ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Zero Motorcycles Forum | 2012 and older => Topic started by: zap mc on November 08, 2011, 05:20:46 PM
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They are headlining with a 114 miles range claim, again setting an unrealistic expectation for the customer, time will tell how many miles they really go but they do look to have some technological leaps and bounds.
The battery and motor combination seems to go twice as far even allowing for the 36% reduction for the claimed mileage.
Regen braking looks very good and how much this contributes to the overall mix will remain to be seen but a good step forward technologically.
What the bikes gain in features they lose in lightness and affordability weighing in at a whopping 300 and 341 lbs, who wants to ride a Zero DS on the dirt with that tonnage?
Who will buy a $10 000 electric bike anyway even with rebates? Zero previously said they were avoiding regen because it only gained about 10% range but added over $1000 to the price but now they seem to have reversed that opinion as maybe it was more cost effective to engineer that feature into their own drive train.
Alloy wheels look nice and may save some weight and there is the ongoing fetish with brakes but you have to question the sanity of having a mostly black and silent bike like the DS that will appear in your mirrors at 88mph?
The off road bikes still have the woefully inadequate suspension that is the achilles heel of the off road range. Interestingly the MX retains the chain drive which seems to hint at the limitations of the belt drive for dirt use. It will be interesting to see how this line up fares against the Brammo geared offering...
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Sorry, not sure how I missed this post!
They are headlining with a 114 miles range claim, again setting an unrealistic expectation for the customer, time will tell how many miles they really go but they do look to have some technological leaps and bounds.
Wes at Hellforleathermagazine.com said he talked to Scott (i think) at Zero and he said they are very accurate on this. Like you said, we will see :D
The battery and motor combination seems to go twice as far even allowing for the 36% reduction for the claimed mileage.
Regen braking looks very good and how much this contributes to the overall mix will remain to be seen but a good step forward technologically.
What the bikes gain in features they lose in lightness and affordability weighing in at a whopping 300 and 341 lbs, who wants to ride a Zero DS on the dirt with that tonnage?
Who will buy a $10 000 electric bike anyway even with rebates? Zero previously said they were avoiding regen because it only gained about 10% range but added over $1000 to the price but now they seem to have reversed that opinion as maybe it was more cost effective to engineer that feature into their own drive train.
I think Neil Saiki felt this way about regen. I'm glad that line of thought has changed. Electric motorcycles need to exploit the geek factor. I rode a motorcycle with regen (Enertrac TTXGP bike) and got a huge kick out of hitting the regen to stop. Major cool points in my book.
Alloy wheels look nice and may save some weight and there is the ongoing fetish with brakes but you have to question the sanity of having a mostly black and silent bike like the DS that will appear in your mirrors at 88mph?
The off road bikes still have the woefully inadequate suspension that is the achilles heel of the off road range. Interestingly the MX retains the chain drive which seems to hint at the limitations of the belt drive for dirt use. It will be interesting to see how this line up fares against the Brammo geared offering...
Don't forget the extremely large and vulnerable sprocket on the MX :D
I think they will fix all these things next year. Brammo played the 100 mile range card early and that kind of forced Zero to go that direction. Now KTM is in the game with good suspension and some steps up in many places. I'm betting Zero is working on that for 2013. KTM will be trying to fix their power and range issues :D
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I think Neil Saiki felt this way about regen. I'm glad that line of thought has changed. Electric motorcycles need to exploit the geek factor. I rode a motorcycle with regen (Enertrac TTXGP bike) and got a huge kick out of hitting the regen to stop. Major cool points in my book.
now tell me why regen would add so much weight. Formula 1 cars use regen PLUS "kers" to even store engery. now the later adds weight and they are running ICE. With electric motors regen is "build in" - just the electronics are more complex... happy to learn from you experts if I am off. I just know that the Agni motor with brushes is not my favourite ... used it, used it.,,...
T
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Sorry, not sure how I missed this post!
They are headlining with a 114 miles range claim, again setting an unrealistic expectation for the customer, time will tell how many miles they really go but they do look to have some technological leaps and bounds.
Wes at Hellforleathermagazine.com said he talked to Scott (i think) at Zero and he said they are very accurate on this. Like you said, we will see :D
Yes i agree that the statement is accurate BUT...Just look at eactly what they are saying "As measured by the EPA UDDS, the Zero S is capable of respectively achieving 76 or 114 miles."
Has anyone actually looked at the cycle for the EPA UDDS? basically its riding at an average speed of under 20mph!! no wonder they are quoting large range figures! Its just weasel words in my book as they bear no relation to what people will do in the real world but Zero now proobably feel duty bound to match Brammo in the bullsh1t war and make a mockery of the whole industry. Someone needs to actually ride one NORMALLY and see what it does, as we can see from this site what is claimed and what you get are two different things.
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Sorry, not sure how I missed this post!
They are headlining with a 114 miles range claim, again setting an unrealistic expectation for the customer, time will tell how many miles they really go but they do look to have some technological leaps and bounds.
Wes at Hellforleathermagazine.com said he talked to Scott (i think) at Zero and he said they are very accurate on this. Like you said, we will see :D
Yes i agree that the statement is accurate BUT...Just look at eactly what they are saying "As measured by the EPA UDDS, the Zero S is capable of respectively achieving 76 or 114 miles."
Has anyone actually looked at the cycle for the EPA UDDS? basically its riding at an average speed of under 20mph!! no wonder they are quoting large range figures! Its just weasel words in my book as they bear no relation to what people will do in the real world but Zero now proobably feel duty bound to match Brammo in the bullsh1t war and make a mockery of the whole industry. Someone needs to actually ride one NORMALLY and see what it does, as we can see from this site what is claimed and what you get are two different things.
On Zero's website on the specs of the bikes (example: http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php (http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php) ), they also list a Highway commuting range, if you click on the little question mark they explan the logic behind it. For the ZF9 battery you should expect 63miles of commuting, with the ZF6 battery, expect around 43miles. This seems to match the ratio of real world mileage that people are achieving vs UDDS simulations for the 2011's. Are there any other electric motorcycle manufacturers who are actually performing true UDDS or other repeatable range simulations?
-ryan
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I still think it's a very strange choice to put regen on a motorcycle. The increase in range is going to be tiny (I think 10% is a huge over estimate). The down side is rear wheel braking that upsets the dynamics of the bike. The gas bikes are spending lots of money looking for ways to eliminate engine braking with things like one way clutches. Why on earth would we *intentionally* put in something that they're trying to engineer out????
=:)
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I still think it's a very strange choice to put regen on a motorcycle. The increase in range is going to be tiny (I think 10% is a huge over estimate). The down side is rear wheel braking that upsets the dynamics of the bike. The gas bikes are spending lots of money looking for ways to eliminate engine braking with things like one way clutches. Why on earth would we *intentionally* put in something that they're trying to engineer out????
=:)
I don't believe that Zero claims 10%increase in range through regen. I agree 10% is a huge over estimate. If done well, having a throttle that can have regen when totally off throttle or when applying brake, but coast when the throttle is cracked just a bit should be rather nice. Having a sport mode and eco mode that have different levels of regen and aggressiveness of that regen would be a nice feature as well. I would bet that there has been quite a bit of development on how the regen system feels from a variety of different riders with different styles at zero, and they are putting something out there that will best suit a wide variety of customers.
-ryan
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I own a GPR-S (whose batteries died after about 1000 miles) with regen and I live in a very hilly area. The regen provided between 1 and 2% additional range, compared with turning it off (which I could do by reprogramming the controller). Regen saves brake pads and can be fun to use, but does not make a big difference in range on a lightweight vehicle. I can live without it.
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Thanks for the real world experience Richard. Wonder if Zero will be able to get more than 2%?
I've heard some cells will charge via regen faster than others and a constant rate or recharge is not always as fast as pulsing the charge. (heard this from Chip Yates in a phone conv.) I wonder if Zero has worked on the technology at all.
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On Zero's website on the specs of the bikes (example: http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php (http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php) ), they also list a Highway commuting range, if you click on the little question mark they explan the logic behind it. For the ZF9 battery you should expect 63miles of commuting, with the ZF6 battery, expect around 43miles. This seems to match the ratio of real world mileage that people are achieving vs UDDS simulations for the 2011's. Are there any other electric motorcycle manufacturers who are actually performing true UDDS or other repeatable range simulations?
-ryan
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Ryan thanks for pointing that out. So what they are saying is that the standard bike does 43 miles. I think i am right in assuming it did 42 miles last year? no great improvement then. This is what they have to say about the basis for their highway calculation
"For 2012, in order to give our customers additional range information, Zero collaborated diligently with the Motorcycle Industry Council on the development of a new "Highway range" test and reporting standard for electric motorcycles. This new standard is meant to provide a range value riders can expect to achieve when using the motorcycle for highway commuting. It is based on an extensive 3rd party research which concluded that, when coupled with the distance traveled on city roads getting to and from the highway, as well as the distance spent in highway congestion, the average "highway commute" is made up of 50% steady-state high speed riding and 50% city-like riding. For Zero's higher top-speed S and DS models, the steady-state high speed used in this test and reporting standard is 70 mph. For Zero's lower top-speed XU, this speed is 55 mph.
The Formula:
S and DS 70 mph Highway Commuting Range = 1 / [0.5/(70 mph steady-state range) + 0.5/(EPA UDDS range)]
XU 55 mph Highway Commuting Range = 1 / [0.5/(55 mph steady-state range) + 0.5/(EPA UDDS range)]
I cant really understand what that ratio is meant to mean but i can see that a large proportion is based on the EPA UUDDS calculation which is a bit bogus in my opinion.
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I'd be interested to see what the actual range at 70 mph is. The "highway commuting range" is too confusing for words... From what I can figure out the range estimates for commuting include things like idleing time which is of no use at all.
=:)
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Well the 2010DS does around 20 to 25 miles at 50 to 55mph from my own experience
the 2011DS accoridng to memebers of this board gets a few more miles which agrees with Zero's claims on improved battery life of around 20%
And the 2012 claims around 42 miles at highway speeds which is double the zero 2010DS which is exactly what they claim on their web site, that the battery is about 2x the power.
NOW I'D LOVE TO PUT THAT BATTER IN MY 2010, BUT I DOUBT I'LL BE ABLE TO!!!! I'LL JUST WAIT A FEW YEARS AND BUY A USED 2012 FOR HALF THE PRICE OF A NEW ONE!
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I might add that the regen on my bike would peak at around 60 amps when slowing down from 60 mph, but 30 amps (into the 72 V, 50 Ah battery pack) was more typical when riding down a hill at around 40 mph. However, this amperage (which showed up on my Cycle Analyst) would only last for a few seconds as the bike had a high percentage of regen programed into the controller and would slow down relatively rapidly when the brakes were being used (which activated the regen).
I would have preferred the Vectrix system of pushing the throttle passed closed to activate regen, so that you didn't have to use the brakes to get it.
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Ryan thanks for pointing that out. So what they are saying is that the standard bike does 43 miles. I think i am right in assuming it did 42 miles last year? no great improvement then.
In 2011 the EPA UDDS range was 42 miles (I believe). I know that if you ride around town, on streets with 25-35mph speed limits, adhere to those speed limits and don't accelerate faster than the cars around you, you will actually get really close to that 43 miles. I also know that nobody actually rides like that; in reality most people report getting between 23-27miles on a charge. So the ratio mileage reported by riders to UDDS is 25:43 or about 0.6 . In 2012 the UDDS advertised range for the S is 76miles / 114miles (zf6/zf9 battery) and the Commuter expected range is 43 / 63 miles. Those ratios work out to 43:76 = 0.56 and 63:114 = 0.55. So I would bet that most people will actually be able to go the advertized "commuter" distance, hopefully when people start reporting their actual mileage from their 2012 bikes this will be the case, if that commuter calculation doesn't match up to "real world" I am sure Zero will try and adopt a different way of calculating / simulating real world range.
I know that when traveling at 70mph rider position will have a huge effect on range. Sitting up straight and riding along at 70mph will eat up your battery pretty quickly. Getting in a tuck will probably decrease your power consumed at 70mph by 15-20%. This will probably have a pretty large effect on the range that people get on these bikes which are capable of such high speeds.
-ryan
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the 2012DS weighs 64 pounds MORE than the 2010DS it needs a diet
guess that extra speed and range has resulted in a very very heavy battery?
what else could they have added to make it weight so much!
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the 2012DS weighs 64 pounds MORE than the 2010DS it needs a diet
guess that extra speed and range has resulted in a very very heavy battery?
what else could they have added to make it weight so much!
The quoted wieght of the frame has increased by 10% as well. I'd imagine that the other cycle parts have also had to increase in size and weight to cope with the heavier frame and heavier battery. This is exactly what Neil Saiki was talking about when he said that lightness was the key. Once you start chasing "performance" phantoms by adding kg, it doesn't stop and they keep piling on. Adding just a few kg here and there doesn't look like much but then it begins to snowball. To make up for the increased weight you have to add power. To make up for the increased power demands from the motor you need bigger controllers. To feed the bigger controllers you need bigger wires and batteries. To house the bigger wires, batteries and controllers you need a bigger bike. To move the bigger bike through the air you need a bigger motor.... The more you add the more you have to add. Then having added all that stuff it doesn't actually go any better than the light bike but it costs twice as much. I still think Zero were nuts to let gas bike people design for them. Neil knows how to do this stuff right. Light weight, inexpensive and upgradable. He knew that the best advertising is having people out there riding them. Zero seems to have abandoned all three of those principles. Perhaps in the same way that Apple threw out Jobs and then realised their mistake, Zero might get Neil back, but I doubt it. I expect this will spiral out of control and the company will bomb. I hope not. (I want spare parts in the future...)
=:)
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Although Neal is still on the board he and Banman have been ousted by the money men,
remember Zero is owned by the investment company Invus now NOT enthusiasts
they want to see a return its that simple, this may explain why they are trying to sell the bikes in Feb to leapfrog Brammo. He was a good innovator but he did not understand how to make a mass production item, the two things are different and it is precisely this difference that can mean making money or not. I dont think Zero are making any money now.
Investment $23M : bike sales = say 1200 bikes @ $8000 maybe $10M over 4 years
Its not a "business" is it?
How many bikee do they have to sell to make a profit?
Think of the massive wage bill for all their chiefs too
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Very true. Heck, after years of work, lots of sales, government grants, great press, lots of investment, a wonderful product, etc. Tesla has yet to turn a profit. After seeing how they have performed financially, I really wonder how anyone developing, manufacturing and selling an electric motorcycle can ever make a profit. They have to be doing it for love not profit. It would take a complete oil embargo (such as if Iran gets nuked) for the money to really roll in sufficiently to pay back the development costs, pay back investors and make a few bucks on the side.
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With the current momentum of the industry it seems this co. will do great things for our transportation needs.
-as far as the range.....the hwy range is the minimum distance available based on full throttle riding which is what most people do! The max is stop and go and conservative riding which is how some people ride. So a very accurate analysis indeed.
-most of the added weight is from the power pack and someday when the power storage decreases in weight the motorcycle industry will be amazing......can you imagine a 110 lb mx or a 215lb street or DS?
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The new Zero S is already about 100 pounds lighter than any of my IC motorcycles. I consider anything under 400 pounds to be light and three of my bikes are just over 500. So the Zero would be plenty light enough for me. And the lighter a motorcycle is, the more fun it is to ride. :)
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...can you imagine ... a 215lb street or DS?
No need to tax the old imagination. The Zero XU street bike is only 221 lb. That's "fueled" and ready to go. Anyone able to think of an ICE road bike of more than 100 cc that's as light as that?
=:)
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-as far as the range.....the hwy range is the minimum distance available based on full throttle riding which is what most people do! The max is stop and go and conservative riding which is how some people ride. So a very accurate analysis indeed.
I would have to disagree with your analysis of range here, the max is based on the USSD which is an average speed of below 20mph and the highway speed is a combination of another hypothetical consumption mated to the ridiculous USSD mileage which make both of them bogus in my estimation. I know what i got on my old Zero (26-27 miles) in mixed riding and i can accept that battery cells have improved 10% per year so we are probably looking at a 6kw bike that can do 33 miles and a 9kw bike that can do 50 miles( but is $14000 )
big deal, its about half of what they are quoting in my estimation.
We will see what the true range is when people actually have the new models and i hope i am proved wrong for the sake of the industry.
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Interestingly back around 2000 I read a road test of the Yamaha R1 where they checked it's minimum range, just run full throttle on the highway. That ICE bike ran dry and left the rider stranded on the highway at 50 miles. So full to dry in just over 10 minutes.
As all the comments sections of every electric bike story say: it's useless unless it can go 200 miles and back without refuelling and must cost less than 3000 dollars or it's just not worth buying... (perhaps you could plant a rape seed farm on top and make your own oil as you ride, has anyone thought of that?)
=:)
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in the post 2 above i estimate the range of a Zero S (DS) at 33 miles and in a post in an alternative thread Gasdive says " I know I can get 50 km from the 4 kWh DS " which is 33 miles so my reasoning must be correct.
If you are in the business of selling electric bikes then you need to offer a bike that people will buy. If they think they need a bike that will do 200 miles and cost 5 grand and will not buy anything unless it does then you need to either make that product or resign yourself to the fact that you will sell bikes only to a handful of customers. I invested a 5 figure sum and a lot of time in electric motorcycles only to find to my initial instincts were wrong regarding the saleability of the product. basically the range is poor ( less than stated by the manufacturer) and the price is too high (and getting higher!). The industry will not reach escape velocity until these two factors are fixed and at the moment they are getting closer to one and further away from the other!
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regen power
after watching this night/morning the last F1 - and yes - Webber finally won ! I was riding my Zero and while going downhill and yet another red traffic light stopping my cruise was wondering if a regen breaking - either integrated into the disk brakes or by means of left hand "throttle" or lever would be a way to go. If manually controlled one could try to use that as much as possible - thus controlling the charging directly and avoiding wear of the usual brakes. normal brakes only for fast stops ....
so my 2c without any solid physics supporting it ....
so how do the new 2012 models realise the regen ?
T
btw missed Zero at the Sydney MC show this w/end .... did not see them on the exhibitors list and decided not to go...
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My guess would be that the regen function is tied into the braking system and probably activated by the stop light switch on either brake lever/pedal. That would be the easy way to activate the system. Vectrix used the throttle, which when pushed past idle, opposite the normal throttle direction, would active regen. That works well too, but would be more complicated and Vectrix may have a patent on that idea.
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yes i think vectrix patented that, a very good idea, it seemed to energise the motor backwards and harvest the energy via the motor, which is why F1 says the brake balance changes when they are charging KERS
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I still don't think regen braking on the rear wheel of a motorcycle is a good idea.
Our petrol bike breatheren go to extrodinary lengths to avoid engine braking, why on earth would we add it intentionally?
The lack of engine braking is one of the *advantages* of electric.
Have a look at this advertising video from Ducati. They begin discussing braking at the 3.40 mark if you would like to skip ahead. The back brake is discussed from the 5.00 mark. He mentiones the "slipper clutch" which if you're unfamiliar with more expensive racing bikes and high end sports bikes, is basically a way of stopping the engine from braking through the back wheel. They're only on high end bikes because they're far more expensive to produce but people pay the money because they're so good! However they're not perfect, they still allow some engine braking force to reach the back wheel. That force destablises the bike on corner entry so to get rid of it Ducati had gone to a fly-by-wire throttle that actually opens the thottle slightly under brakes to ensure there's no engine braking.
Ducati 1199 Panigale - Troy Bayliss and Marinelli on the Mugello track! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-s4DqHtlpk#ws)
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Actually, it's worth watching the whole video and while doing so, keep in mind that Zero has increased the weight from 122 kg to 155 kg. They've *added* 33 kg to the bike. Then look at the amount of effort (and expense) Ducati has gone to in order to reduce the weight of their bike. Remembering that the bike they scrapped to produce the panigale was already the lightest in it's class. Look at the comparison, 2010 the Zero was 122 kg and the Ducati was 188 kg. Now in 2012 they're much closer together. 155 kg and 177 kg respectively. Sure the Zero is lighter and if it made the same power as the Ducati it would be very impressive. However the Ducati has nearly 10 times the power!
=:)
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Actually, it's worth watching the whole video and while doing so, keep in mind that Zero has increased the weight from 122 kg to 155 kg. They've *added* 33 kg to the bike. Then look at the amount of effort (and expense) Ducati has gone to in order to reduce the weight of their bike. Remembering that the bike they scrapped to produce the panigale was already the lightest in it's class. Look at the comparison, 2010 the Zero was 122 kg and the Ducati was 188 kg. Now in 2012 they're much closer together. 155 kg and 177 kg respectively. Sure the Zero is lighter and if it made the same power as the Ducati it would be very impressive. However the Ducati has nearly 10 times the power!
=:)
According to the Spec page for the 2012 Zero, http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php (http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/zero-s/specs.php) the ZF6 based bike (which I am pretty sure has more battery capacity than the 2011 bikes) is 135kg, but you have the option of buying the 155kg bike if you want to have the larger range.
-ryan
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just watched the video and it was very impressive. The wheelbase was lengthened by 7mm to improve handling and the seat was positioned 30mm closer. These are the types of design perameters that are way out of the league of Zero. The Ducati is a production motorcycle designed from the ground up, the zero is more of a parts bin project bike and not in the same league at all.
I remember discussing rear shock sag setup with the EU main agent who tried to tell me that if you changed the preload that it would void the warranty.
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Sure it might be desired to have no engine breaking in some situations. However, when quads started to use snowmobile transmissions beyond just Polaris, they received many complaints about not having engine breaking. So now they added engine breaking to just about all of them. I guess it depends on what you are doing whether you want engine breaking or not. It certainly doesn’t appear people think it is always bad. I have been known to reduce throttle and use engine breaking to slow it down a bit. Down hills in rough offroad I often use it.
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It certainly doesn’t appear people think it is always bad.
It's really only people who ride close to the edge of control that think engine braking is always bad and in every situation. It's fine if you're in traffic and you just want to slow down a bit. Riding down a steep hill off road or riding into a corner on the tar as fast as you can engine braking is *always* bad.
I used to crash my brains out down hills when I first switched from twostroke to fourstroke. Everyone told me to just pull in the clutch and I'd be fine. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, the brain just didn't want to do it.
Finally I did and suddenly hills that I'd been *terrorfied* of were no problem. They were just as easy as they'd been on the twostrokers. Suddenly I could ride down loose scree slopes that were right on the point of landslide without a care. I could change lines and jump in and out of ruts as I chose.
Now I see people picking their way slowly down hills and falling off I say "just pull in the clutch". They can't do it any more than I could.
On road or off road, engine braking is *never* a good thing. It destablises the bike just when you need the stability the most. Without it you can carry *far* more entry speed into corners (both on and off road). The suspension remains more supple and follows the ground better giving you more mid corner speed. You can brake harder and later on the front. The front grips better giving you even more corner speed. When you get back on the power there's less transition shock so you can get back on the power earlier in the corner, apply more power and come out of the corner much harder.
All of that applies to both on and off road.
Here's what racers think about engine braking: http://www.sigmaperformance.com/slipperclutch.html (http://www.sigmaperformance.com/slipperclutch.html)
The slipper clutch is still just a coverup for the basic problem. Look at the last ever GP where twostrokes competed. The 990 cc fourstrokes were something like 60 km/h faster down the main straight at Phillip Island than the only 500 cc twostroke in the field. Yet the twostroke was able to get pole position. (well ahead of Valentino Rossi). There's no way he could have won the race as the fourstrokes streaked ahead down the straight then just blocked the road around the corners and indeed in the actual race, despite starting on pole he was last by about the 4th corner.
The fact however remains, that without engine braking, the much slower bike was able to lap much faster.
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yeah - good points gasdive. Hence I was proposing a handlebar controlled engine breaking. So you can slow down the bike on demand. Especially commuting you have a lot of stop starts or come up to a red traffic light. In addition to cruising to a halt whenever possible I have been using the brakes a lot (great on the 2011 now) - for that I could have done with engine braking to top it up.
cheers
Tom
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Tom you're exactly right. I think a controllable regen would be great and it could be much stronger than any "automatic" regen. Personally I'd like it as a left hand lever, but of course preferences would vary.
The ideal would be a frontwheel regen but it would be *very* difficult to implement. Swigz has done it but it's left no room for batteries!
Perhaps something a little less complex would be good. Maybe a telescoping shaft from the front wheel to a generator mounted on the top part of the fork or triple clamp. (so it's unsprung)
Still for the extra weight you could just have some more batteries.
=:)