I received the email too, but I've not the foggiest idea what to talk about :-\
On the one hand, it sounds like they are going to make tweaks to the 2012 models for 2013 if he talked about making other changes for 2014-15. Maybe they will put off replacing the motor and water cooling for a couple years and just make a bigger battery with minor adjustments to the 2012 model to get a little more range and power. What do you think after talking with Mr. Walker Richard?
Did you ask him if he rides?
Talked to Mr. Walker today. I'm really glad he is reaching out to actual users and getting direct feedback. As previous posters have said, he's seems like a really good guy. He left me with the feeling that he is excited about the company and the technology and is really dedicated and interested in making Zero a success.
He said something that shocked me - he mentioned that he had word that Brammo wouldn't be getting Empulses into users hands until next year. For some reason, I thought Brammo was supposed to be shipping this summer, this month no less? I'm not much of a Brammo watcher - do I have my rumors all mixed up?
I don't think Brammo will go belly-up. But I do think their sales of the Empulse and the Enertia Plus will not be enough to support the company for very long if those are their only products. I think their real future will be as a Polaris subsidiary or consultant contractor performing EV research for Polaris's range of off-road, commercial and industrial vehicles (kind of like an in-house Mission Motorcycles). They might also end up being a Polaris electric motorcycle brand when (eventually) the EV market finally looks like it will generate enough yearly sales to make some money. Personally, I don't see that happening for quite some time - unless oil supplies become disrupted due to something bad happening in the Middle East. :o
I guarantee you that Brammo is hemorrhaging money in their ill-fated quest to build an electric bike that operates like an IC bike and no parent company or investor will put up with that for long. The main culprit is an unnecessary six speed gear box and the added weight and lower range that is one trade-off vs no gears.
The other negative in the trade-off is higher cost. They are attempting to re-create the experience of an IC bike to appeal to IC bike riders who can't get their heads around the natural smooth torque curve of an electric motor. Huge mistake. Higher cost/lower range is not a solution. The user will catch up with the technology. It's stupid to hobble new technology with anachronisms. Imagine Apple initially shipping the iPhone with only one app that makes it work like an old cell phone because users were originally familiar with the interface on a cell phone. The thing runs 1000s of apps, for pete's sake. That's what the iPhone is about.
An argument can be made for two gears on an electric, one up to approx. 40MPH and another to 100MPH, but no more, and if and only if it can be done without adding weight that reduces range. A better weight/value trade-off is ABS.
All of this is academic because it's obvious that Brammo's product marketing team is dysfunctional. My bet is that they are captive to the engineering team and powerless. Look at the way they have handled the delays in the Inertia+ on top of delays of the Empulse. They are trying to stall Zero sales with a string of fake delivery dates for bikes that never materialize but instead they're stalling their own sales.
A friendly wager... $10 says they abandon the Empulse within six months and the who gig fails within 12.
I guarantee you that Brammo is hemorrhaging money in their ill-fated quest to build an electric bike that operates like an IC bike and no parent company or investor will put up with that for long. The main culprit is an unnecessary six speed gear box and the added weight and lower range that is one trade-off vs no gears.
You know the Empulse claims lower 70 mph energy consumption vs the Zero, right? ~160 Wh/mile Empulse vs ~180 Wh/mile for the Zero S. It may or may not be related to the transmission - Empulse could be more aerodynamic, tests could be bunk, tailwind for the Empulse within allowable range, etc. But a 470 lb bike with significant transmission loss and 17% more battery gets 30% more highway miles.
I would guess Empulse will break even in energy/mile vs the Zero around 45-50 mph. And even below that point, it still has 17% more battery .. despite the 130 pounds of tubby it still beats the Zero in city range.
Does the transmission add weight? Absolutely, probably 20-30 lbs. Empulse is a porker. And yet ..
670 lbs bike + rider / ( 40 kW peak = 53 hp ) = 12.6 lbs / hp, 5s 0-60
540 lbs bike + rider / 29 hp = 18.6 lbs / hp, 10s 0-60
Empulse per specifications has 33% less weight per hp to carry, and it halves the S's time to 60.QuoteThe other negative in the trade-off is higher cost. They are attempting to re-create the experience of an IC bike to appeal to IC bike riders who can't get their heads around the natural smooth torque curve of an electric motor. Huge mistake. Higher cost/lower range is not a solution. The user will catch up with the technology. It's stupid to hobble new technology with anachronisms. Imagine Apple initially shipping the iPhone with only one app that makes it work like an old cell phone because users were originally familiar with the interface on a cell phone. The thing runs 1000s of apps, for pete's sake. That's what the iPhone is about.
We've already addressed lower range. Let's talk higher cost.
Zero charges $2500 for the extra 2.6 kWh ZF3 module that converts a ZF6 bike to a ZF9. Let's call their marginal pricing $1000/kWh.
Empulse has 1.4 kWh more nominal capacity (9.3 - 7.9 kWh). So there's $1400 of the $3000 price delta.
In practice the Delta-Q onboard the Zero bikes charges at 12A max, so around 800W to the battery pack. Empulse's charger should be around 3 kW delivered. Roughly the capacity of four Delta-Qs. 3 additional chargers + a J1772 inlet will run you about $2000. Plus installation.
Passenger pegs are stock on the Empulse, $300 option from Zero.
$3700 in somewhat hand-wavey add-ons. Not putting a price tag on the significantly higher performance, significantly better display + computer interface, or higher-tech (and perhaps more failure-prone) design.
I think we'll see a 2013 Zero that's significantly more competitive with the 2013 Empulse, and it is indeed unfair to compare a 2012 bike that has been shipping for seven months to a 2013 bike with no hard production date. Nevertheless, the Empulse's price appears to be justifiable given its advantages over the shipping Zero ZF9.QuoteAn argument can be made for two gears on an electric, one up to approx. 40MPH and another to 100MPH, but no more, and if and only if it can be done without adding weight that reduces range. A better weight/value trade-off is ABS.
Agreed. ABS needs to be available on these >> $10k bikes yesterday.
I'm sympathetic to the two-gear argument. The only real rationale I can find for six gears is that it may make the transmission more durable by minimizing RPM swings between gear shifts. BorgWarner knows a thing or two about transmissions, and they couldn't build a two-speed transmission for Tesla that wouldn't explode under high power shifts. Brammo (or more properly SMRE) may have found a similar justification for more than two speeds.QuoteAll of this is academic because it's obvious that Brammo's product marketing team is dysfunctional. My bet is that they are captive to the engineering team and powerless. Look at the way they have handled the delays in the Inertia+ on top of delays of the Empulse. They are trying to stall Zero sales with a string of fake delivery dates for bikes that never materialize but instead they're stalling their own sales.
A friendly wager... $10 says they abandon the Empulse within six months and the who gig fails within 12.
Agree that Brammo has done an exceedingly poor job of meeting promised specifications, prices, and delivery goals .. and an even poorer job of communicating with their would-be customers.
Setting that aside for a moment -- if you care to make the wager serious, and I'll spot you double the timeframe -- I could use an extra 1000 miles of energy for the Zero. : )
Any meshed gears = more friction. More friction = less mileage.
Use the inherent characteristics of the electric motor to advantage (max torque @ 0 RPM) - no gears!
How many gears did you see on a steam locomotive (max torque @ 0 RPM)? Oops - I just aged myself :-[
Okay, youngsters - how many gears do you see on a Diesel-electric locomotive? ;)
Trikester
The proof is in the pudding. We cannot compare a production product that has been shipping for years to a vaporware product that does not exist except as a prototype for racing and marketing.
I've seen the Brammo vs Zero movie over and over in the high tech industry over the past 30 years.
One company rides the technology development cost/price/margin/demand curve with wisdom and care while others reach too far, usually out of hubris, and fail.
They make fatal errors. In other words they make errors that are too expensive for investors.
They run out of money trying to recover.
Simple as that.
A six speed transmission is needed on an IC bike to invert the torque curve. It is madness to put one on an electric bike when electric motors deliver 100% torque at 0 RPM.
It is doubly foolish when the price/performance game is all about power density, to maximize the utility of expensive kilowatts.
I'm not knocking the Brammo engineers or questioning the integrity of the Brammo team. I fully understand how such foolish decisions are made that wreck great companies. I've seen it over and over. But sorry to say, add up all of the facts that can be independently proved and Brammo smells like failure.
I want to keep the bet friendly. What did you have in mind?
When I asked Brammo's CEO about why they were going with a transmission, instead of the direct-drive Empulse last year, he told me that it was because shifting a transmission was fun and it would be more natural for an IC rider to shift from a gas-powered bike to an electric.
If Brammo is putting six gears on an electric bike just to make traditional riders feel more at home, then that is utter stupidity! I've seen companies where marketing triumphs over engineering, and they often fail. :(
Fortunately, I can afford to have bought my two ZERO's (and a lot more) because in the company I retired from (as a principal owner) engineering always had the last word when marketing wanted something stupid because they liked it. Marketing and engineering have to be partners, as a team, to produce a viable product that people want to buy. Each has to keep the other in check because engineering can get carried away with technology's charm also, and load a product with expensive, little needed goodies that price it out of the market. That's when marketing has to speak up loudly.
My guess is that a 6-speed transmission was chosen because the Italian company that makes it is using an off-the-shelf motorcycle transmission and then modifying it for EV use.
There's nothing between you and the road. With no clutch and no gearbox to get between your throttle command and the application of torque to the rear wheel, the Empulse provides the smoothest delivery of power you're likely to have ever experienced.
[IET] enables the 2012 Empulse to accelerate hard from the line up to a high top speed, something that is just not possible to achieve with a single ratio electric motorcycle.
Tesla's CTO published a nice writeup on Powertrain 1.5 (http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/engineering-update-powertrain-15), which was the update to the BorgWarner single-speed transmission. Powertrain 1.5 was introduced in early 2008 (http://green.autoblog.com/2008/01/23/breaking-tesla-has-a-solution-for-their-transmission-woes-get/).
Tesla is (understandably) effusive in their praise for PT1.5. They mention that gearbox weight is reduced (by 8 kg), city efficiency is improved, part complexity is reduced, and motor torque is improved by about 30%. They mention that the two speed transmission had "cost challenges" that are now gone. Also that they had to upgrade to a "new generation" of IGBT (er, no mention of cost).
Powertrain 1.5 was pushed to early production customer cars and made standard in new production in late 2008.
Coincidentally, in early/mid 2008 Tesla announced that the Roadster pricing would be bumped from $92000 in 2008 to $109000 in 2009.
My speculation: "cost challenges" aside, switching from a two-speed transmission to a more powerful single-speed transmission with the same performance benchmark resulted in a significantly more expensive (and overall better) car. I'm not suggesting that the PT1.5 upgrade cost $17k, Tesla's cost estimates and projections were clearly not well-synced with production realities. (as, ahem, Brammo's were not)
Probably only Tesla knows for sure if the two-speed design was less expensive to produce than the single speed. I bet Brammo knows too, though.
When Brammo first introduced the Empulse they praised (http://web.archive.org/web/20100719190500/http://www.brammo.com/empulse/#features) the single-speed transmission.QuoteThere's nothing between you and the road. With no clutch and no gearbox to get between your throttle command and the application of torque to the rear wheel, the Empulse provides the smoothest delivery of power you're likely to have ever experienced.
Now they rather like gearboxes and clutches.Quote[IET] enables the 2012 Empulse to accelerate hard from the line up to a high top speed, something that is just not possible to achieve with a single ratio electric motorcycle.
Companies spin. It's what they do. It's part of the marketing game.
But pretending that a direct drive transmission is superior in all ways to a gearbox? Well.. you've been sucked in by the marketing game.
Single-speed or multi-speed gearbox is a design decision, it has a number of tradeoffs (many of which we're not privy too in our armchairs). Brammo has picked what they feel is the best solution for their application, Zero has done the same. Chances are they're both correct.
I don't think so. Transmission or not is a "bet the company" decision at this stage of the electric motorcycle industry, if it can even be called that at this point, with a few hundred actual paying customers.
Think of the Apple Lisa and early PCs. Critical decisions have to be made that will make or break the business.
But what if this conception is wrong? What if the way this market develops is that a small army of consumers is waiting to buy a motorcycle if they can buy one that meets the following criteria?
- Quiet and unobtrusive
- Virtually no maintenance
- No shifting (Try buying a car in the US with a manual transmission. Good luck.)
The single speed transmission is fantastic for a commuter application.
I suppose the thing that interests me about Brammo's midcourse correction is that it was so late in the game. I think gearboxes have their place with EVs; overall motor flexibility is generally limited somehow by battery voltage considerations, and some applications might be suited to use of gears. One probably doesn't need 6 of them, but as someone else mentioned, that's what the supplier offered. But to hold up an already-late product another year for a gearbox?
As for dirt riding, since top speed is not generally an issue, nor efficiency at highway speeds, the shifting just becomes a needless burden, as Trimester attests.
A. For electric vehicles of all kinds, range is product requirement #1. From a marketing standpoint, for motorcycles the magic number is 100 miles. Still, a bike that only goes 100 miles does not have enough range to qualify as a distance touring bike, and if power is used to make the bike competitive with sport bikes it won't have a 100 mile range. Current technology relegates the electric motorcycle to a commuter and city riding application.
B. Getting 100 miles plus out of an electric commuter/city bike means optimizing for weight/power ratio.
C. At close to $1K per kWh for lithium, 9kWh is the most stored energy that can be viably marketed for a commuter/city bike.
D. A 9kWh battery requires a light sub-300lb bike to take the bike and rider > 100 miles.
E. A 300 lb bike, ICE or electric, is too light for extended highway riding, so optimize for 30MPH to 50MPH.
A + B + C + D + E = no gearbox
The current state-of-the art for electric motorcycles is the commuter/city bike application, an evolutionary step up from the previous short-range dirt bike application that the bikes were limited to before power density was doubled and regen braking was added.
If the economics of the batteries and drive trains doubles again then so does the calculation above, and new applications are opened up. If the cost falls to $500/kWh then range can be increased to approach ICE distance cruiser range, or the power can be used to increase speed and acceleration and ICE sport bike configurations start to make sense.
Brammo's error is to try to achieve a sport bike application within the confines of commuter/city bike technology. This is why they will fail. Fatal error.
A. For electric vehicles of all kinds, range is product requirement #1. From a marketing standpoint, for motorcycles the magic number is 100 miles. Still, a bike that only goes 100 miles does not have enough range to qualify as a distance touring bike, and if power is used to make the bike competitive with sport bikes it won't have a 100 mile range. Current technology relegates the electric motorcycle to a commuter and city riding application.
Empulse has a motor that's almost twice as powerful as the Zero. It weighs 130 lbs more and has a multi-gear transmission that will have some mechanical loss.
You're thinking about gas bikes too much. On an electric a larger motor is not necessarily less efficient for an identical workload.
Out of a city bike, yes. But if you ride a city bike 100 miles, it will take you more than 4 hours. Who rides a bike for 4-7 hours at 20-25 miles per hour?
It's useful to distinguish commuter bikes from city bikes: a commuter bike might mean 60 miles each way @ 80 mph. Commuter just has the expectation of a relatively fixed distance and a long period to charge on either end (to distinguish from touring).
Yes. I think even at $200-300/kWh, 100 miles is more than enough for a city bike.
Perhaps it's more useful to think in terms of time than range.
For commuter applications, one "leg" of a trip is unlikely to exceed one hour of riding.
If you consider at most you need two legs of riding .. a city bike (20-35 mph) will need around 4 kWh, a suburban bike (45-55 mph) will need around 12 kWh, and a highway bike (70-80 mph) will need around 30 kWh. Good aerodynamics will significantly decrease the battery needed for suburban and highway riding.
At $200/kWh, those bike packs will cost $800, $2400, and $6000 respectively.
Brammo does 121 city miles in 9.3 kWh and a 470 lb bike.
A bike like the Zero is good for only occasional highway commuting. It handles fine on the highway, but the energy usage is too high and the charging is too slow. Charge recovery is 4.5 highway miles per hour charging. A 40 mile one-way commute would deplete 92% of the pack energy and it would take around 8 hours to charge back to full.
A bike like the Empulse is still very much constrained by range, but lower highway energy consumption combined with a fast charger -- supposing that you have access to J1772 charging stations -- changes things. Charge recovery is 19 highway miles per hour charging. A 40 mile one-way commute would deplete 71% of the pack energy and it would take a couple of hours to charge back to full.
I'm curious what you will think if Zero introduces a sport bike next year.
Even if the batteries halve in price and weight, people still kvetch about range. "100 miles of highway driving is barely enough to get me to the good roads", they say. "That's not enough to handle my 5 hour commute", they say. "Who buys a bike you can't do the Iron Butt Rally in", they say. "40 minutes on a race track is awful, I need at least 8 hours for my track session".
But every time the batteries improve it makes the electric bikes more reasonable for more people. A slow gradual process to be sure.
I was surprised at how different the dirt mileage was from the highway mileage when I first got my 2010 DS and of course it's also true with my 2012 DS. On my 2012 DS I get about 65 miles of dirt riding range and only about 50 miles of highway riding at 35 - 40mph. The air drag is the biggest user of power on the highway. That's if I pump up my big knobby (K270's) dual-sport tires to 30 psi for highway. If I'm desert riding with 10 lbs in the front tire and 15 lbs in the rear, and then I ride some highway back, that rolling resistance really saps the highway mileage.
If I'm going to ride highway to get to a trail then I start with high tire pressure and let air out when I get to the dirt. I haven't carried a pump to re-inflate when I get back out to pavement, but if I thought I was really going to push the mileage limit to get back, then I would carry one.
Trikester
Brammo certainly has given ample reason in the last two years for skepticism. If you believe the Empulse they're currently showing is a non-production prototype and the MIC range tests they have performed are bunk, then there's really not much left to talk about until the bike lands in third party hands - which might be this coming monday (http://hellforleathermagazine.com/2012/08/honda-nc700x-the-swiss-army-knife-of-bikes/).Empulse has a motor that's almost twice as powerful as the Zero. It weighs 130 lbs more and has a multi-gear transmission that will have some mechanical loss.Sorry but I still have trouble comparing the actual performance of a shipping production product to the specs of a still not shipping, non-production prototype. To me it's real apples versus virtual oranges.
I'm confused - is the Empulse transmission bad because it has the Brammo / SMRE name on it? Or is it that it's a six speed vs a two speed?QuoteI'm curious what you will think if Zero introduces a sport bike next year.If Zero comes out with a 2-speed sport bike next year that makes full used of the 9kWh battery my wife will kill me because I'll buy it.
Let me see if I got this right. You mention here http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=2209.msg7910#msg7910 (http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=2209.msg7910#msg7910) that you are 77 years old. ITT you say you ride your DS 65 miles in the dirt.
For real? Shocked
...there's really not much left to talk about until the bike lands in third party hands - which might be this coming monday (http://hellforleathermagazine.com/2012/08/honda-nc700x-the-swiss-army-knife-of-bikes/).
I'm confused - is the Empulse transmission bad because it has the Brammo / SMRE name on it? Or is it that it's a six speed vs a two speed?
Sorry for steering the conversation off-topic.
Zero's CEO (Richard Walker) called down the list to me today. We talked .. okay, I mostly talked for about 30 minutes. A couple takeaway points:
* Zero has gotten a lot of feedback about the lack of information presented by the gauge clusters. They're looking at other options. Chance that a newer gauge cluster could be made available for older bikes.
* They have a couple of bikes with glitches in house or on their way back. They're working hard to get a solution finalized.
* Mr. Walker is not a rider, though he rides. If that makes sense. Zero has a number of higher-ups that are pretty serious riders and seasoned motorcycle industry vets .. so perhaps he can bring some fresh perspective.
QuoteLet me see if I got this right. You mention here http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=2209.msg7910#msg7910 (http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=2209.msg7910#msg7910) that you are 77 years old. ITT you say you ride your DS 65 miles in the dirt.
For real? Shocked
Yes I am 77 but the total mileage range (65) I have extrapolated from the various mileages I have ridden on numerous dirt rides. I think to date the longest single dirt ride I have done on the 2012 DS was around 35 miles. That wasn't sandy, tricky, desert trail it was forest fire-roads, where you can add up some miles fairly quickly. In the desert riding (slow going) mileage is usually in the 15 to 20 mile area. However, using the different rides and the energy consumed it always extrapolates to around 65 miles. I was talking with Electric Cowboy a few days ago and he said that he can go quite a ways after no bars are showing, so it may be that i could get farther but I doubt that, because I also use the kwh that it takes to recharge in figuring mileage.
I ride alone 99% of the time so at my age I do take it fairly easy, no "gonzo" stuff for this guy (I haven't caught air with my ZERO and don't intend to). :) I've walked the bike in a few spots that looked pretty "nasty", like threading my way through a recent rockslide in a canyon.
Trikester
The only problem I'm experiencing is, at 45-55 mph speed, the front end seems to bounce, but not steady, it bounces, then smooth, then bounces, then smooth... My first bike, so I'm not sure what the issue might be. My dealer is 65 mi away (they delivered my bike to me :)... If the wheel needed balance, wouldn't the bounce be constant?