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[Jarrett]

Hello, newbie here, first post.

I went to the local IMS bike show last weekend and saw Zero motorcycles.  Then went and test rode a DS and FX yesterday.  I was very impressed with them.  Their torque numbers are higher than my Honda Africa Twin CRF1000L and I felt the acceleration is on par with it.  I really liked that.

But my Africa Twin has traction control to keep that amount of acceleration in check.  Specifically, if I go around a corner and give it too much throttle and the rear tire spins and loses traction, the on-board traction control will kick in and save me from crashing.

So my first thought when looking at the Zero motorcycles is that they have more available torque than my Africa Twin and makes that torque much more quickly than my Africa Twin will, but has no safe guard against spinning the wheel out from underneath me even on a dry, paved corner.

In a quick search about Zero motorcycles, I've already seen discussions of surprise lowsides that experienced riders have encountered that may have been related to this.  In fact, I read an unsubstantiated report of the Zero CEO crashing under similar circumstances. 

I'm wondering, is this issue real?  On every model?  And how prevalent is it?

[caza]

I've seen these discussions as well.

My take is it's just like ABS. You don't NEED ABS, but it's a nice safety feature to have.

If you ride a zero you should be aware of the torque and lack of a clutch. You should be aware and practice your throttle control, and perhaps be a bit easier on the throttle in the corners.

If you learn and respect the bike you'll be fine. If you abuse the throttle in a turn, yeah, you're probably going down. But that's true of any bike.

[ultratoad]

I've seen these discussions as well.

My take is it's just like ABS. You don't NEED ABS, but it's a nice safety feature to have.

If you ride a zero you should be aware of the torque and lack of a clutch. You should be aware and practice your throttle control, and perhaps be a bit easier on the throttle in the corners.

If you learn and respect the bike you'll be fine. If you abuse the throttle in a turn, yeah, you're probably going down. But that's true of any bike.

Agreed....  It all depends on your skill set....

[Jarrett]

If you abuse the throttle in a turn, yeah, you're probably going down. But that's true of any bike.

Is it though?

[domingo3]

Bikes don't crash people.  People crash bikes.

I am among those experienced riders that have had a surprise lowside on a Zero.  I don't blame lack of traction control, though.  It was my fault.

[ESokoloff]

Hello, newbie here, first post.

Welcome (insert little waiving guy here)

I'm wondering, is this issue real?  On every model?  And how prevalent is it?

I can only speak of my 2016 DSR.
Yes it's very prone to unintentionally spinning the rear wheel.
I've done it about 6 times in about 24k miles/20 months.
I'll make a guess & say all incidents occurred in the first 6 months/8k miles. The first occurred on the way home from picking it up.
Fortunately I managed to keep the bike up each time. 
I'm a reasonably experienced rider so that helped quite a bit. 

I made it through the learning curve relatively Ok but others mileage/mishaps will vary.

Is traction control nessecary?
Depends on ones skill set & tolerance to exposure.
Also limited in the availability of technology.

If you can afford to wait (time more so then $$), technology will catch up to your desires..... http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=8551.0


Edit: I forgot to mention that I feel that the stock rear tire (trials type/squared profile) contributed to the loss of rear tire traction.
The tires were changed to a more rounded profile @ approx 4 months/5k miles.

[Jarrett]

I am among those experienced riders that have had a surprise lowside on a Zero.

What bike? What happened?

[domingo3]

What bike? What happened?
[/quote]

http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=6059.msg45902#msg45902

Uncrated my 2016 FXS in my driveway. Rode to the stop sign. Turned right. Opened up throttle all the way while coming out of the turn. Rear wheel spun out from under me. A quarter second later, I figured out what happened, but by that time my bike and I were on the ground.  Learned my lesson and hasn't happened again in the past 2.5 years.

[buutvrij for life]

Often, people get what they deserve.

Jarett, don't ride a bike if your brain cannot control your right wrist.

[dittoalex]

Zero provides a class for parkour skills to stick the highside landing.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

Here’s some perspective for the longevity and sides of this argument:

- I’ve fishtailed on even my first Zero, a 2013 DS, while riding on wet pavement with gravel or leaves on it. There are threads from that year about the topic.
- The wheel does spin up too quickly once traction is lost.
- In my experience, fishtailing on a Zero is readily recoverable by keeping a light touch on the throttle and easing off while putting weight on the pegs to restabilize.
- I handle my DSR entirely in sport / 100% torque mode now, with very low but not 0% regen level at idle.

Yes, test riders and new owners do lowside and sometimes worse on Zero bikes from blipping the throttle. I think Zero has had a very sound economic reason for five years to at least limit wheel spin up.

True traction control for electric motorcycles involves a unique R&D cycle for whatever powertrain they’ve implemented. It’s my understanding that Energica is still solving this problem for its models which are much more powerful than Zero’s models.

Zero’s controller vendor is Sevcon who mostly make money on forklifts and light industrial trucks. It does have a traction control feature but it’s extremely limited, more suitable for slow movement on smooth concrete than high speed motorcycling.

Zero’s new SR/F platform does seem to address this flaw. I’m sure the engineers are no slouches and knew how to solve it and just couldn’t justify the systems rework expenses without probably ditching the vendor or something similarly drastic.

But I do believe that the existing Zero models deserve a lower wheel spin up rate limit for the stock modes. I haven’t figured out any justification for the current limit other than that it precludes a burnout.

Zero wheel spin up is scary in a way that a traditional combustion engine cannot achieve. It is manageable, but it’s a liability.

[Moto7575]

Same here. I had 2/3 bad experiences like this, until I changed for better tires. Agree traction control would be a good addition, especially with such high torque engines. But Keeping the price low and the technology as simple and reliable as possible should also be important goals !

Hello, newbie here, first post.

Welcome (insert little waiving guy here)

I'm wondering, is this issue real?  On every model?  And how prevalent is it?

I can only speak of my 2016 DSR.
Yes it's very prone to unintentionally spinning the rear wheel.
I've done it about 6 times in about 24k miles/20 months.
I'll make a guess & say all incidents occurred in the first 6 months/8k miles. The first occurred on the way home from picking it up.
Fortunately I managed to keep the bike up each time. 
I'm a reasonably experienced rider so that helped quite a bit. 

I made it through the learning curve relatively Ok but others mileage/mishaps will vary.

Is traction control nessecary?
Depends on ones skill set & tolerance to exposure.
Also limited in the availability of technology.

If you can afford to wait (time more so then $$), technology will catch up to your desires..... http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=8551.0


Edit: I forgot to mention that I feel that the stock rear tire (trials type/squared profile) contributed to the loss of rear tire traction.
The tires were changed to a more rounded profile @ approx 4 months/5k miles.

[Jarrett]

After now having ridden the DS, two different SR/F's and putting 2500+ miles on a FX and DSR, I think I can answer my own question.

Are Zero Motorcycles Crash Prone Due to Lack of Traction Control?

No.

[flattetyre]

Vehicles without stability / traction control including cars, motorcycles and other are regularly crashed by incompetent users because skill is required.

Electric gives you a high gear and a lot of torque, which makes a bad situation worse but isn't a problem on a Zero if you have skills. That's because the bikes aren't very powerful and have a rather lazy throttle ramp even on sport.

[Neuer_User]

What I see very often is that people forget about the gear multiplying effect on torque that ICEs have. They compare the torque directly out of the motor, which does not make any sense.
 I don't know the exact numbers for the Africa Twin, but a friend's BMW has a gear multiplyer of 2.7 in first gear and still 1.5 in sixth gear. For the Afrca Twin with a torque of 98Nm that would mean a whooping effective torque of 265 Nm in first gear and 147 Nm in sixth gear. So, the 146 Nm of the SR is not really "much higher" at all.

Yes, you need to have the right RPM for the ICE to get the max torque, but with 265 Nm there is a lot of room, if you are not in optimal RPM. And don't forget that the ZERO SEVCON does only give you the max torque when running over 30mph. From the start (0 mph) the max torque is much lower.

Anyway, yeah, if you used to ICEs the different power curves and torque availability might give you a problem in an unexected moment, but that has nothing to do with the often falsely quoted "high torque of electic motorcycles".