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[Le Z Turbo]

I'm riding in minus zero (Celsius, sorry !) temperature now. I never had a "long" range capability on my 11.4DS but I'm riding as hard as I can as it's always a war between cars and bikes here in France and I have several parts of my trip at 120km/h, no highway tough. So my range is 80-100kms but as I say it's normal for my ON/OFF type of riding. And this is the range I need to go working.
But with the low temperature I have noticed that power is lower, my accelerations are slower, it's noticeable, and range lower. For the range I can't be sure as sometimes I have to ride as smooth as I can because there's still some ice patches I must avoid when riding very early in the morning before the salt truck pass, and so I adopt an economical riding !
Have you noticed also the power decrease with very low temp ? I've noticed it also on my RC model aircrafts which run also on LiPo, must be a chemestery things ?
Laurent

[BSDThw]

It is a chemistry thing! The reaction at low temperature is slower. You have a 98Ah pack and you pull max 420A so it is  ~4C for your battery. I is some stress to the Li-ion NMC cells.

How do you deal with the salt? I don't drive not of the cold and snow but of the salt that would eat up my aluminum and copper parts
 

[Le Z Turbo]

Indeed the salt is marking parts. But the frame and fork of the Zero are anodized I think. The most horrific view is the mufler on my ICE scooter, it's in really bad surface shape !!!

[NoiseBoy]

if you have a hose outside your house just spray it down.  Cold water actually works better than warm on salt.

[grindz145]

First of all, It's pretty awesome that you ride through all of the weather. I do the same here in upstate New York, and most people give me hell for it, but of course motorcycles are awesome transportation most of the time, so long as it's not a snowstorm.

As far as the cells are concerned, you're nearing the minimum temperature that the cells are designed to be used at. I'm sure Zero and indeed most motorcycle manufactures don't design for our use case (below 0 C). In fact I believe the Zero will not charge the pack below 0C. One way you might be able to get around this is to install a resistive heating pad around the batteries. If you only plug it in while you're charging, You'll end up with decent performance on the way in to work. It might even be feasible to also power it from the main battery pack in order to warm up the pack to get more performance. The wasted heating energy may very well not cost you anything in terms of capacity, once the cells are warmed up a bit.

Keep us posted. Winter riding is never for the faint of heart.

[Le Z Turbo]

Indeed as I alway say to my wife, the worse the weather the worse the trafic jam and the better you will be ridding a bike !!!! But I'm equiped with the heated grips, hand grip cocovers, Gaucho and now a new bigger windscreen (I'm posting a new thread right now)
I'm charging indoor in my garage which is round about 10°C. So no problem to get my 100%. But then as I'm ridding in the cold I can feel the power loss and the range reduction.
Laurent

[trikester]

I did a 22 mile road ride (44 miles RT) on my '13FX last week that i have done before without any recharge at the destination (22 miles). This time, with the temp at 54* (not cold by some of you snow country standards, but cold by my SoCal standards) and I had to put in an hours charge before starting the ride back. Fortunately, the cafe had an outside 120 VAC outlet.

I think that the 54* certainly contributed to the lack of range problem but a bigger factor was probably attributed to my having the tire pressure low for previous sandy trail riding. The pressure may have gone even lower while rolling on the cold pavement (mostly cloudy day). I could easily notice that I couldn't coast down shallow slopes that I could coast before. When I finally got back to the house my thinking was that I should have taken the tires up to 25 or 30 lbs before starting out. They were both at 15 lbs when I checked before starting the ride.

Tire pressure can make a huge difference in mileage. Tires checked in a warm garage may drop quite a bit when riding in cold outside temps.

Trikester

[kingcharles]

How about sticking one of these on the bottom of your battery pack?

http://www.thatpetplace.com/zilla-heat-mat-large-50-60gal-24w-8in-18in?sc=19&category=3307

[LiveandLetDrive]

As I said in another thread, be careful you're getting something temperature controlled if you're going to do that.  Those things can likely get well over the ~100ºC required to set off a thermal event.  Also you will be decreasing the battery's ability to convect heat away in warmer months unless you remove them.

[mehve]

33F/0C in tonight's ride home of just 5.3mi/8.53km.  Plugged in in her usual spot in the garage (front) and neither the rhythmic clicks nor green light on the dash happened.  No sign she was taking a charge.  The bike would still turn on, however.  Worried, we rolled her into the house. After an hour, I plugged her back in, and she is now happily drinking from the tap. :)I t's always an unusual sight in the foyer. I hope nobody trips on her in the middle of the night!  

+ m

[Le Z Turbo]

I'm lucky 'cause I have a garage with positive temperatures. I always wait something between 15 to 30 minutes before pluging the Zero so the battery can cool down or heat up during winter. It's not exacltly for temperature that I wait but for the chemical reaction inside the battery to stop and chemical element to settle down so I won't go directly from discharge to charge.
Laurent

[protomech]

mehve - maybe you can do glow-in-the-dark wheels next : )

[Justin Andrews]

mehve - maybe you can do glow-in-the-dark wheels next : )

[Larry295]

Indeed as I alway say to my wife, the worse the weather the worse the trafic jam and the better you will be ridding a bike !!!! But I'm equiped with the heated grips, hand grip cocovers, Gaucho and now a new bigger windscreen (I'm posting a new thread right now)
I'm charging indoor in my garage which is round about 10°C. So no problem to get my 100%. But then as I'm ridding in the cold I can feel the power loss and the range reduction.
Laurent

Laurent, can you post photos of your bike with the hand protection, windshield ect?
You can never find photos in that configuration online, and I am thinking about buying those, but I want to see what the bike would look like that way.
thx

[Le Z Turbo]

It's awful but so practical !!! I will take pictures tomorrow.