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[pacificcricket]

Had a long cruise yesterday, putting 80 miles total. Mostly highway, going 55mph. Now as I was getting close to home,
charge was approaching 15%, and I figured once it gets to 10%, I will drop the speed to make it through the last
few miles. But as the bike crossed over to 14%, it itself started losing power, so that I couldn't accelerate above
40MPH even if I wanted (in any mode, including sport). Even worse, as the charge got down to 10%, the bike just
wouldn't go above 25MPH, and with the slight uphill it would barely crawl at 12MPH.

This bike is 2 years old (2014 DS), 11kW battery, with 15 thousand miles on it. I remember somebody was
talking about similar symptoms below 5% charge, but this started way above that. I almost never used more than
70% between charges, only once depleting it down to 5% about a year ago. That time I have not observed any
performance issues, so this is new. Any ideas ?

Thanks!

[Electric Terry]

I believe a recent firmware upgrade started cutting power back sooner on the 2014's as because of an issue with the estimated state of charge could be off and cause the bike to die completely with as much as 10% remaining on the dash (although not really in the battery).

The 2015's and 2016's are so much better as well as having more battery capacity

it sounds like you don't use most of the 11.4 kWh battery except once a year or so, so its not that important for you, but others who need more high speed before it cuts back, I'd suggest upgrading to a 2016 if you can.  The added energy and power density in the 2016 cells are totally worth it.

[pacificcricket]

I believe a recent firmware upgrade started cutting power back sooner on the 2014's as because of an issue with the estimated state of charge could be off and cause the bike to die completely with as much as 10% remaining on the dash (although not really in the battery).

The 2015's and 2016's are so much better as well as having more battery capacity

it sounds like you don't use most of the 11.4 kWh battery except once a year or so, so its not that important for you, but others who need more high speed before it cuts back, I'd suggest upgrading to a 2016 if you can.  The added energy and power density in the 2016 cells are totally worth it.

That's a valid theory, though I am not sure it could be the firmware change in my case. I haven't had the bike at the dealer since the motor recall back in 2014, so the firmware is not recent at all. Log parser says revision 36, though I am not sure what specific date that corresponds to.

[grmarks]

I have a 2015 SR and I did a similar thing, took the battery SOC down to 0%. I can't remember the exact details now but it was well below 10% before I noticed any kind of power cut back. It was about 2% (I think) that top speed was affected (top speed being 100km/h). I posted my results in another post on this sight.
So I can attest that the 2015's are much better in this department.

[MichaelJohn]

My '15 SR definitely cuts power below 20% SOC but it seems inconsistent. Sometimes it will give me full power and sometimes it won't. I asked Zero about it and a tech told me that the bike will start changing power delivery when it gets below 50% SOC. I found this surprising but I did notice (I think) that on my last ride full throttle roll-ons seemed to be lacking below 50% SOC. I hope that I was just imagining things through the power of suggestion but I will check it again on my next ride. If it's real, I will be very disappointed.

[pacificcricket]

My '15 SR definitely cuts power below 20% SOC but it seems inconsistent. Sometimes it will give me full power and sometimes it won't. I asked Zero about it and a tech told me that the bike will start changing power delivery when it gets below 50% SOC. I found this surprising but I did notice (I think) that on my last ride full throttle roll-ons seemed to be lacking below 50% SOC. I hope that I was just imagining things through the power of suggestion but I will check it again on my next ride. If it's real, I will be very disappointed.

I discharge my bike below 40% (on a single ride) pretty frequently these days, and never notice any change in performance. Usually it is down to 33-36%, but a month ago it was down to 28%, and it performed all the same. In any case, this time it didn't seem like the top speed was throttled, but rather seemed like a failure to deliver enough current.

By the way, the Zero app reports 10.6kWh battery I can't recall what it used to be (rarely use it), but maybe some cells have failed ?

[Kocho]

The other day, my '15 SR cut power and acceleration considerably as I was going on the highway and was approaching the mid-30% on the display. I did not see overheating, was a cool day and I was not really pushing it too much. I think the power cut was at high speeds mainly though - I was in custom mode with 70% torque, but it was accelerating slower than in Eco mode... I was passing someone and wanted to go quicker, but it would not accelerate as hard as it normally would. Than later in this trip, at 16%, I still had normal speed and power in suburban traffic, with quick bursts of full acceleration and speeds in the 60mph range - did not feel restrictions from the bike. So not sure that the deal was on the highway, where I was above 70mph, I'm pretty sure, when the cutback happened...

I have a 2015 SR and I did a similar thing, took the battery SOC down to 0%. I can't remember the exact details now but it was well below 10% before I noticed any kind of power cut back. It was about 2% (I think) that top speed was affected (top speed being 100km/h). I posted my results in another post on this sight.
So I can attest that the 2015's are much better in this department.

[pacificcricket]

Did this again this week - got the bike to 8% remaining charge. I didn't notice any problems before 10%, likely because I was already going at street speeds, not like the other time. Then as the bike got to 10%, it started losing power, to the point where with 8% remaining it was barely going at 5mph on a slight uphill. Really bizarre.

[Justin Andrews]

My 2013-S used to do that all the time. Its intentional, if you can download and go into the logs you'll see the controller is deliberately throttling the bike back.
Probably to protect the batteries from dropping below 3v due to voltage sag at low SOC.