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[umrath]

Zero bikes are on the market for quite some time now and to me it looks like the (D)S(R) / FX(S) generation is essentially still the same base as it was 8 years ago.
And I'm pretty sure that there are bikes whose batteries have died meanwhile. Probably (hopefully) not too many. But some certainly will have.

So, my question: What happened to those bikes?
Did the owners scrap them?
Or did they get the batteries exchanged?

If so: What does that cost? Did they upgrade to the newer version with more capacity?


A bit background:
I'm in the process of buying a Zero. Had already bought a used DSR Black Forest but handed it back to the dealer because the charge tank was faulty.
Now I'm looking at a SR/F and wonder if I will ever have the chance to upgrade the battery to a bigger pack one day or if the only reasonable way forward is always buying a new bike.

(I'm not really worried about the battery longetivity. I only chose this as an example. I'm pretty sure that the battery will usually last longer than the rest of the bike.)

[Crissa]

Zero has replaced batteries.  When I bought my bike, they fried and then replaced the main board when I got the firmware updated (in the fall of 2019 when it was five years old)

My old neighbor even had an even older bike with the entire control boards and motor and dash replaced.  So they know how to do it, I just wished they shared it with us.

-Criss

[Richard230]

I have no idea what Zero does with chassis parts, motors and battery packs that have been returned to them for some reason. Perhaps they are tossed to their engineers to see if they can find out what went wrong and how to prevent it.  (One can only hope.     )

When the entire 2012 S and DS production was recalled due to a potential fire hazard, Zero claimed that those bikes would be sent to the crusher, followed by a trip to the landfill, no doubt. What a waste. 

[JaimeC]

There are people here who've had their batteries upgraded when their original ones had failed under warranty.  At least one person got his original 13kWh battery replaced with the 14.4kWh battery because the 13kWh ones were no longer being manufactured.  In October 2023 when the warranty on my S model's battery expires I'll have to decide whether to replace the battery, continue using it because it's "fine," or just replace the entire bike.  Right now I'm thinking the second option because I hate spending money I don't have to.  All this goes right out the window, however, if Zero releases the SR/S in red...

[valnar]

I would love to hear from 2013-2014 riders.  How are your bikes holding up?  One of the complaints from ICE riders (besides range) is battery longevity - and they are quite right.  A well taken care of ICE bike can last a couple decades.

In a few more years, the original Tesla and Zero EV's will be under scrutiny from the rest of the world as they watch, and learn.  The majority of vehicles purchased each year are used.

[princec]

They can but it has to be said they rarely ever see action over 20,000 miles. Where are they all, you might ask. Where do they go? The sad truth of it is that bikes are generally disposed of or forgotten, or crashed, of course. Relative longevity is another one of those but-what-about arguments that doesn't really hold much weight. If after 10 years they still run they'll be worth about 1/4 of their original value just like ICE bikes and in theory we might see 3rd party replacement battery packs for some more popular models.

Cas

[JaimeC]

I am one of the few motorcyclists I know who doesn't replace his bike every three or four years.  My K1200LT will be 22 years old this summer and has over 220,000 miles on it so far.  Very very few motorcyclists hang on to their bikes that long or put that many miles on them.  I'd have even MORE miles on it, but the bike has never been the ONLY bike in my garage.  It's getting even less annual mileage ever since I started riding my Zero, too.  For the past several years I've been saving the LT for multi-state, multi-day trips.  I've been using the Zero and the XMAX for nearly everything else.

If my 2013 BMW C650GT didn't turn out to be such an unreliable POS I'd probably still have that instead of the XMAX.  My 2016 Zero was totaled in an accident in 2018 so that's why I have the 2018 or I'd probably still be riding that one around.  I'm actually glad I was forced to get the newer model because now I can do the software updates at home saving at least one reason to go back to the dealer.

[Curt]

All this goes right out the window, however, if Zero releases the SR/S in red...

I bet most any professional auto body shop could solve all your problems and have you seeing red.

[Crissa]

Mine runs fine

-Crissa

[JaimeC]

All this goes right out the window, however, if Zero releases the SR/S in red...

I bet most any professional auto body shop could solve all your problems and have you seeing red.

They're expensive enough as is.  Don't want to spend even more to change the color.  Besides, I don't mind giving Zero another year or more to continue ironing out the bugs in the Gen3 bikes.

[dvdt]

As there was a question regarding battery longevity, I ride a 2014S that I purchased new in 2015, and, as the 5 year warranty (and 45k miles) was coming up, the battery began to have increasingly strange behavior, and noticeable loss of range wrt new. My guess was there was a bad cell, but I didn't attempt to diagnose this further, as Zero was good enough to replace the battery under warranty after confirming the impairment. As the original (2014) battery was no longer produced or available, a present day (2020) battery was installed (a net upgrade in capacity). This change in battery details apparently was a bit complicated, given the various interactions I had with the service department, and required several consultations between the service department and Zero (plus a few extra trips back to the service department, over a couple of months) to get everything working perfectly.

For my primary use case of commuting ~40 miles round trip per day, I would have kept operating the original battery for as long as possible barring a catastrophic failure, but I am content to have a battery without many years and miles so that I can do longer distance errands in addition to commuting. I have no notion of what the cost for installation (battery + shop time) would have been, but almost certainly more than I would have willingly parted with!

[Richard230]

I would love to hear from 2013-2014 riders.  How are your bikes holding up?  One of the complaints from ICE riders (besides range) is battery longevity - and they are quite right.  A well taken care of ICE bike can last a couple decades.

In a few more years, the original Tesla and Zero EV's will be under scrutiny from the rest of the world as they watch, and learn.  The majority of vehicles purchased each year are used.

My daughter owns my old 2014 S with PT. It has never had its firmware updated since in left the factory in January 2014 and still runs like new. The only failure that it had was a slow 2-year long degradation of its onboard charger. Eventually it wouldn't charge past 85% SOC. The charger was finally replaced with a new one in 2018.

[umrath]

Thanks, those were very interesting insides that I didn't have so far. Very useful!

So, it means that it is indeed possible to swap an old battery for a newer generation and that has already happened. It's very comforting to know that.
Again: I'm not worried about the longetivity of the battery itself. I drive electric cars for 4 years and know that this is not an issue.
I just wanted to know whether there is potentially a path to an upgrade in case one day, e.g., a 20 kWh battery is available.

Thanks again for all the replies.

[StableofZeros]

By the time you’re ready to jump up in capacity, peripheral electronics will probably also be upgraded, plus any incentives to turn in your current model, you’ll be encouraged to upgrade the whole bike and not just the battery!

[Kappi]

I did get a new battery due to problems with the monolith (thanks again Zero for the unproblematic handling of the issue), but from guessing the monolith's price, replacing one out of pocket probaply wouldn't be worth it once a bike is past its prime.