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[oobflyer]

Curious - since the top "sustained" speed is limited to 75 MPH - how did you do the range tests at higher speeds?

Again - my range (ZF9) is very similar to your range at 50-65 MPH... I'm dropping my bike off at Zero tomorrow - not sure how long they'll have it, but as soon as I know anything I'll post it here.

[BSDThw]

Hope your dealer has the RS232(TTL) cable for the BMS - He only needs to read the info .

He can see e.q.

*************************************************************
*                    Pack Configuration                     *
*************************************************************

  - Pack Type                 :       S/DS
  - Number of Series Cells    :         18
  - Number of Parallel Cells  :          6
  - Number of Bricks          :          3
  - Theoretical Pack Capacity :  120000000 uAh
  - Estimated Pack Capacity   :  120000000 uAh

and a lot more

Therefore he sould be able to make a quick check if it is a ZF9 or ZF6 setting - my BMS is new and I could never see the data of an used board but I guess/hope the "Estimated Pack Capacity" will change during the battery use and will let us know what the BMS found out about your battery (will see it when winter is over) maybe someone has more experience with the BMS data? and let us know how his values are!

[oobflyer]

I dropped my bike off at the Zero Factory in Scotts Valley today. It was fun to meet some of the guys that are building these cool rides.
The plan is to leave the bike there for awhile (a week or two) so they can run all the necessary tests and make any necessary repairs.
I'll post whatever I learn here as soon as I can.

[Electric Cowboy]

Curious - since the top "sustained" speed is limited to 75 MPH - how did you do the range tests at higher speeds?

Again - my range (ZF9) is very similar to your range at 50-65 MPH... I'm dropping my bike off at Zero tomorrow - not sure how long they'll have it, but as soon as I know anything I'll post it here.

This is how :
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10201140674899936.1073741832.1261517185&type=1&l=62a1487ccc

They are fun guys there.

[evdjerome]

I just did my first range test on my 2012 DS ZF9.  I went 74 miles at 34 mph average.  Temperature was about 62 F.  I had 1 flashing bar remaining.  Started fully charged.

Elevation profile below.  Profile is missing about 1.5 miles because I forgot my GPS and had to go back and get it.



Jerome

[Electric Cowboy]

I just did my first range test on my 2012 DS ZF9.  I went 74 miles at 34 mph average.  Temperature was about 62 F.  I had 1 flashing bar remaining.  Started fully charged.

Elevation profile below.  Profile is missing about 1.5 miles because I forgot my GPS and had to go back and get it.



Jerome

So if you had one bar left that means you had a bunch more range. I always consider their to be one bar more when you have no bars left. I have run out of battery on 2010, 11, 12 and 13s and this feeling seems to hold true.

Not bad with the elevation profile.

[Justin Andrews]

1 flashing bar, you've got about 20-15% of your battery left. The rule of thumb is that after the last bar drops you still have the equivalent of another bar remaining. Basically there are 12 bars in the battery but only 11 are displayed. Zero have heavily hinted that this was designed this way to give the bike the electric equivalent of a reserve tank.

[oobflyer]

Zero have heavily hinted that this was designed this way to give the bike the electric equivalent of a reserve tank.

I wonder if their advertised range is based on this "reserve". It would be hard to rely on that since there is no way to tell how much of the reserve capacity has been used....

[Justin Andrews]

Dunno, oobflyer.

I mainly do 40 mile round trips on my ZF9 which at 50-45mph use about 5-7 bars depending on hard I hammer the throttle.

The longest run I did without charging was an 80 mile (40 miles each way with a 3 day break between no charging) I did this run at a fairly consistent 45mph an this pretty much used all 11 bars. At the end I when I was close to home, and still had 2 bars left I opened up to 60mph and drained the battery a bit faster. So had I been a bit more conservative at end I might have ended the run on 1 bar.

So I expect that from personal experience the Zero advertised range is not entirely based on the reserve.

Bear in mind that the trip above was done at the height of summer, I strongly doubt I could do that trip in the current cold.

[protomech]

The range tests are performed by running the bike until it can no longer reach the requested speed at the appropriate time.

So for the 70 mph test, it'll run until it can no longer maintain 70 mph, even if it could limp along for a while at a lower speed.

For the city test, it'll run until it can't accelerate to the requested speed in the requested length of time. The UDDS acceleration requirements are pretty low though; typically something like 5 mph delta over 5 seconds iirc. There's one acceleration up to 55 mph, and it takes something like 20 or 30s (again iirc).

[Electric Cowboy]

The "reserve" is quite reliable. After you run out once, you will know how long it lasts. Just takes balls to ride on reserve.

TIP
Your reserve reading is most accuar=te after you have charged the bike. Meaning if you go somewhere, stop for 2 hours and don't charge the bike, your energy reading will rise a bar or so, and your reserve will have less in it as a result.

I have on 2-3 occasions done this and has WAY less reserve than I thought. I will make up for this by riding slower when needed. Which is painful for me.

-EC

[Justin Andrews]

The "reserve" is quite reliable. After you run out once, you will know how long it lasts. Just takes balls to ride on reserve.

TIP
Your reserve reading is most accuar=te after you have charged the bike. Meaning if you go somewhere, stop for 2 hours and don't charge the bike, your energy reading will rise a bar or so, and your reserve will have less in it as a result.

I have on 2-3 occasions done this and has WAY less reserve than I thought. I will make up for this by riding slower when needed. Which is painful for me.

-EC

That's really useful info to know.
I've seen the power gauge rise by a bar a few times (including the big 80 mile round trip I talked about above) and its useful to know how that relates to the "reserve"
Is this a feature of the chemistry of the batteries? If so I suppose that Zero engineered in the "reserve" to allow for that sort of behavior.

[Electric Cowboy]

That's really useful info to know.
I've seen the power gauge rise by a bar a few times (including the big 80 mile round trip I talked about above) and its useful to know how that relates to the "reserve"
Is this a feature of the chemistry of the batteries? If so I suppose that Zero engineered in the "reserve" to allow for that sort of behavior.

I am not 100% sure myself, but I attribute it to the BMS balancing the cells out as the bike sits without any load.

[BSDThw]

The point is how to calculate a SOC.

If you have the possibility to discharge and recharge a battery completely -like old NiCad has to be charged- you can just add up current and it will work pretty well.

If you have a system like ours you will not completely discharge but recharge where ever your SOC is - you will get a big offset error very soon. Therefore a SOC algorithms has a lot of  "fixing" parameters e.q. if your battery stays without current for a while it will adjusted the SOC to a Voltage to SOC table/math in the algorithm.

So if you stop for a certain time the SOC will be recalculated! It is only a feeble attempt to try how it really works.

[Justin Andrews]

I remember from my little standalone solar installation that a Lead-Acid batteries SOC is also a bit of a pain to calculate for similar reasons...