ElectricMotorcycleForum.com

https://idnmotoweek.blogspot.com/2023/11/zero-motorycle.html

Cas

Down to Davant Bikes again today to pick up the SR/F after having the chargers fiddled with once again (short version: Zero chap claimed to have replaced them both, but actually, didn't, and then fled ). While I was there I had a go on the DSR/X demonstrator, attractively liveried in Avocado Toilet Suite. Seriously Zero. Anyway, at least you don't have to look too much at the colour while you're riding it.

I went out for about an hour, covering about 35 miles perhaps, using about 25% of the battery, with a mix of roads between 20-70mph but no sustained motorway travel, mostly around town. So I guess that means a usefully increased range over my 14.4 SR/F, extrapolating to about 120 miles or so (I get ~100 on the SR/F in the same sort of riding). Unsurprisingly the 20% increase in range tallies almost exactly with the 20% increase in battery capacity. Why this sort of reasoning seems so difficult for other people to grasp is beyond me. Anyhoo...

Size and weight wise, feels rather like a GS Adventure. It ain't light but the weight is pretty low. It is surprisingly large. The seat is surprisingly low. The demo bike had an official large screen fitted but it simply generated big turbulent noise no matter what height I set it at. The hand adjuster is good and easy to operate, even on the move.

It's got the nice new dash that I got fitted under warranty to my SR/F, so that's nice. This one was fitted with aux lights, a metal topbox, and crashbars too. I think the handguards are standard, not sure, but all standard fare and well made. Fit and finish is very good, much better than the original crop of SR/Fs. Same crappy switchgear though.

The seat and ride is plush - really nice, vastly more comfy than the SR/F and the suspension seems to waft over bumps brilliantly unlike the SR/F which batters you. You can feel that it's more gangly than the dense and compact SR/F, and it rocks on its suspension more when you brake. The rear brake is a bit better than the risible effort on the SR/F. It rides a lot quieter than my bike too - less weird noises from the belt, more consistent spaceship sorts of sounds, and quieter. I liked it.

Speed wise, sport mode was oddly muted compared to my bike. My SR/F is genuinely scary in sport mode over 30mph - it actually makes me swear and back off. Not so the DSR/X, which whizzed about well enough, but felt muted, almost like street mode on the SR/F. It's still properly quick mind, just not scarily quick.

Didn't get to test headlight or pillion accommodation of course and I imagine the heated grips are just as good as mine.

All in all... I'd say yes. It's something I'd buy if I was looking right now and it was under £20k and had a charge tank in it. Unfortunately I want to get another 30k miles on the SR/F, and it costs £25k or something daft like that, and there are no charge tanks available yet

I'll write to Santa.

Cas

Alas, it has now happened to me, big-time

Torrential rain yesterday. Bike suddenly started throwing error codes at me - "Battery Ineligible" and "Isolation Fault" etc. and the CEL illuminated. I nursed it home, where it subsequently refused to charge or power on ("Isolation Fault").
This is a major blow for me - it's my main transport. I'm hoping that if I leave it to dry out it'll recover in a day or two. I've had this problem before when I washed the bike (gently!) which is why it hardly ever gets washed any more, but this is much more serious - it could have happened to me in the middle of nowhere, or worse, on the way to work, costing me a fortune in lost earnings (I'm self employed - if I don't turn up I don't get paid).

Trouble is I'm afeared of sending it to Davant Bikes to get it "looked at" because doubtless there is no actual fix for this issue, and I worry that I'll experience the same bullshit everyone seems to be experiencing, namely their bikes being gone for months, nothing being fixed, and if lucky getting them back with the same problem returning as soon as it rains again.

Does anyone know where the actual problem might lie under the bodywork and what I could do to mitigate it?

Cas

Back at Morrisons in Warminster today, to see if the problem I had last year with the 43kW AC tethered charger was just a glitch or whether it's my bike. Well... turns out it's my bike.
The SR/F Premium with Charge Tank is unable to initiate a charge on a 43kW AC charger. It latches the Mennekes, sits there drawing 0 amps for a few seconds, then decides nothing's happening and stops trying. The charger is offering the power for definite, but the Zero isn't asking for any.

So I'm guessing that the Zero is somehow asking the charger what it can offer, the charger says "43kW, buddy" and the Zero goes "oh noes, that's too much, kthxbai". So also presumably this is the bike's problem, and a design feature of the SR/F, rather than the Geniepoint charger being shite.

Can anybody confirm?

Cas

After exactly 12 months and 6800 trouble free miles of operation... CEL comes on. Just prior to that there was a High Throttle warning which I cleared by switching off and on, and some other error code that since vanished. But now the CEL is on. As I understand it this restricts engine torque?

Anybody know how to clear it without having to go all the way to my dealer (which is basically a whole day wasted)?

Cas

https://www.visordown.com/news/industry/uk-government-pulls-plug-big-plug-electric-motorcycle-grants

On the one hand... yay, my SR/F is suddenly worth another grand.
On the other hand... what a fucktarded backward decision to make when they were already really rather struggling to convince people they need to shift NOW not in 10 years when we'll all be under water etc.

Cas

The other day, my SRF decided to randomly change the time on the clock. Presumably if there's a date in there it randomly changed that too.
I haven't figured out how to set it back again yet, but in the meantime, has anybody ever seen this before? It is a particularly bizarre thing to occur.

Cas