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[Richard230]

I just returned from a 140-mile ride (without needing to recharge) into the Santa Cruz Mountains on my power tank-equipped Zero, stopping at Big Basin State Park and then riding to Highway 1, just north of Santa Cruz and back to my home in Pacifica. This ride included lots of climbing up and down hills and riding against a stiff headwind along the Pacific coast. 

My battery died just 100 yards from my home. Talk about range anxiety! I had to slow down to 40 mph for the last 30 miles as I watched the very accurate power gauge drop one percent at a time, falling to "0%" just as the bike died.  Still, 140 miles isn't all that bad and at 2 cents a mile, the ride cost me $2.80.   

The last 100 yards was uphill and taken in 20-foot segments, as the battery would die, then recover, then die again.  But I made it home without needing to push. Upon returning my pack voltage was 94 volts and balancing showed 160 mV for four of the modules and 48 mV for one module (likely the newer "power tank" battery).

I have the bike charging at 1200 watts on a Kill-A-Watt meter and will report back tomorrow how much power it takes at the wall to fully charge a dead battery pack.

I might add that half way up Highway One I stopped at a convenience store and gas station that was well equipped with exterior wall outlets and asked the clerk if I could charge my bike for 30 minutes while I ate lunch.  I told him that it would only use about 20 cents in power and offered to buy something in the store while my bike was charging.  He thought about it for a while and then said it would cost me $5 to use their power to charge my bike.  So I told him no thanks, keep your power, and I rode off toward home.     Apparently, gas stations are not feeling the love toward electric vehicles.   

[MichaelJ]

Awesome report, Richard!  Glad to read that you made it close enough to home safely!

[trikester]

Fantastic! Interesting about the gas station/store owner. Hmmm...........must be a little worried about his future.

I saw in the paper this morning where the Calif legislature has said that 25% of the vehicles sold by 2020 must be zero emissions vehicles. However, plug-in hybrids will count as a percentage of a zero emission vehicle. Probably a little too optimistic about the date, so that will probably change down the road. But it should "kick-start" the process. Oops, sorry - used a gas bike term. 

Trikester

[RickSteeb]

Thanks for the good news!  I feel a bit more confident about the 104 mile loop I have planned for when I get my SR 14.2... Up over Mount Hamilton, to Livermore, and back via Calaveras rd.

 

[ultrarnr]

Richard230,


Do you remember what your average Wh/mile was on this trip?   Thanks

[nigezero]

Fantastic to hear about your " Kramer " moment: good on you for taking it to the limit . Intrigued to hear about the difference between batteries: I think this is an issue to watch.certainly in solar battery systems, different age  capacity and life can cause problems. Hopefully smart BMS will help overcome

[protomech]

I might add that half way up Highway One I stopped at a convenience store and gas station that was well equipped with exterior wall outlets and asked the clerk if I could charge my bike for 30 minutes while I ate lunch.  I told him that it would only use about 20 cents in power and offered to buy something in the store while my bike was charging.  He thought about it for a while and then said it would cost me $5 to use their power to charge my bike.  So I told him no thanks, keep your power, and I rode off toward home.     Apparently, gas stations are not feeling the love toward electric vehicles.   

Sounds like someone saw an opportunity to make $5.

[Richard230]

This morning I checked my bike and it required 15 hours to fully recharge (the manufacturer claims 10 hours).  It took 13.75 kWh of power, as measured by a Kill-A-Watt meter at my 122 V wall outlet, and the battery pack now has 13.22 kWh of capacity as shown on the Zero cell phone app.  Voltage is now 115 Volts and the five battery modules are balanced within 2 mV of each other (between 1 mV and 3 mV).  Apparently there has not been the slightest drop is battery performance or capacity over the 2100 miles and 50 recharges since I bought my Zero.  If I recall correctly (I didn't write it down), I believe my trip watts per mile was something like 75 wpm.

One thing that I noticed was that as I was trying to hold a steady speed on level ground, the instantaneous watts per mile reading would jump all over, from say 95 to 130, back and forth.  Also I felt some "surging" in the power train as I tried to hold a steady speed.  It felt like an IC engine that was running lean.  I hadn't noticed that before, probably because I am usually not trying to have a steady throttle hand and trying to maximize my range - giving me a lot more time to be aware of the bike's performance. I don't notice this issue during my normal riding.

[benswing]

Let the range wars begin!  That's great to hear you went 140 miles between charges in normal riding!  Also, I'm jealous of the roads you have near you.  Well played!

[Burton]

what was the average speed for the trip?

75W/mile is slightly above the "City" range / speed advertised by zero on their page for the 14.2

[protomech]

75 Wh/mile * 140 miles = 10.5 kWh

I'd be a little disappointed if that was all that could be extracted from the ZF14.2 pack in light riding.

[MostlyBonkers]

I should imagine that the Wh/mile stat is calculated based on the power supplied from the controller to the motor and like the mpg stat many cars and bikes give, I very much doubt it's accurate. For example it won't be taking into account the power being delivered to all the other electrical systems. There is bound to be some power used by the controller itself. Regenerative braking makes it fiendishly difficult too; while the controller can measure the power generated by the motor, it won't be able to account for the energy lost in the charging process. The battery pack gets warm from discharging and recharging. I think the controller has a big heat sink for air cooling. It's all energy being converted to heat and not going into the Wh calculation.

They say a man needs 2,500 kcal/day on average. That works out to 2.9 kWh. For a bike to travel 140 miles on less than five times that energy seems impressive to me. Talk about cutting it fine though Richard! Interesting post, thanks. [emoji106]

[protomech]

I should imagine that the Wh/mile stat is calculated based on the power supplied from the controller to the motor

Definitely possible.. could coloumb count at the motor controller or into/out of the battery. You could potentially tell if it's the battery by resetting the counter, roll the bike a little ways, then let it sit with the headlight on and see if the watt hour/mile counter goes up.

ie:

0.5 miles @ 75 Wh/mile = 37.5 Wh, 1 hour with 55 watt lamp running = 55 Wh so it should be easily noticeable.

[MostlyBonkers]

Perhaps the best way to get the most accurate Wh figure for the trip is to simply calculate it from the amount of power required to fully charge the bike. Just in the same way people work out their mpg by topping up with petrol. The measure of power from the outlet versus the capacity reported by the app sounds realistic. You'd expect some loss between the two. 13.22 kWh works out to 94.4 W/mile.

[MostlyBonkers]

My gas guzzling Fazer does approx. 900Wh/m in comparison.