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[vamshimohank]

Hello experts,

Greetings from Germany. I am a new member here and just getting started to electrify my transportation fleet 😀. I would like to take advise in buying a used zero s from 2014. It’s been owned by only one owner and surprisingly is driven only for ~4000 km. Is it worth buying for 8000 Euros. It has 12.4 KWh monolith. My main concern is what is the life of the monolith battery, not in terms of km but in terms of real time? It’s built 8 years ago but obviously very few charge cycles on it, ~25. Price seems to be reasonable, but I am worried that I might end up shelling my pocket if the battery breaks down in a couple of months as there are no warranties anymore.

Any suggestions and sharing of your experience will be of great help for me to make a decision.

Thanks in advance

Regards
Vamshi

[DerKrawallkeks]

Hey,

that price is kinda okay, even though there was an SR sold a couple months ago here in Germany for 6000. 11.4kWh battery though.
Anyway, the real question is, was the battery kept at full charge all the time? If so, that's bad. And what percentage has it been kept at? Anything below 50% for most of the time and I don't see a problem.
I believe my battery is 2015 (it says so in the BMS), and it's in amazing condition, perfect cell balance and very good capacity.

Best regards from Stuttgart

[vamshimohank]

Hey,

that price is kinda okay, even though there was an SR sold a couple months ago here in Germany for 6000. 11.4kWh battery though.
Anyway, the real question is, was the battery kept at full charge all the time? If so, that's bad. And what percentage has it been kept at? Anything below 50% for most of the time and I don't see a problem.
I believe my battery is 2015 (it says so in the BMS), and it's in amazing condition, perfect cell balance and very good capacity.

Best regards from Stuttgart

Thanks for that quick reply.

So the only way to figure out is to ask the seller how it is stored and take it for granted or is there a technical way to identify the health of the battery?

I had a test drive of about 25 km yesterday and the charge went down from 99% to 82%. The drive was mix of autobahn and city roads (125 kmph for 8-10 km, 70-80 kmph for 10-12 km and <50kmph for ~ 5KM). Rough calculation would result in a range of ~130 km (~ 20% for 25-27 KM and (25-27)*5=125-135 km for 100%). However, on the trip meter a consumption number of ~ 6KWh/100 Km was shown, accordingly i should have got ~200 km of range with 12.4 KWh battery. Should I conclude that there is a degradation of the battery here or am I missing something?   Perhaps, the consumption number is some kind of a dynamic thing that depends on the drving style extrapolation and this simple calculation is not appropriate?

Thanks
Regards
Vamshi

[TEV]

If it wasn't charged for a long period of time, the cells may not be properly balanced, and it will take a few cycles of discharging/charging until they will get back in balance. So until the cells are balanced, your range will be dictated by the lowest cell in the pack, no mater the State Of Charge. If you can connect the Zero Motorcycle App, or Zero Spy (for Android) you can check the cell balance, and you want to get it to be less than 10mV. If currently is more than 10mV, it's not necessarily a bad thing, it could be because the motorcycle wasn't kept pugged in and the cells  drifted away in time.

[vamshimohank]

@TEV Thanks for bringing up that point.

I should probably add the following as well:

The bike seems to be maintained well, which i conclude from maintainence check-book: It has been to the dealer ever year for a checkup roughly every 1000 km and there seems to be no issues documented.

At least it was not kept low charge for long periods of time (years). The seller mentioned that the bike was ridden every summer for around 600 KM.

Thanks
Vamshi

[Richard230]

My daughter is riding my old 2014 Zero S with Power Tank. So far the batteries seem to be providing about the same performance as when new, based upon the SOC, which typically shows between 70% and 62%, at the end of riding the 40 miles between my home and her home and then back again. How fast the SOC drops is almost completely dependent upon ambient temperature, speeds being about the same during each trip. Using the Zero app, cell balance remains at 3-5mV after leaving the bike plugged in for a few hours to make sure that the system is fully balanced. The only problem that the bike has had is a dead on-board charger, which her husband and I replaced without too much difficulty.  I might add that the bike spent the first three years of its life with the charger plugged in 24/7, as per Zero's recommendations at the time.

I am also not experiencing any noticeable degradation of my 2018's battery pack after 4 years of riding.   

[ms_smart]

I had a test drive of about 25 km yesterday and the charge went down from 99% to 82%. The drive was mix of autobahn and city roads (125 kmph for 8-10 km, 70-80 kmph for 10-12 km and <50kmph for ~ 5KM). Rough calculation would result in a range of ~130 km (~ 20% for 25-27 KM and (25-27)*5=125-135 km for 100%). However, on the trip meter a consumption number of ~ 6KWh/100 Km was shown, accordingly i should have got ~200 km of range with 12.4 KWh battery. Should I conclude that there is a degradation of the battery here or am I missing something?   

Hi Vamish, I think your math is incorrect I don't know for the 12.4 kWh battery, but for the 14.4 kWh I know for sure that this capacity is only marketing (#cells * max voltage * capacity) since the voltage will go down on lower SOC. More correct would be to use average voltage. Anyway: My 14.4 kWh battery has 12.6 kWh nominal capacity and 11.2 usable capacity. If I assume the same overhead for the 12.4 kWh battery of your zero s you would end up in ~9.5 kWh usable capacity. The 6kWh consumption seems to be a little low. For your driving pattern I would expect 6.3 - 6.5 kWh / 100km. Your calculated range of 130km sounds to me therefore very acceptable for a 2014 bike. I would recommend a longer test drive and run it down to 2-5%.

Thomas

[DerKrawallkeks]

I think ms_smart is right, my 12.5kWh pack also takes a maximum of like 10kWh. The number on the pack is only marketing.
I get pretty much exactly 130km in mixed riding. Well maintained is good as well.
You should try and get the price down, it is a little bit on the expensive side.

@TEV From my understanding, the cells should be balanced after a single full charge, since the Zero BMS is doing top balancing.

[vamshimohank]

Thank you all for the replies. I will try to have an extended drive test once again and get a better idea. Will keep posted.

[dvdt]

My 2014S (and others) have required a replacement on board charger. Mine was replaced under warranty at about 25k miles, so you presumably have some distance to go, but you might want to include that as a consideration. The replacement has continued to work for several years and at least the 30k miles (and charging) since.

At about 45k miles my 2014S had battery issues that required a replacement. That too was under warranty. That is quite a bit into the distant future, and you're already carefully considering the state of the battery, but something to bear in mind.

Apart from those issues, my 2014S has been reliable (garaged, and maintained at moderate state of charge). Best of luck.