Print

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

[Crissa]

The life expectancy of a motorcycle is barely over ten years.  The average life of cars is fifteen years, and four times as many miles.

Worrying about battery life?  Really?

-Crissa

[caza]

My first car is nearly 30 years old and still running strong.

I grew up going to swap meets with a culture of people driving and preserving cars that are now 50-100 years old. With my dad swapping between a dozen or so classic cars that were relatively easy to maintain. He still has a 50 year old Cadillac that needs nothing but some upholstery repair.

Yes, I care about battery longevity, whether that be in a car or a bike. Vehicles that are well made and well cared for should be able to last through the decades.

Average lifespan is a combination of a huge variety of factors, from poor maintenance to crashes, to weather, to critters getting in and damaging wiring, to when insurance says it's "totaled", etc.  It's obvious that the average lifespan of a motorcyle is going to be less than a car, motorcyclists crash more often and those crashes total bikes more often, plus they're more exposed.  Those averages are not indicative of optimal lifespan, which his what I'm talking about. But if you see your vehicles as expendable, disposable objects, you go ahead and do that.

[Richard230]

When I was in high school one of friends father had a business that he ran out of is garage restoring Stanley Steamers. Very large and impressive vehicles that seemed to cover the neighborhood with fog when he would test drive the vehicles. However they did take a while to get started.

[caza]

Those Stanleys are really neat cars. They had a whopping 20hp.  10-12 minutes to start the engine. We certainly have come a long way in 100 years!

[Crissa]

My first car is nearly 30 years old and still running strong.

...And you're way outside the curve.  Your worries here seem misplaced.  How many pounds and dollars of materials has that car consumed in its life?  And you're worried about the battery?

-Crissa

[caza]

I don't get why you're being so antagonistic on this front.

Never said I was worried. I said I care about longevity. I said this is something to consider.

If you just want to talk inside of the "curve", this is going to be an issue for people who operate inside of it. OP has a battery issue outside of warranty but inside the curve of expected life, and the solution is extremely costly since they'd likely have to buy an entirely new monolith, and in their case it's not unlikely that the price of a replacement battery is more the value of the bike, before labor. They're not the only ones who have had premature battery failure on a Zero. As long as the battery warranty does not outlast the expected life of the vehicle, whether you estimate that as 10 years or 20, battery longevity and the cost and availability of repairs are a legitimate issue to take into account when you buy an EV. Even if it will be an issue for a small percentage of owners, it is still worth considering that you could be one of those owners.

[ms_smart]

caza, this is exactely my point. Crissa wrote "...And bikes, as a rule, don't tend to live that long anyhow.". That might be true in your region. In Germany it is a wrong statement. Sorry, about the German reference: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/154515/umfrage/durchschnittliches-alter-der-kraftraeder-in-deutschland/#:~:text=Ab%20dem%201.,in%20Deutschland%2018%2C4%20Jahre.

It basically says, that in 2020 the average age of a bike, that is registered and licensed in Germany is 18.4 years. This is not the average age of a bike, that gets scraped. It is the average age of all bikes on the street in Germany including my brand new Zero.

Motorbikes in Germany are used as hobby, will get ridden only at good and warm weather and are well protected in winter. Due to this, the low average mileage (average in Germany for motorbikes is 2349 km/year compared to 14.259 km with cars) and the good build quality of the very popular BMW bikes, a 25 years old BMW bike is still very useful. I know this since I sold my 25 years old BMW last year. It looked like new and I got a good price for it.

I therefore think my ask for a 20 years life is a very reasonable request. Just to be clear: I don't expect, that the battery will last that long. But the battery is a $6K part. That is expensive, but looking at $32K bike value it is absolutely reasonable. The new battery should give the bike another 10 years of useful life. As I wrote: I am expecting, that Zero has a longevity strategy, that ensures battery replacements for older bikes. Since battery technology improves over time, I am also expecting, that new batteries will have more capacity than the original one.

Tesla did exactly this with the Roadster 3.0 and increased the battery for older cars from 56kWh to 70 kWh. This is the reason, why Tesla Roadsters are that popular and still sell for >$70K in Germany although more than 10 years old.

[Fran K]

Just because I took the plate off the bike  does not mean it does not exist.  Fortunately the property tax is only generated from the registered ones.  Generally with a car or pick up when the plate comes off either some one else will register it or it goes to the scrap yard or sits outside never to move under it's own power.

There was a thread on here about stolen motorcycles and the brands were really strange and upon further investigation mopeds were counted.

After 12 years or so the body and frame or one or the other is shot.  The drivers seat and door hinges as well.  The motorcycle generally isn't used in salt road conditions.  I suppose there is a class of bikes with fairings and or body covering pieces that can be essentially totalled pretty easily. 

Proprietary battery, that is really the only choice at this point.

On the other hand the local Honda motorcycle place won't work on anything over 8 years old.  At least that was the case a few years ago.  My street bike is a 1993 Yamaha GTS my pick up is a 2012 and Zero has essentially dis owned 2012 and earlier from my reading on here.

[Crissa]

Average age of bikes is 18 years?

That's astounding.  Also, average is not median, and it doesn't say anything about mileage, and it's a two-year expiration date, are their a bunch of permanent tags in the database?  I'm not going to pay them money to find out.

-Crissa

[caza]

I therefore think my ask for a 20 years life is a very reasonable request. Just to be clear: I don't expect, that the battery will last that long. But the battery is a $6K part. That is expensive, but looking at $32K bike value it is absolutely reasonable. The new battery should give the bike another 10 years of useful life. As I wrote: I am expecting, that Zero has a longevity strategy, that ensures battery replacements for older bikes. Since battery technology improves over time, I am also expecting, that new batteries will have more capacity than the original one.

I think the question of value is more complex than that though, because you have to consider market value of the bike at the time of replacement. Sure the purchase price was 32k, but it lost a bunch of value just riding it off the lot. Once you've reached a battery failure outside of warranty, that 32k value is a distant dream.

If say, you're replacing the battery after 10 years, your bike has depreciated drastically. It's likely worth closer to 4. If the battery costs 6k+labor, it's very likely you'll be able to buy say, a 3 or 4 year old used bike that is superior to your 10 year old bike with a brand new battery.

In the OP's case, the bike can't even be 10 years old, it apparently has one bad cell, and the result is a bike that is effectively totaled.

So to me the bigger issue for longevity is not just zero having a strategy, is that it will often not be financially viable to replace your battery and get that 20 years of life out of the vehicle. I'm sure OP could order a replacement battery for Zero today, but more likely they would spend the same money on a used, but newer zero. This effectively shortens the optimal lifespan of the bikes to be limited by the lifespan of the battery. Until the price of a replacement pack goes down to well under the value of the vehicles they are revitalizing, actual battery replacements will be rare. 

We've seen this already, with a number of Zero XU's and similar 1st gen bikes floating around on craigslist and classifieds, unused and unrestored, because it isn't viable to spend the money on replacing the battery. "Everything works! Just needs a battery!"

I would expect people to change out their tesla roadster batteries as it's a 100K sportscar and a modern "classic" that will mostly retain its value. That is not the case for zeros, and honestly not the case for almost any other EV out on the wild.

[centra12]

The main problem is the poor construction of Zero! Every Makita 18 Volt Duo System has a better battery and BMS th
an Zero.
During the construction, no attention was paid either to repair or to the operation of a "new cell stand with an old cell stand".  A 5-year warranty is of little use.


If the entire battery has to be replaced in all electric vehicles just because a single cell is defective               then good night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Zero also does not offer an exchange battery (old for new) at a reduced price.

[Auriga]

Potting the cells has a lot of benefits. It increases energy density, mechanical reliability, decreases weight, increases impact protection, prevents water ingress, etc.
I don't think they're poorly constructed, but they are not designed for cell level repair, the are designed for maximum energy density in the smallest space/weight.

A lot of electric cars use cells that can be replaced, but noone I know is doing that. Teslas use repairable batteries, but I don't think they will replace a cell, they swap the whole pack. I'd be surprised if anyone swaps cells.

This is because cells and thus batteries age in complex and unpredictable ways. Adding a new cell would cause performance issues, over stressing the new cell because its impedance is lower, current draw is higher etc.You need every cell and group of cells to perform almost identically to have a good battery.

Used/bad cells/batteries have little to no value, and Zero has to pay to recycle them. It makes sense they wouldn't offer money for an old one. They're not huge either, so its not like they can afford to absorb the cost, or have a large pile of used but good batteries around.

Really this boils down to cost of the battery and longevity of the battery. Cost is high, so replacement is expensive.  EV Batteries are built in clean rooms using extremely precise equipment, they're not easy to make. Scale will help with that, but its a very difficult problem.  Zero, unlike Tesla, has to trade some longevity(better cooling/heating, extra cells, etc.) for weight and size. Treated right, a Zero battery should last more than 5 years, probably closer to 10. Some people here have seen that. But all batteries will experience some degradation and will eventually fail.

In short, electric motorcycles as a class are unlikely to be anywhere near the longevity of a gas bike{assuming you keep replacing parts} or an ice car. Until batteries improve or get significantly cheaper, that's the reality. The only question then is will the reduced cost of maintenance and electricity outweigh the longer lifespan, gas costs, and more expensive maintenance of an ice bike. I'll let someone else do that math, but the answer right now is probably it depends.

[centra12]

I see it quite differently 

With BMW and VW, for example, the cell packs can be exchanged individually, even with my C EVO.
In the case of a defect, however, most people will buy a new battery with more range or the same battery for a better exchange price.


Zero has designed a bad one-way lighter with their battery.

[Crissa]

You can't repair the cells in a Tesla, either.  Modules were designed to be replaced, but no one is doing that, either:  They replace the entire pack at the same time and the cells are sent to a second life.  Sometimes the modules are used on the secondary market.

Having the batteries in potting material increases safety and durability to acceptable levels.  Not to mention weight and range:  The tighter you can pack your cells, the more range the entire unit has.

No one thinks of a gasoline bike as being 'totaled' because it'll need $6000 of gasoline to go another 75,000 miles of riding.

-Crissa

[caza]

You can't repair the cells in a Tesla, either.  Modules were designed to be replaced, but no one is doing that, either:  They replace the entire pack at the same time and the cells are sent to a second life.  Sometimes the modules are used on the secondary market.

Yes. This is exactly what I've been saying. The battery being essentially one, expensive part to replace changes the effect on the lifespan of the entire vehicle, since the vehicle is much more tied to one internal part, and that cost can dwarf the value of the vehicle.

Having the batteries in potting material increases safety and durability to acceptable levels.  Not to mention weight and range:  The tighter you can pack your cells, the more range the entire unit has.

Yes, I'm not really suggesting there's a better alternative. Making individual cells replaceable has a lot of downsides, including what you said but also just more possible points of failure. Again, I was never saying that EV's should totally change to conform to how gas cars work, but just that this aspect of their longevity should be considered.

No one thinks of a gasoline bike as being 'totaled' because it'll need $6000 of gasoline to go another 75,000 miles of riding.

Again, that's kind of the point. Ongoing fuel costs are easy to justify over the long life of a vehicle since it is not one lump sum. These are entirely different costs that are justified differently, with different risks as well. If my car is 10 years old and I have to spend $30 on a tank of gas to drive the next 400 miles, that's an easy decision to make every 400 miles. If my car is 10 years old and I have to spend $6000 + labor on a new battery install at which point my car is only worth $5400, that is a daunting financial decision. This can, and has, resulted in EV's with shortened lifespans because 1 single part, the battery, has died prematurely.

For almost everyone who buys an EV, the effect is this: Your vehicle's lifespan is directly tied to the lifespan of one expensive part.

This is not to say EV's aren't worthwhile or economical in the long run, it's just something to consider as different when buying an EV, especially if you're used to ICE vehicles that are comparatively easier and generally less expensive to maintain over multiple decades.