ElectricMotorcycleForum.com

Q: "Is dat bike electric?"
A: "No, it's nuclear. It runs on plutonium. Totally hush-hush experimental shit. Stand back. Better yet, get 10 miles from here as fast as you can. If it goes it'll take out the whole city. Go! Go now!"

Q: "Is it safe to ride that in a thunderstorm?"
A: "Hell, no. Unlike the electrical system that lets your ICE bike or car burn fossil fuels my Zero is 100% ionic. The child lightening trapped inside the black box under me is at all times crying to be freed by its angry parent in the clouds. Every time I ride in a thunderstorm the lighting crashes at me, trying to TAKE ME OUT! That's Zeus fighting to free Ares. Engineers at Zero installed this by magical methods in my battery in Scotts Valley, CA, patent pending.

Q: "It's so quiet. Isn't that dangerous?"
A: "Do your ears aim backwards? No? That's because you are a normally developed human. We are not designed to hear the direction of sounds coming from behind us, only that there is something behind us, somewhere. Loud and scary? Then run faster, caveman!  Not until that rumbling Harley occupied by a geezer dressed like a pirate has passed you and is in sight in front of you can your normal human apparatus figure where the noisy thing is at and not hit it. By then you may have switched lanes unconsciously to make the scary noise somewhere behind you stop. Oops. What about the geezer on the noisy thing? All he can hear is himself. The Zero rider hears all. He is safer because he knows you are a nitwit and needs the advantage of knowing where you are at all times such as when you're driving ahead of me but you think at home on the couch chatting with your nitwit friends on Facebook.

Others?

I do not understand how Daimler AG can sell an entire electric car for the same starting price of $12,995 as Zero's Zero S electric motorcycle.

http://www.smartusa.com/comparevehicles/

http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/order.php

The bill of materials (BOM) for the Smart has to run into 1000s of parts vs 100s for the Zero S.

Air conditioning.

Heating.

Sound system.

Power windows.

Etc, etc.

Then there's the battery pack, long assumed to be Zero's #1 COGs hit.

The entry level Zero S has an 8.5kWh LiIon battery pack, less than half the size of the entry level Smart with a 17.6 kWh LiIon battery pack.

Is Zero is making a fat profit margin or is Daimler losing a bundle on every Smart EV it sells?

Theories? 

Alternative title: "A key selling feature for Zero that Zero can never mention in its advertising."

The owner of a certain Zero electric motorcycle may or may not have been seen ridding the bike between lanes of cars stuck in traffic for a mile on a bridge over a wide river in rush hour traffic, past a police car also stuck in traffic, in a state where lane splitting is not legal.

The same owner may or may not have been seen riding up onto the sidewalk and then several city blocks to avoid heavy traffic, past not one or two but three police officers en route.

Said rider may or may not have been seen crossing a double yellow line while passing a police car on an undivided two lane road, which passing either went unnoticed by the police car's driver or left the driver too dumbfounded to respond.

Universally the reaction in all cases appears to be: "What the h eck was that? It looked like a motorcycle but I didn't hear it come or go. What to do?"

When in doubt they take the easiest course: they do nothing.

Any fun "got away with it on your Zero" experiences to share?

Forget Brammo. Here's a real company with a mature, volume shipping product and a serious distribution network: Stealth Electric Bikes.

Now you might ask, how can a maker of e-bikes compete with Zero's big bad electric motorcycles? By starting at the low end and working their way up.

They make the highest powered and most expensive production e-bikes on the market. At 4500 watts the bikes already have than 20 times more power than an e-bike is allowed to have in the U.S. and still be considered an e-bike. The Bomber and Fighter are legal off-road,  illegal on-road machines that you pedal, but the Hurricane doesn't even have pedals.

http://www.stealthelectricbikesusa.com/hurricane.html

Sure looks like an electric motorcycle to me.

Stealth is planning to announce a new pedal-less model for 2013 called  Fury. If you scroll down the this blog entry from this year's Interbike in Vegas you can see a prototype.

http://www.electricbike.com/interbike-2012/

Can you say Zero MX?

As we all know the hard part of building a real electric motorcycle company is making that transition from hand-made to volume production product, with design for manufacturability and reliability so you don't go out of business managing warrantee work. Upgrading from dirt to street is how Zero evolved as well. But while Zero has a lead in making that transition, Stealth is far ahead in distribution. Today Zero can only dream of having distribution like Stealth's.

http://www.stealthelectricbikesusa.com/retailers.html

Of course these are bicycle dealerships but who's to say that their environmentally concious customer base doesn't make them a far better channel for electric motorcycles than motorcycle dealers whose customers yearn for a loud, fossil fuel burning experience.

Watch out Zero!

On a hot day, when the traffic is backed up 50 cars deep and only 10 cars are crawling through each light cycle, rather than roast in my helmut waiting in line while the car drivers sit in air conditioned comfort tapping on iPhone keypads and playing with the radio, sometimes I'll slowly ride between the stopped cars to the front of the line, in sport mode of course, then launch out ahead of the pack when the light turns green. I won't do it if I think the traffic may start moving mid-course, before I get to the front.

Now technically you're not supposed to do that, but as the bike is silent hardly anyone seems to mind. Heck I don't think most drivers even notice. If I were on an ICE bike I'd have to keep the throttle constant and tweak the clutch to keep the noise and attention level down low enough to pull it off. Even so, the sound will draw too much attention. Maybe that's why it never occurred to me to do it on an ICE bike.

I said hardly anyone because one time I did this and a lunatic in pickup truck chased after me, as if by pulling up next to him, not in front of him, I'd caused him some kind of insult. I pulled over, he pulled over. I hollered at him and he drove away. Other than that, no issues. I ride by police and they don't seem to care. I think it's one of those rules like jaywalking. You're not supposed to but the rule is largely for your own protection. If you break the rule and get hit by a car, the car driver is off the hook.

No one reports good product reliability. We all expect products to work perfectly. Here on these forums we hear mainly from owners who have experienced problems and glitches so we have no idea if these folks are the exception or the rule.

This poll is to help us establish how many of us have experienced reliability problems.

Appreciate hearing from 2012 owners about experiences with the new regenerative braking and coasting. How quickly do you slow when coasting in either sport or eco mode? Does it feel anything like engine braking on a ICE bike when in gear?  Does the regen braking feel natural or does the braking feel weird? Thanks!