I don't need fast charging at home, but I can wire up anything. I do not understand the use of a 110v charger as the default. I could see a 220v charger that can fall back to 110v, even if it isn't much more powerful, simply because it's more efficient.
Most production EV chargers accept a wide range of voltages, typically from something like 85V to 265V AC and 50 to 60 Hz. You can plug the Zero chargers into a 240V outlet with an adapter, but they are limited to the maximum charger power on either 120V or 240V circuits.
Are these Manganese Lithiums? The charge profile and voltage seem to suggest it...
Zero used Molicel lithium manganese cells from 2006 to 2011. The 2012 bike used EIG NMC, the 2013-2014 bikes use Farasis NMC pouch cells. Lithium nickel manganese cobalt.
The battery warranty may seem long in the bike world, but when has this battery ever been in the bike world? This battery should have a 15 year warranty on it, not because bike, but because battery. If the BMS works as it should, this battery should live longer than I do. It may lose some capacity, but it should last at least 30 years of useful life. There's simply no excuse for it to be otherwise. The battery, if handled by the BMS correctly, does not care that it is in a bike, nor has being in a bike any impact at all on it's life-cycle. The short warranty tells me one thing, and one thing only; this BMS might be designed to deliberately destroy the battery. They wouldn't be the first. Lithium batteries fail in cell phones and laptops all the time, and it's not an accident. In the DIY electric world, BMSes have been designed to deliberately destroy batteries for decades. 20 years between sales just doesn't keep the champagne and caviar flowing... Lightbulb conspiracy, blah blah blah.
Batteries are tested and rated for cycles in a lab in an accelerated testing schedule. This ignores vibrations from on-road use, high temperature baking over long periods of time and hot/cold cycles from moving in and out of inclement weather, and also (very importantly) calendar aging.
A poorly-designed BMS can indeed cook batteries, or fail to save them. However, it's a little far to suggest that every manufacturer of EVs is happily sabotaging their business, especially EV-only manufacturers like Tesla and Zero.
Richard230 is correct that the battery will almost certainly outlast the original owner of the EV. It's certainly becoming more mainstream, but buying an electric motorcycle is still somewhat early adoption. I think there's a good possibility bikes in 2019 will be as far advanced over bikes in 2014 as 2014 bikes are versus the motorcycles Zero was selling in 2009.
I'll probably hang back and see what happens in the 2015 models. I'm not expecting miracles, but they really, really need to do something about their remarkably poor choice of on-board charging. ... My concern is that when I have to/feel like going 250+ miles somewhere, I don't want to have to find a hotel every 100 miles and wait until the next day. It won't happen a lot, but it is a deal breaker if I can't do it.
250 miles will still be a very long day, even with 7 kW of onboard charging; you need somewhere between 25 to 35 kWh of energy total for that distance depending on speed, so most of that energy will come from mid-trip charging not the initial onboard energy. If you have 12 kWh onboard and can charge at 12 kW then you'll need probably 1.5 - 2.5 hours of mid-trip charging.
And I think that's part of why Zero and Brammo have historically not gone full-bore on high-power chargers; the costs were too high (financial, energy and time diversion, additional weight and volume) and the benefits were too low (pack sizes too small, infrastructure not yet mature).
But as the costs come down (cheaper chargers available, more bikes being sold = more opportunity to amortize custom R&D, chargers getting more compact and light) and as the benefits increase (J1772 pretty common in many areas, pack sizes large enough that even 7 kW may only be a 0.5C charge), eventually they will intersect at a certain value point and we'll see chargers that can maximize a 30A J1772 EVSE.
Maybe we'll see that this next year.
If I could go 30/98 on the sprockets, that'd be sweet. Would I be loading the motor enough that it might have a negative impact on efficiency? I heard there were some growling recalls... this could cause/exacerbate the same issue. People have been telling me that it'll destroy my Rebel for half a decade and more miles than said nay-sayers have put in their bikes in their whole lives. No problems and I don't care if it's slow. 13hp at the rear wheel is still more than I need. :-p
If you're doing it for longevity, you might reconsider. Excessively tall gearing means for a given power / acceleration target the motor will be at lower voltage / higher current / lower RPM / higher torque and probably producing more heat, certainly in the motor and motorcontroller.
Last year Terry Hershner competed in one of the Vetter Fuel Economy challenges on his streamlined bike. He used the 98 tooth rear sprocket for better high-speed efficiency, but then the motor overheated
riding up the hill to Laguna Seca and he was disqualified.
"Terry had plenty of power but made a mistake in re-gearing his bike to make the motor run slower. When combined with streamlining, it works for gas motors to consume less energy. However, when Terry got to the Laguna Seca track, his bike could not climb the very steep access road."
Very steep angles + slow speed riding + very high weight + high ambient temperatures = an overheated motor.
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Topic: Considering a 2014 Zero S (Read 2395 times)