Vance Strader Has a New Mission: Building ARES
Project : ARES has turned heads as an electric motorcycle built around the idea of how a bike should feel, not just what it can do. Now Real Motors is bringing in some serious motorcycle engineering experience as it moves towards production, with former LiveWire CTO Vance Strader joining the team for the next stage.
But there's more going on here than a new appointment. Real Motors wants to rethink how motorcycles are made, and ARES is about to become its first real test.
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Building ARES Is the Next Big Challenge
Strader worked on Harley-Davidson's electric motorcycle programme from its early development through the launch of the original LiveWire in 2019, later becoming LiveWire's CTO. Before that, he held engineering roles at Buell Motorcycles.
His job at Real Motors will involve getting the less glamorous parts of motorcycle production sorted. That means developing supply chains, manufacturing processes and quality systems that can deliver the performance and craftsmanship Real Motors says it is aiming for.
Real Motors isn't planning to simply build ARES using a conventional manufacturing setup. Its wider ambition revolves around something called Manufacto, an engineering-led approach that brings production, rapid prototyping and research and development together.
The company wants to combine engineering with AI, robotics, additive manufacturing and newer production methods. The aim is to reduce the labour and capital normally needed to manufacture complex products. That should give engineers more freedom to develop machines without the expense of building a traditional large-scale factory operation.
ARES will be the first real-world proving ground for this approach. That's a pretty important assignment for a motorcycle being offered in a limited first production run of 250 units. Lot 01 is priced at US$20,000 and comes with a 65-kW motor and a 13.4-kWh nickel-cobalt-manganese battery. Reservations are open with a fully refundable US$500 deposit.
Real Motors was founded in 2022 by Trent Dingman and Michael Feng, with its Electric Analogue philosophy putting the rider's connection with the machine ahead of chasing numbers. We covered that thinking, and the ARES itself, in our earlier piece, Project Ares: The Prototype That's Turning Heads.
Strader appears to share Real Motors' thinking. Speaking about the appointment, he said a future machine isn't defined by its spec sheet, but by the complete experience of how it's engineered, how it's designed, how it feels and how it connects with its rider.
Real Motors will show ARES Lot 01 at the Barber Vintage Festival in Alabama from October 9–11, before taking it to EICMA in Milan in November.
For North American buyers, deliveries are planned to begin in early 2027, with EU and Gulf states availability expected in Q1 2027 once homologation is complete.
The BCB Take
But there's a big difference between building an interesting prototype and delivering 250 finished motorcycles that all meet the same standard. That's where Manufacto has to prove itself.
Bringing production, prototyping and engineering together sounds sensible, particularly for a small manufacturer that doesn't have the resources of an established motorcycle giant. But AI, robotics and 3D printing don't automatically make production cheaper, easier or more reliable.
The real test, though, will be whether Real Motors can turn its big ideas about the future of motorcycling into something riders can actually buy, ride and live with.
Ride safe, folks.
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