ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2013+ => Topic started by: w34p0n2m4n on May 18, 2013, 11:22:12 PM
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So I got my own Zero S yesterday. Immediately got to experience an entirely new lifestyle.
For a variety of reasons (I'm assuming some dumbass unplugged it) my bike was at half charge when the dealership closed. The plan was to ride it back home roughly 65 miles, mostly freeway, so a half charge wasn't going to cut it. Because I've been thinking about getting this bike for a while, I had already noticed that WalMart puts electrical outlets on the front of their buildings. So I rode over to the nearest WalMart, crossed my fingers, plugged in, and was immediately met with the gratifying blinking charge light. This was the first part of the new lifestyle; keeping careful track of what places are open 24/7 and accessible enough to park a motorcycle. Also, it helps when they have snacks and reading material for when the bike happily informs you that it's going to be charging for three hours.
Eventually the charge light stopped blinking, so it was time to hit the road. And that's when the second part of my new lifestyle made itself felt: range anxiety. I know what Zero SAYS the bike will do, but when there's an awful lot of nothing between you and where you're going, and those battery bars start disappearing every seven miles or so, it gets hard to think about anything else. I did make it to my driveway...with one blinking bar left! Talk about cutting it close. I'll have to experiment, but considering the ride was mostly downhill, and I never went above 60mph, and I stayed crouched over most of the time, and maybe 10 of the miles were at 45mph, I'm thinking that 70 miles at freeway speeds (65-75) is excessively optimistic.
But, now that I'm back in town, I expect the range to not be a problem at all.
It's fun how light and controllable this bike is. I can pull up to a stop sign and come to a complete stop, then keep going, without ever needing to put my foot down for balance. If there's something in the road, I just flick the handlebars and go around it. The bike's in an awkward position? I can just lift one end and swing it around. As a comparison, I rode my Honda Rebel to the dealership (so the same trip in reverse) and when I was done my hands had that weird nerve vibration thing. Of course that doesn't happen with the Zero.
kind of amazing how sneaky the speed is. There's no noise or shift points to feed your intuition about speed.
It does seem like the headlights are pathetically underpowered.
I like the little American flag on the tail :-)
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Just a heads up, there's 11 bars on the gauge and in reality there is 12 bars. The 12th bar isn't displayed. So even if you used up that last blinking bar the zero will continue to run for about 10 more miles at ~40mph. But cutting it that close isn't fun. Glad you like the new Zero! If you have an iPhone or android you should check out the app. It gives you a "miles until empty" gauge.
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Welcome to your new addiction! You're right about the speedo climbing up rather quickly. Soon you'll get used to the wind noise and can use that as a reasonable gauge for how fast you're going. Also, we riders will have to train the dealers to make sure every bike has a full charge. I have a dealer within 20 miles, and received my 2012 Zero S with half a charge, but made it with no worries.
Have fun!
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Regarding range: the dealership gave me some instructions from Zero for the break-in period of the first 30 charge cycles. Supposedly if I do this right then I will realize up to an extra 10% in capacity and range. The instructions which seem important seem to be that for the first 30 charges, always ride to discharge at least 30% before recharge and never ride to total discharge within that 30 charge break in period. I am only on my 8th charge cycle so I have no idea how it will be after 30 charges. Did you receive this info from your dealer? I will post it if anyone needs it.
SK
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That's not in the owner's manual. I would like to know where your dealer is getting his information.
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That's not in the owner's manual. I would like to know where your dealer is getting his information.
Probably from the instructions that came with his rechargeable Ni-Cad flashlight. ;D
Trikester
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I had that same info about the 30 cycles from my dealer, it was on a separate piece of Zero headed paper along with the Limited edition certificate, logbook and USB stick etc.
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I wonder why not all the dealers are giving this information out. I asked mine about any break-in and he said there wasn't any.
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Hi
on my 2011 it was an easy job to convert the headlight to a trucklite phase 7 LED. much better light - love it. not sure what can fit and work in the newer models.
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My headlight (2013 S) is an H4. I'm curious to see an led equivalent. I know they exist, I just haven't seen one in person.
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I had that same info about the 30 cycles from my dealer, it was on a separate piece of Zero headed paper along with the Limited edition certificate, logbook and USB stick etc.
Same here: a single separate paper with Zero letterhead. I did not receive anything else from Zero as far as certificate, logbook etc. There is also another sheet about extremes of temperature and storage with regard to batteries as well as a sheet on how to clean the Zero S.
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Where would one get these other sheets? The website?
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For the 2013, you do not need to worry about a charging cycle for the first 30 charges. That only applies to some of the older year models. You can download an owner's manual directly from the Zero's website for your 2013 S.
http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/owner-resources/ (http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/owner-resources/)
There is no break in period mentioned for the battery. Just keep the bike charged up when not riding. Your battery will be fine. I suspect that some dealers are just not up on the most current information for the new models. And up on providing a bike that is fully charged. My dealer here in Colorado, Grand Prix Motorsports, made sure my bike had a full charge when I purchased it.
Just for fun and to experience what it would be like to run out of charge, I rode my bike through the blinking lights all the way down to no bars. My bike still ran for quite a good while with no bars showing. So there is definitely a good reserve to help you in those tight situations. By doing this, I lessened any feelings of range anxiety I might have had otherwise.
When you get down to 2 blinking bars, don't panic. :) Just consider that the low fuel light you would get on a car. Hopefully at that point, you are close to your destination but you still have some power left in the batteries.
I would also recommend adding an extra extension cord stored on your bike for those situations where you do need to charge away from home and the black cord provided for the bike is not long enough. I rode my bike last Friday from Denver up into the mountains (amazing ride) to BlackHawk and Central City. There are casinos up there. I parked in a casino parking garage close to an outlet. I topped off my charge while walking around town. I would have been fine with the charge for the return trip, but that extra top off just gave me a little extra insurance and piece of mind.
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Eventually the charge light stopped blinking, so it was time to hit the road. And that's when the second part of my new lifestyle made itself felt: range anxiety. I know what Zero SAYS the bike will do, but when there's an awful lot of nothing between you and where you're going, and those battery bars start disappearing every seven miles or so, it gets hard to think about anything else. I did make it to my driveway...with one blinking bar left! Talk about cutting it close. I'll have to experiment, but considering the ride was mostly downhill, and I never went above 60mph, and I stayed crouched over most of the time, and maybe 10 of the miles were at 45mph, I'm thinking that 70 miles at freeway speeds (65-75) is excessively optimistic.
Congrats on the new bike!
As DesignerDan says, there's a small amount of charge available even when you see 0 bars remaining. With 1 blinking bar you should be between 25% and 16% charge remaining. The smartphone app should tell you a more exact number.
Experience riding the bike (and publicly available charging) will help a lot with range anxiety. I still plan out longer trips that will take me down to the last 20%, but most of the time it's hop on and ride.
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Isn't there a potential for battery damage if you run right down to nothing? Isn't that why there's still some charge when it shows zero?
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I don't believe that the BMS will permit you to damage the battery pack. As the pack nears its final few amp hours, the BMS will cut the power to a walking pace and if you finally hit the bottom of the pack it will cut off all power and you will end up pushing. Matt told me that he ran his 2012 Zero S out of juice and barely made it to a 120V wall outlet at a restaurant, moving at only 25 mph for the last few miles. Apparently, this did no damage to his batteries and after a few hours charging he was able to return home at normal speeds.
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The Sevcon reduce power from 58V to 54V (cutoff).
54V / 18 = 3V per Cell.
This should still be a save voltage.
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It's the same with Li battery powered power tools. The cut-off protection is built into the battery pack so that it is never discharged below the point where damage would occur.
However, the reason Zero doesn't want us to leave our bikes unplugged for weeks at a time is because there is a constant drain on the battery by those protection and management circuits. This drain can eventually take the battery below the damage point in voltage. However, with the 2013 batteries that situation is much improved by the "at rest" discharge being greatly reduced from previous years. The 2013's can sit for long periods of time without being plugged in, without causing damage. 8)
The most critical were the 2010's which needed to not be left more than a week without being plugged in, to avoid damage.
Trikester
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I believe the change to the lower power BMS was made for the 2012 bikes.
Per Zero (http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/2012/features.php):
New battery management system with enhanced 24/7 cell monitoring and a 92% reduction in power consumption
I left saturday morning for a canoeing trip with the bike at approximately a 50% SOC, unplugged.
I returned wednesday evening with the bike at approximately the same SOC.
The Sevcon reduce power from 58V to 54V (cutoff).
54V / 18 = 3V per Cell.
This should still be a save voltage.
EIG (2012 Zeros) lists the lower cutoff voltage at 2.5V per cell.
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I believe the change to the lower power BMS was made for the 2012 bikes.
You may be correct but I was going by what I was told, that it was in 2013 models. Maybe they reduced it for 2012 and then reduced it some more for 2013.
Trikester
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Haha, yeah I took the MSF's experienced rider course the other day and one of the instructors was scolding the class for leaving the ignition on when they dismounted the school's bikes. An hour or two later they noticed that I happened to leave my ignition on so the headlight was still shining. They said something like "that poor battery" and I was like 'I don't think you have to worry about THAT battery."
Believe it or not it took them a few hours to notice that my bike wasn't making any noise.
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Haha, yeah I took the MSF's experienced rider course the other day and one of the instructors was scolding the class for leaving the ignition on when they dismounted the school's bikes. An hour or two later they noticed that I happened to leave my ignition on so the headlight was still shining. They said something like "that poor battery" and I was like 'I don't think you have to worry about THAT battery."
Believe it or not it took them a few hours to notice that my bike wasn't making any noise.
Nice. The MSF ERC class must be super-easy with the Zero. I struggled the whole time with the class-provided BMW G650's incredibly over-stretched and under-adjusted clutch cable. Ow! Clunking between first and second gear makes the routines hard to focus on.
Parking lot slow speed practice on the Zero DS has been very easy by comparison.
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Yeah, there were several parts of the exercises that just didn't apply to me since I didn't have any gears to shift and didn't have a friction zone to manage. By the end of the afternoon the instructors and there boss were all talking about getting their own Zero.
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The local rider safety course, of MSF, in my area, has considered getting Zero XU's to teach bike handling before teaching the shifting and clutch etc. Since the parking lot where they teach doesn't have AC power, the XU would work out well because they can remove the batteries and take them to their office for charging overnight.
Trikester
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Congrats on the new Zero S!! I got mine in mid June from AF1 Racing here in Austin Tx.
I have long been a proponent of alternative energies and wanted to build or convert an electric vehicle since I was in middle school in the late seventies. As an enthusiastic kid with no experience in EVs or a driver's license, I got told to shut up a lot. Now I am older, have many years experience in machine shop, electronics, & driving, and the world has changed a bit. It seemed it was time to make this real. I just joined the forum and am glad to see more useful information exchanged on these and other electric motorcycles that are on the roads now. I hope I am not hijacking this thread by being too far off subject. Be safe.
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It sounds like you will be interested in following my thread (in this forum) as I convert my home built gas powered (Yamaha) trike to Zero's 2013 FX power components. Yesterday I completed the base support for the batteries and today I'll take a photo and post it on my thread tonight. My task now is to figure out how I will secure the batteries in place. :P
Trikester