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[Djihatch]

Hi everybody,
First of all, thanks to everyone here. It's always a pleasure to read posts, very interesting.

I have a 2015 SR (great bike, very happy with it). I got the charger replaced a few years ago.

I use it to commute (a couple of miles a day) and, once a month, I go see my parents (75 miles trip at 40-70 mph). Depending on the weather (winter/summer/rain...). I usually adjust the speed to keep 20 % battery left at arrival.

3 days ago, I had to be fast (by fast, I mean legal top speed, but not EV friendly), and I reached 23 % SOC while I was at 12 miles from my goal. Then problems began : My top speed had been reduced to 55 mph,  At 18 %, 30 mph with praticaly no torque. and then the SOC dropped suddenly from 13% to 0 and the bike stopped.

I was 5 miles from home and someone had to pick me up. Fortunately kind people let me charge during the night and I get the bike fully charged the day after.

I asked Zero and they told me that it was really disturbing. They also told me that logs from the app wouldn't be enough and that I have to send the bike to my dealer to get usable logs. I'll do it (the specialized Zero bike mechanic will be back on thuesday, I'll call him to get an appointement).
I also asked Zero about the warranty (the bike is from 06/2015, less than a year out of warranty, I know...) : They just answered me "you re bike and the battery pack are out of warranty". OK... I get it...
I answered that my bike had only 10 K miles wich is far from the 300 k miles lifetime advertised. No answer from them.

I've seen second hand deals around 7000 $ for a 2015 SR. Considering a battery replacement (6000 $, if I'm not wrong), that means that, if I want to sell my bike with a new battery, I can only expect do get like 1500-2000 $ back at the end of the process...

I'm really disapointed and scared because if the battery is dead My bike value had been decreased of 9000 - 9500 $ in three years (I bought it 11 000 $ in 2018).

I was aware that battery capacity would decrease slowly, and I was ok with that (I got an electric car too). But, this is not a game : I feel like Zero tells me "Too bad for you... Only 10 monthes too late. Bad luck ! Good bye, have an ice day" like I've been playing some kind of Win or Miss game.

I've watched the logs and It appears that, at 13% SOC, the battery was at its lower voltage limit. I feel fooled, because, as I never reach SOC lower than 20-25 %, I've never seen that the SOC was wrong (20 % displayed means that the "real" SOC is around 5 %). If the SOC displayed was accurate, I would have noticed sooner (when warranty was not over !), and I would have dropped it to my dealer for abattery check...


I really hope that my battery is fine, and I'll let you know, but physics law are what they are and if I suddenly can't reach the end of a trip that I made regularly, I think there is something really wrong...


I live in Europe (France). Any help or advice will be very appreciated.

Thank you !

[Crissa]

There's a good chance the bike just mis-displayed the SoC.  They do that sometimes.  It's not a common occurrence, and more likely shows up when the battery is faulty, but that might be observer bias.

(I had mine do that yesterday, but it figured itself out before I got home).

I don't think the logs record the balance level over time in a ride.  Usually more balancing (a command the BMS does at the end of the charge cycle) or just cycling the charge will help the bike remember its state of charge better.

I have had my bike for 18 months and 6k miles and have had it happen three-four times.  Highway plus cold or long cycle plus hot is usually what does it.

-Crissa

[Fran K]

Since you already have an appointment I will just make a comment.

I havew a F150 pickup and it can display mpg and miles to empty.  It is very good at the mpg whether I am empty or towing.  The miles to empty drops off faster than distance and drastically so when towing.  It does go past 0 as opposed to  your episode.

I recently got a watt meter, actually an EU plug one and would suggest you do likewise and see how much the battery holds, or at least how much is used to recharge it.

[Djihatch]

Thanks to you both.

Yes, I hope I'll get more info after the "real" battery check.

The use of a wattmeter is a good idea also. Even if it's not as accurate as dealer's test, I think it'll give me a good idea of my battery capacity.


Thanks for the advice.

[KrazyEd]

Have you viewed cell balance, both while sitting / riding and charging?
It should generally be between 3 and 5 mv. If you do a standard ( 120v ) charge
to full, leaving it plugged in for a while after full, this will ( theoretically ) balance
the cells. Once full, ride it for a bit to drain battery back down. Don't let it sit at 100%
Also, ( not got for continual use ) if the bike dies, you can usually key it off for a bit,
then, go on again for a little more distance. Not helpful for your last situation, but, possibly for
a future event. Slow charging is best to help all cells stay close. Fast charging is great when
in a hurry, but, cells don't get to balance as easily.

[Djihatch]

Hi,

Thank you,

I never fast charge. And never let the battery at 100 %. Usually, I charge it when SOC is around 30 %. I let it plugged all night long so, and ride the day after. I guess that it has enough time to have the cells well balanced.
On the logs, the cut off appeared when the battery pack was at 93-94 V wich is (if I'm right) the lower value that can be used. So I guess this is not a balance problem, but a capacity one.

Thanks for your post.

[Crissa]

If you never let it charge to 100% it will never balance and recalibrate the SOC estimates.

-Crissa

[Djihatch]

Sorry for the misunderstanding : When I say that "I never let the battery at 100 %", I mean that, once the battery is charged at 100 % and balanced, I ride it the day after and I never store it, more than one day or two, at 100%.

[princec]

Just a thought, Zero may only warrant that the battery lasts 5 years but they have an awful lot of literature claiming it lasts hundreds of thousands of km, and this one clearly hasn't... which would open them up to a lawsuit instead. I imagine they wouldn't want to get into a lawsuit, as even tho IANAL, it doesn't look good for them.

https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/technology

Using state-of-the-art lithium-ion cell chemistry and advanced battery management systems, each motorcycle is able to travel farther, faster, and last longer. A typical Zero S or Zero DS can travel over 200,000 miles with the batteries retaining 80% of their original maximum capacity.

Maybe a bit foolish of them to publish such a claim.

Cas

[Djihatch]

Yes, I know...
On the 2015 SR manual, they claim that the battery could lasts 300 000 miles or so. I only put 10 000 on mine (3 % of what Zero claims in their manual...).
I really hope that it's only a software issue, but the facts are that I can't ride as long as I use to... So I really worry about it.

If the dealer's battery check says that I've only lost, let's say, 15 % of the capacity, I'm ok with that. We all know that capacity decreases with years. I was aware of that. But If I'm told that my battery begins to fail, I will consider that I've been fooled (300 000 miles advertise + the fact that the SOC shown on the dash was wrong, preventing me to detect that my battery was failing while it was always under warranty).

Well, as we say here "Don't cry before you get hurt", maybe my dealer will announce me that's nothing at all (hope is free for now ;-) ).

Thank you !

[Richard230]

Here is a comment that I made a few months after buying my 2018 S with PT that may be of interest:

Yesterday I rode 105 miles on 75% (showing 25% on the display) of my battery capacity at speeds that varied between 40 and 60 mph, with a lot of up and down riding in the Santa Cruz Mountains and riding at 60 mph against a headwind on the Coast Highway.  Recharging took 10 hours at between 1250 and 1450 watts (the power draw goes up as the battery charge goes up).  Total power consumed at the wall outlet was exactly 13.00 kWh.

I also ran my battery pack down to "00" one time but I can't find that post now. If I recall correctly, I think a full charge took about 18 kWh at the wall.

[Manzanita]

3 days ago, I had to be fast (by fast, I mean legal top speed, but not EV friendly), and I reached 23 % SOC while I was at 12 miles from my goal. Then problems began : My top speed had been reduced to 55 mph,  At 18 %, 30 mph with praticaly no torque. and then the SOC dropped suddenly from 13% to 0 and the bike stopped.

I was 5 miles from home and someone had to pick me up. Fortunately kind people let me charge during the night and I get the bike fully charged the day after.

So one observation I have on my 2014 is that the firmware updates have *radically* changed the SOC display on the dash. Previously my bike was stopping dead at 11% displayed SOC. After the last firmware update about a year ago, I can clearly run to zero, although the temperature dependence of the display and the amount of "displayed recovery" is now huge. For example, I will ride home at freeway speed (about 25 miles) going from 100% SOC to 6% when I arrive home, then a couple hours later with the bike parked, the display shows 38%. Or it recovers from 30% to 68%. With older firmware there was some recovery, but not 30+%. I think it is both more accurate and more confusing....  maybe I am misunderstanding the details of your post, and I am not super into the technical aspects, but in general I do not equate anything the bike reports as some solid indicator of real battery capacity. The software also seems to be trying to estimate your future rate of discharge, ie, the display goes up in capacity when I get off the freeway and ride on the street. All this type of stuff has been reported by others here.

I think you'd have to literally do a scientific experiment, testing range under controlled conditions, when you buy the bike vs. 5 years later (for example) but even that is not "reality" because running to shutoff is controlled by the firmware.

So my question is have you been getting your bike's firmware updated regularly? But even with the same firmware, you could only make some sort of argument of loss of battery capacity if you had a test case where you typically would consistently ride X miles until the bike died, and now you are consistently only able to ride (80% * X) miles until the bike dies. Since you haven't been running the bike to that extent, it's unclear if you have lost any true battery capacity... right?

[ESokoloff]

3 days ago, I had to be fast (by fast, I mean legal top speed, but not EV friendly), and I reached 23 % SOC while I was at 12 miles from my goal. Then problems began : My top speed had been reduced to 55 mph,  At 18 %, 30 mph with praticaly no torque. and then the SOC dropped suddenly from 13% to 0 and the bike stopped.

I was 5 miles from home and someone had to pick me up. Fortunately kind people let me charge during the night and I get the bike fully charged the day after.

So one observation I have on my 2014 is that the firmware updates have *radically* changed the SOC display on the dash. Previously my bike was stopping dead at 11% displayed SOC. After the last firmware update about a year ago, I can clearly run to zero, although the temperature dependence of the display and the amount of "displayed recovery" is now huge. For example, I will ride home at freeway speed (about 25 miles) going from 100% SOC to 6% when I arrive home, then a couple hours later with the bike parked, the display shows 38%. Or it recovers from 30% to 68%. With older firmware there was some recovery, but not 30+%. I think it is both more accurate and more confusing....  maybe I am misunderstanding the details of your post, and I am not super into the technical aspects, but in general I do not equate anything the bike reports as some solid indicator of real battery capacity. The software also seems to be trying to estimate your future rate of discharge, ie, the display goes up in capacity when I get off the freeway and ride on the street. All this type of stuff has been reported by others here.

I think you'd have to literally do a scientific experiment, testing range under controlled conditions, when you buy the bike vs. 5 years later (for example) but even that is not "reality" because running to shutoff is controlled by the firmware.

So my question is have you been getting your bike's firmware updated regularly? But even with the same firmware, you could only make some sort of argument of loss of battery capacity if you had a test case where you typically would consistently ride X miles until the bike died, and now you are consistently only able to ride (80% * X) miles until the bike dies. Since you haven't been running the bike to that extent, it's unclear if you have lost any true battery capacity... right?

I took my 2016 DSR into the dealer for battery evaluation as I was experiencing many of the OP’s symptoms (primarily great reduction in output performance with a lower SOC).
They updated the software & it made a vast difference. 
It now produces much more power but at the expense of somewhere around half the SOC.
Also there now is a SOC level lag.
Recommend having software updated. 
Probably won’t help the battery capacity but at least will enable you to enjoy what capacity is left. 

[Shadow]

...
I took my 2016 DSR into the dealer for battery evaluation as I was experiencing many of the OP’s symptoms (primarily great reduction in output performance with a lower SOC).
They updated the software & it made a vast difference. 
It now produces much more power but at the expense of somewhere around half the SOC.
Also there now is a SOC level lag.
Recommend having software updated. 
Probably won’t help the battery capacity but at least will enable you to enjoy what capacity is left.

There was a re-work of the firmware SoC calculation that also coincided with re-shaping the default profiles ECO/Sport. I could be making this up. I don't know actually, it was ages ago    however that exact make and model year. Previous to that update the SoC calculation was dead wrong and consistently so, and you could make up in your head where you thought the bike SoC really was. Following the update it seemed more accurate but randomly would "lag" as you say and I ignored it completely going forward as it was unreliable.

[Djihatch]

Hello,

@Manzanita : I've never experienced a recovery on the display when I was parked. You re bike being dead at 11 % before firmware upgrade seems similar to my situation.
My firmware is not up to date. At the time, I choose it that way because, according to what was written on this forum, it was not reliable. Someone here told that he wouldn't put a firmware that may contain bugs on a bike that you can ride at 90 mph... I agreed ! Now it may be the right time to make that upgrade.
Yes, the 0-20 % battery capacity may or may have not never existed as I never go under 20 % and that the dash is not reliable...

@ESokoloff,Richard230,Shadow : Yes, I think that upgrading firmware is now mandatory. If the cost of a battery check at the dealer's is fair, I'll do it, if not, I'll upgrade, and use a wattmeter for a first check.

Thanks to you all.