As much as I love my first electric motorcycle, a Zero SR/S Premium with a power tank, there are a few things that seem odd.
1. The lack of a parking brake. A regular bike doesn't need one, but I feel like an electric bike should come with a parking brake. Luckily for me the area around here is rather flat, so I never have to park on a slope.
2. The lack of a brake light that lights up when decelerating regardless of me using the friction brakes. This seems like a safety hazard to me, especially at higher speeds. I use a custom profile with full regen to extend range as much as possible and to reduce brake wear. It's pretty much the equivalent to one-pedal driving in my car (also EV). The highest speed limit around here is 110 kph. People regularly go faster, I'd say up to about 130 kph according to the speedo which seems a bit too optimistic. In reality that's about 124 kph. At that speed, even without regen, the deceleration would be pretty hard due to air drag. With regen it's even stronger and traffic behind me never sees the brake light. Just lightly pulling the brake lever to activate the brake switch is not an option because the bike will immediately go into full regen. I feel like this is something that Zero should address. I know that there is already a three page long thread about this topic so I'll just leave it to that.
3. An electric bike for about C$38,000 (SR/S Premium with Power tank incl. fees and taxes) is delivered with incandescent bulbs for the turn signals. Seriously? This is a disgrace, especially since they have LED turn signals in their parts catalog. This is just a money grab. It appears that aftermarket LED turn signals only work with a resistor built in which artificially increases the power consumption, so no, thank you. Does anyone have the Zero LED turn lights and knows how much they cost? My dealership is not competent enough to even respond to this question.
4. There is a number of bugs in the software. Most notably is that if I set the charge target to let's say 30%, the bike will send a message to my phone saying that charging has completed at 30%, however it won't stop charging until it reaches 36%. I've tried this with various settings and it always keeps charging for a couple more percent. I contacted Zero about this and they recommended to use the provided charger rather than my Tesla Gen2/Gen3 Wall Connector (I have one of each and use a Lectron adapter [Tesla -> J1772]). That's not something I'd want to do on a daily basis as... well, I'll get to that in 5. Suffice to say that the Tesla Wall Connector is not the problem. I tried the Aptiv unit and while everything wen t a lot slower, the effect itself was the same. Either way, there is no way a wall connector can force anything on the battery. The bike actively has to request power, otherwise the contactor will open. This is precisely what should happen at the target percentage. I have attached a picture that shows this very effect at a charge target of 55% and it keeps going with time left showing 0:00. This was with the Aptiv level 1 charger, thus the low power (1.4 kW). Do others have the same issue? I'm not entirely sure yet if this a software bug or a botched power tank installation.
5. As far as I know the Energica and the LifeWire have DCFC options. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it would be great to be able to fully recharge while having a coffee at a Timmies, but then again, I can't tell how much stress this would put on the battery. No active cooling, a relatively small battery to begin with... If I recharge from 20-80% in just 20 minutes, there is a good chance that this will affect battery life. Does anybody have first hand experience with other bikes? Am I just being overcautious or is that really an issue?
6. The service plan is ridiculous. It appears as though Zero is trying to do their dealers a favour by scheduling way more visits at the shop than necessary. Seriously, who changes their brake fluid every year? I barely even use my brake thanks to the regen. It would probably still be working fine if I used water instead of actual brake fluid (just exaggerating to make my point, of course I'm not going to do it).
That's it so far. Otherwise I'm really happy not to deal with a chain and grease anymore. Driving is a lot more fun than before, especially the part where you don't have to shift down if you need acceleration. The power is always available, no matter what. I had a dude with a Ninja next to me at a light the other day and he was looking at me like "what's wrong with your engine, I can't hear anything"). When the light turned green I opened throttle and he was still standing there when I was already past the intersection. He's probably still wondering what got him
.
What else... I brought my bike to a local detail shop to get a ceramic coating:
I tried to insert a link here but it just won't work. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Let's try something else:
https://www.facebook.com/thedetailshopcornwall/posts/2271098876356345I haven't checked here but people are usually pretty divided about that, so feel about it any way you like, I'm not going to hate you
Last but not least the light appears a lot better than pretty much anything I've seen before on a motorcycle. It seems to be a bit out of alignment though and I'm not riding much in the dark, so I'll have to check that at a later time. From what I've seen so far the lights are pretty strong though.
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Topic: New SR/S - some observations (Read 1468 times)