Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Crissa]

But after 63000 miles, my zero will have paid for itself.  Of course, will my already five year old bike survive the ten years to make that number?  I dunno.

No other vehicle I have ever considered owning actually had a number like that

But I'm glad the winding road of the conversation here answered your questions.  It's always so easy to under value the work that goes into a product.

-Crissa

[Richard230]

But after 63000 miles, my zero will have paid for itself.  Of course, will my already five year old bike survive the ten years to make that number?  I dunno.

No other vehicle I have ever considered owning actually had a number like that

But I'm glad the winding road of the conversation here answered your questions.  It's always so easy to under value the work that goes into a product.

-Crissa

My son-in-law is riding a 1986 Honda VFR700FII for commuting and on trips to visit his family in the Serra Nevada foothills. That bike has 120,000 miles on the clock and has never needed a mechanical repair (just electrical). My daughter's 1981 BMW R65LS has about 100,000 miles on it, although it has needed repairs to replace leaking oil seals.

As for Zeros reaching similar mileage, who knows?  I guess we will have to wait and see. But I don't know why not as long as chassis maintenance can be performed as needed.

[princec]

I must admit I've never owned a bike that long. I think my record is 24,000 miles (owned from new), over 3 years. The highest mileage bike I ever owned was a Kwak GT550, which claimed 17k on the odo but it had clearly actually done 117k (ex despatch). It was a total hound.

Cas

[Crilly]

Bolts cheep, Columbus, Wi

[Fran K]

Bolts cheep, Columbus, Wi

https://www.napletonchevroletbuick.com/VehicleSearchResults?search=new&make=Chevrolet&model=Bolt+EV
I could not figure out if they do freight, prep, conveyance but for a cash sale 69 to 70% of msrp and that does not seem to include any tax benefits.

[T.S. Zarathustra]

Few years ago I was considering buying a Zero. The dealer was full of ignore the purchase price because of "Long term benefits", "Lower TCO", and "only 3 of Euros to fully charge" statements.
Well, I calculated it. I compared DSR ZF14.4 (with power tank) and V-Strom 650 (entry level model). With my regular riding of about 8000 km per year, the break even point is in roughly 20 years, 160000 km with modest maintenance. That is out the door dealer price (NL) without discount, doing my own maintenance, no crashes, no engine/battery rebuilds/replacements. Assuming same road taxes. This does not take into account having to pay for access to charge stations or interest on the higher purchase price. Until my current one (6 years) I had never had any motorcycle more than 3 years.
I'm sure Zero's, Energica, and others are great but I'm holding out for some cheaper ones.

Edit. Current prices. Zero 14.4 DSR +powertank €21.540, Suzuki V-Strom 650A € 9.499, Electricity 23 cent per kWh, Petrol 1.473 per liter.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

The break even point cannot possibly be 160k km (100k mi) or 20 years. We've calculated it before at 30-60k miles (50-100k km).

The usual way to calculate it (which obviously varies by use case) is to compare fuel costs (price per gallon * mpg * odometer) plus accruing maintenance costs per regular interval, compared to the cost of home electricity (price per kWh times average efficiency per mile times odometer) plus electric maintenance costs.

Honestly, the only real price that doesn't amortize is the insurance premiums, which is a fair critique.

I own both a V-Strom 650 2012 which gets 55-60mpg (no slouch) and a DSR, and the DSR lowers my overall maintenance costs substantially between the two bikes. My V-Strom has an extremely low service interval because I own the Zero, and the Zero I generally service myself when that's even needed.

I definitely think the Zero family is for heavy commuters or light travelers to get the value, and I do not recommend eliminating gas bikes entirely from your garage in favor of any electric motorcycle. Get the electric motorcycle to reduce your ongoing maintenance costs and have a better daily ride. Keep the gas motorcycle for trips and as a backup.

[valnar]

As someone who is not a gearhead, my maintenance costs of an ICE bike would be more than for other people.  I might do my own oil changes, but that's it.  Everything I'd have done at a dealer.  Now that being said, I might try my hand at replacing my own belt and brake pads when the time comes, but I may not. I would leave my tires to the dealer.

The break even point cannot possibly be 160k km (100k mi) or 20 years. We've calculated it before at 30-60k miles (50-100k km).
etc

To be fair, it only takes one $2000 high priced electronics thingamajig to break, out of warranty, and the Zero shoots up in overall 'maintenance costs' (or TCO).  I did a poll earlier and that percentage wasn't small.  If you're outside the USA, Zero may not even help you if a dealer isn't nearby.

All that being said, I still love my Zero FXS, but I know it's a gamble once the warranty is out.

[Doug S]

I ran the numbers before I bought my 2014 SR, so it must have been in late 2013. I compared it to putting more miles on my BMW 328i, since it was my other vehicle. I wound up with a break-even point somewhere in the 50k (miles) range, and I've got that on my bike now.

Things have changed, though. Gasoline is incredibly cheap right now due to low demand, and electricity is incredibly expensive here in San Diego. (I'm paying $0.52 /kWh, and that's with the EV rate!) So if I ran the numbers today, it might not be much cheaper at all to ride the bike, let alone pay back the purchase price in a reasonable amount of time.

There are other reasons to enjoy electric motorcycles, though. In addition to their riding charms, which are considerable, what it really comes down to for me is the fuel is renewable (at least potentially) and already part of the carbon cycle. I just bought a new barbecue grill, and I went with charcoal instead of propane or natural gas for the exact same reason -- we have GOT to break our addiction to petrochemicals. It won't happen until we make it happen.

[NEW2elec]

+1 on Brian's post

Plus it's folly to not put a price on your time to do the maintenance on a gas bike.  Honestly you do it because you have to not because you love it.  You likely wouldn't do it for free to a strangers bike so at least figure roughly what you make an hour if not the $100ish an hour for shop labor like here in the US.

Best advise is always buy used, pay cash, have a backup (car really), have money for repairs on hand, and be very realistic about how much you want to and will ride.  My Zeros will be the most money savvy transportation I've ever owned.  I got them cheap they save on gas and miles on my car and I truly love just plain riding them around 30-40 mile loops just for fun.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

The break even point cannot possibly be 160k km (100k mi) or 20 years. We've calculated it before at 30-60k miles (50-100k km).
etc

To be fair, it only takes one $2000 high priced electronics thingamajig to break, out of warranty, and the Zero shoots up in overall 'maintenance costs' (or TCO).  I did a poll earlier and that percentage wasn't small.  If you're outside the USA, Zero may not even help you if a dealer isn't nearby.

All that being said, I still love my Zero FXS, but I know it's a gamble once the warranty is out.

While it's absolutely true that the risk on electric motorcycles of the cost shooting up is relatively high (and this is why I hope the manual can help owners avoid or mitigate those issues), there are plenty of gas motorcycles which have similar issues. Sure, KTM is going to worse than a mid-range Big Four Japenese motorcyle, but economizing isn't a sure thing.

FWIW I absolutely treat warranty-covered repairs by electric motorcycle companies in the same bin as customer-paid repairs, because the cost either goes into the aggregated margin on the bike (indirectly to the owner) or on the owner directly. So, I really don't care whether Zero or Energica pay for repairs for the owner, from a certain perspective - I think the owners eventually have to pay. I do want them to cover quality/defect issues, particularly so they're properly motivated to budget and manage it, but the question of how much it costs to keep the vehicles running across the market plays into the motorcycles' actual value.

I also wish part swaps on electric motorcycles were less bulky. Swapping even an MBB or BMS is too expensive because it requires factory reprogramming per unit, so dealers can't keep them in inventory. Controllers and chargers are enormously expensive and wasteful to swap as a troubleshooting triage step, and yet all the manufacturers seem to have a process that involves this, rather than figuring out more nuanced diagnostics and fault isolation procedures.

[Crissa]

Geez, I only pay 29¢ a KWh to charge and we have all renewable net carbon zero or less energy here.  How could you pay almost twice that in San Diego?

-Crissa

[Doug S]

Uncompromisingly Republican city government. SDG&E is totally out of control and nobody can does or can do anything about it.

[princec]

I thought the idea was that free market competition would drive prices for electricity down to an acceptable level?

Cas

[Fran K]

I thought the idea was that free market competition would drive prices for electricity down to an acceptable level?

Cas

That is beyond the scope of why the cost of a Zero Motorcycle. In short yes that is the idea but only on the supply side.  On the transmission side there may still be legacy Nuclear plant costs, legacy mistakes in the Enron bankrupcy (making unsecured loans dressed up as electric contracts), perhaps others.  Just what comes to mind. Electric infastructure gets property taxed. I note some new hydro projects on the Ohio River at locks make a 25 year contract but what in year 26. That is probably the supply side.  Generally there is a base charge to be hooked to the grid in the transmission side and if you do not use much and do your arithmetic total bill divided by kwh used the per kwh cost will be high.  Not only that the tele marketers for choose your supplier and the ones for solar instalation will hang up on you.