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[Richard230]

I went out riding today and didn't experience any throttle hesitation like I reported above. Everything is working very well and I am so happy with the bike's performance now that I am worried that I am going to jinx it.      My next plan is to visit the Zero factory, which is about 70 miles from my home and see how they are made.     I think it is about time that someone visited the factory and took some photos of Zero central.  I am just waiting for a response to my request.

Here are a couple of photos of the inside of the old factory that I acquired off of the internet (I can't recall when or where) a year or two ago. 

[ColoPaul]

This deserves a different topic, but looking at Richard's old pix of the Zero Factory years ago shows dozens of Zero's.   Over on the Brammo forum, they are excited to see "Brammo Empulse Assembly Line" pictures, showing FIVE empulses in one picture, the most ever yet seen in one place at one time.

http://brammoforum.com/index.php?topic=1581.0

Not to poke too much fun at the Brammo guys, but the three Empulses not on carts in the above look just like the three in this picture:   (skip down to the 4th post)

http://brammoforum.com/index.php?topic=1514.0

I wonder if Brammo will really be able to knock out 500 Empulses in the next 3-6 months?  At the moment, it appears to be a fair amount of smoke & mirrors.

[protomech]

Doubtful. Zero has sold 300-400 Zeros (not sure if just S and DS, X / XU / MX may be serialized separately) in about 8 months, with a small but significant dealer network and prices ranging from $8-14k.

I think the 2013 Empulse R is a better bike for the money than the 2012 Zero S line, but I don't see them flying off the shelves. Zero struck first and captured a portion of the market that wanted a 100+ mile electric.

[Brammofan]

Recall Notice - see http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=2369.0

[manlytom]

Guess Zero is and needs to settle into standard professional biz practises as we are clearly beyond start up and need efficient support, dealer training etc. voluntary recalls are a great way to control this and not uncommon 

With that it is the next differentiator to ensure quality growth.

[ZeroSinMA]

Doubtful. Zero has sold 300-400 Zeros (not sure if just S and DS, X / XU / MX may be serialized separately) in about 8 months, with a small but significant dealer network and prices ranging from $8-14k.

I think the 2013 Empulse R is a better bike for the money than the 2012 Zero S line, but I don't see them flying off the shelves. Zero struck first and captured a portion of the market that wanted a 100+ mile electric.

You can't compare a theoretical product to a real shipping product.

The Empulse R that has shipped zero, nada, 0, nunca, none, zilch units.

It can't be better for the money than a Zero S that has shipped 300+ units because 300+ is > 0.

[ZeroSinMA]

Recall Notice - see http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=2369.0

If 5% of 2012 Zero's were impacted by the "glitch" I'd be shocked.

Zero like any responsible U.S. company has issued a recall as a precaution for all customers.

This ain't China.

Let's see how Brammo handles glitches should Brammo ever actually ship a product.

My dealer has already reached out to me to arrange to reprogram my perfectly operating 2012 Zero S to ensure that I don't have any issues.

I drive a BMW and I don't get that kind of service.

[protomech]

If 5% of 2012 Zero's were impacted by the "glitch" I'd be shocked.

A hand-waving guess would put the number of people reporting issues here at about half the number of people that have posted on the owner thread. Zero says they have endurance testing bikes with many thousands of miles that have not seen the problem, but I wonder if those are perhaps not a dozen bikes with a couple thousand miles each.

Hopefully the firmware fix gets to most customers before they see the problem.

[dahlheim]

my father-in-law gets that kind of service from vw, but of course he lives in germany.

here, i have to take an extra step to call the service dept for my vw's, but i do get a notice in the mail.  same with my bmw

then again, this ain't germany.

i had to point out the recall to my sales guy before finalizing the deal on my new zero, but they already got it done.  i'm happy

delivery should be this week.  can't wait.

[ZeroSinMA]

If 5% of 2012 Zero's were impacted by the "glitch" I'd be shocked.

A hand-waving guess would put the number of people reporting issues here at about half the number of people that have posted on the owner thread. Zero says they have endurance testing bikes with many thousands of miles that have not seen the problem, but I wonder if those are perhaps not a dozen bikes with a couple thousand miles each.

Hopefully the firmware fix gets to most customers before they see the problem.

But as I pointed out in the poll, customers without problems don't seek out a forum or post on one to let everyone know they are not having a problem. The poll is biased toward the minority with problems. How small is that minority? Who knows. Maybe Zero will tell us once the fix is done.

[protomech]

Not talking about the poll, talking about the number of users I've seen post in the glitch thread vs the number of users that have posted in the owner registry forum. Not scientific, and it's a hand-wave estimate for the glitch posters anyhow. But I would wager it's far more than 5% - if 315 bikes S / DS bikes have been produced, 5% is 15 bikes.. we probably have nearly that number of owners posting here about experiencing the glitch.

[Electric Terry]

Bad news guys.  I fixed the glitch after doing 20-30 recalibrations over a weeks time until I could get one to hold about a month ago.  Since I have gone almost 2000 miles without an issue.  I'm over 9800 miles, closing in on 10,000 and it returned today.  Started cutting out again on the freeway.  Would run real rough and then if continued to push hard would cut out.  Later in the day, it started stalling at stoplights again too.  This hasn't happened either in about 2000 miles.  And I got comfortable enough, I quit carrying the dagnostic cable with me every day to be able to recalibrate on the fly.  But one key cycle, and it would recatch.

Looks like the firmware upgrade is definitely necessary on all the bikes designed with this encoder as after 2-3k miles, the signal must change too much for the controller to decipher the correct positioning.
 

[manlytom]

man, sounds like the old crankcase position sensor on my sporty being out of wack ....

now, my 2011 with "simpler" tech runs fine so far - aside that we had a glitch that has to be addressed and Zero being great sending parts to replace.

[protomech]

offthegrid: Good news is that your dealer should have the new firmware to reflash. Good confirmation though that the OG firmware is fatally flawed, even if a recalibration can temporarily fix it.

manly: the glitch seems to be related to the dual-rotor motor in the S and DS. My understanding is that the calsincos encoding determines the relative position of the two rotors for purposes of energizing the electromagnets in the motor. I wouldn't expect the single-rotor systems (XU) or the brushed Agni systems to have this problem.

[swiftsam]

I guess all the mystery is resolved now that the recall has been issued, but I thought I'd post just to add to the body of evidence.  I have 930 miles on my 2012 S ZF6 and was going about 50mph on a cool morning at medium throttle when the motor seemed to run rough for a couple of seconds, then smooth, then rough, and then off.  I pulled over, turned it on and off about 5 times (and flipped the ECO and motor kill buttons unscientifically a few times) before the bike came back to life.  I got back on the road and made it to work just fine.

My dealer in Charlotte said they actually don't have the software to run the firmware upgrade yet, but that they expect to get it soon.  They're also 150 miles away, so I don't know what we're going to do about that.  Anyone else solve the long-distance upgrade problem?