEO of Puma for 18 years, from 1993 to 2011, and was also Puma’ s CFO from 1993 to 2005. Zeitz remained chairman of Puma after being appointed CEO of the luxury goods company Kering( formerly PPR) from 2011 to 2012. Zeitz said at the time of his appointment as CEO,“ In alignment with the board, my decision to become the president and CEO of Harley- Davidson reflects my deep passion and commitment to this company …”

But turmoil began last year when Harley was confronted by online attacks about its diversity, equity and inclusion( DEI) practices. This angered many keyboard warriors and brand loyalists alike, as some voiced their frustrations online.

Then came the issue of manufacturing in Thailand, which the company announced it was going to do in 2018.

“ As part of our overall manufacturing optimization strategy,” the company said in 2024,“ Harley�Davidson is to temporarily transition the production of its non�core Revolution Max powertrain equipped models to its manufacturing facility in Thailand for model�year 2025. This does not have an impact on employment at U. S. facilities.”

Harley stated that its core products of touring bikes, trikes, and Softail models for American customers would remain in the U. S., and that it would invest $ 9 million in its York, Pennsylvania, factory. The announcement about moving production overseas was met with derision from some of Harley’ s customers. This also put more heat on Zeitz as these customers saw him as a European outsider, and many called for him to step down.

While Zeitz had his share of detractors, he had the board’ s support and managed to make some gains in the process. But time will tell how his strategies play out. He also spun off the electric brand into its own company, Livewire, which continues to lose money as customers have not gravitated to these electric motorcycles yet.

Polaris Inc’ s Indian Motorcycle dealerships ranked highest in the 2025 Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness( ILE) Powersports Industry Study for the third time, measuring responsiveness to internet sales leads from dealership websites. Following Indian were Harley- Davidson, BMW, and BRP’ s Can- Am off- road dealers.

Pied Piper submitted customer inquiries through 2,523 powersports dealership websites representing 27 brands. Each inquiry asked a specific question about a vehicle in inventory and included a new customer name, email address, and local telephone number.

The overall industry average score is unchanged; improvements in phone behaviors and overall response rate is offset by fewer personal email responses.

Pied Piper then evaluated the speed and quality of dealership responses by email, telephone, text message and chat over the next 24 hours. Each brand’ s overall ILE Score is a combined average of their individual dealer ILE performances. ILE evaluations consist of over 20 differently weighted measurements, based upon best practices that are mathematically most likely to generate sales, combining into an overall ILE score ranging from 0 to 100.

WHAT SETS INDIAN APART? 2025 marks the third year in a row the Indian brand achieved the top score in the annual ILE powersports industry study. The Indian brand improved its average score by one point for 2025, reaching an average ILE score of 56.

• Answering Customer’ s Question More Often: Indian dealers this year answered their customer’ s question by email / text 67 % of the time on average, improving six points over last year and 17 points higher than the 2025 industry average.

• Higher Rate of Phone Response: Compared to the industry overall, Indian dealers maintain an eight- point lead in the rate of phone response to customer inquiries, occurring 58 % of the time on average.

•“ Did Both” for More Inquiries: Indian dealers“ did both”( answering an inquiry by email / text and phoning,

For the third time, Polaris Indian Motorcycle dealerships ranked highest in the 2025 Pied Piper PSI Internet Lead Effectiveness Powersports Industry Study, which measures responsiveness to internet sales leads from dealership websites.( Photos: Pied Piper)

improving the odds of a response reaching the customer) 46 % of the time on average, eight points higher than last year and 20 points higher than the industry average.

“ The Indian motorcycle brand has maintained industryleading web- response behaviors during a challenging time in the powersports industry,” says Cameron O’ Hagan, Pied Piper’ s vice president of metrics and analytics.“ Two years ago, when market conditions were more favorable, dealers could easily afford to expand their staff and refine operations. Today, however, tougher conditions have many dealers battling just to keep the lights on.”

The overall powersports industry average ILE score remained the same over the last year, both with ILE scores of 44. Powersports dealers in 2025 improved phone behaviors and rate of response, but also experienced declines in other important areas, resulting in no overall change in total ILE Score

LAST YEAR’ S INDUSTRY PERFORMANCE The overall powersports industry average ILE score remained the same over the last year, both with ILE scores of 44. Powersports dealers in 2025 improved phone behaviors and rate of response, but also experienced declines in other important areas, resulting in no overall change in total ILE Score

Behaviors that improved: Powersports dealers in 2025 performed better in phone and text response, and the rate of dealers failing to respond occurred less often:

• More Phone Response: Dealers this year were 5 points more likely to respond to online customer inquiries by phone, occurring 50 % of the time on average.

• Better Use of Texting: Customers were more likely to receive a text response answering their question, increasing 5 points to an overall rate this year of 30 %.

• Fewer Failures to Respond: Dealers failed to respond to online inquiries less often this year, occurring only 9 % of the time on average.

Behaviors in decline: There were two notable declines in behavior that held back overall industry score improvement:

• Less Emails Answering Questions: Dealers answered customers’ questions by email 27 % of the time on average in 2025, down from 35 % last year.

• Not Offering Appointments as Often: Only 10 % of customers in 2025 received a response that included an offer to set up an appointment, in contrast to last year where it occurred 13 % of the time on average.

‘ 80 / 40 RULE’ IN POWERSPORTS In the 2025 powersports industry study, 13 % of all dealerships measured scored above 80( providing quick and thorough personal responses), while 42 % of dealerships scored below 40( failing to personally respond to website customers). The“ over 80” and“ under 40” segments each