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[Richard230]

Thirty minutes after posting that I was still waiting for my “power tank” to be repaired, I received a call from my Zero retail dealer telling me that a Zero technician had just arrived at the shop with a new battery module, after driving there from the factory and if I could visit the shop now he would replace the module and fix my bike.  So I jumped on the Zero and made a beeline for Mission Motorcycles.

The friendly technician (we spoke for a while after the bike was repaired) worked for about 2 hours, replacing the old battery module with the defective bms with a brand new module and then tried to get everything working again. Unfortunately, the bike still wouldn't communicate properly with the new battery.  After working on the bike for a couple of hours and spending almost as much time on his cell phone speaking with the factory engineers, somewhat by accident, he found a connector that had a bent pin in the wiring loom.  Once that was fixed, he downloaded the latest firmware, checked to make sure everything was working properly and I was sent on my way - a happy camper again.  After the bike fully charges and balances its batteries, I'll hook up the Zero app and find out how many amp-hours the power tank version has.  The 11.4 kWh version showed 92 amp-hours with a fully charged battery pack.

While I was at the shop I took the attached photo showing some of the Zeros on the showroom floor.  There were about 10 new and previous-year Zero models scattered around the crowded showroom in random locations available for sale.

I might add that all of the problems that I have had with my two Zero motorcycles were all related to mechanical problems, not software or design issues.  So I would have to say that Zero is doing an excellent job with the design and engineering of their motorcycles and are sometimes brought down by component malfunctions or manufacturing errors - just like any established IC manufacturer encounters.

[Mike Werner]

Wow, at least it got sorted out in the end, but the frustration must have been enormous. I think you're right about your statement that the design and engineering is good, but components and what I would call Quality Control is still missing.

From my side, for a DS order and payed in December, promised to be with me 15 January, it still isn't here. First they forgot that the registration of a US built bike takes a different route than a European built one, then they needed to wait an eternity for the tools to do the recall and yesterday I get an email from Zero saying that when they finally did the recall last week, they discovered a problem with the battery and now need to send it back to the factory, for who knows how long.

To me, it looks a lot like "running in" problems, processes are not in place yet.

[Richard230]

I think that Zero's limited resources are more focused on production of the 2014 bikes right now, rather than QC, after-sales service, or long-term test riding and development of a new model (such as what Brammo did with their Empulse bike).  On the other hand, I have been buying BMW motorcycles for the past 25 years and every one has had more problems, failures, recalls, broken major parts, field modification campaigns, design issues, etc. than Zero ever dreamed of.  However, what made the BMW experience bearable was their excellent dealer network, after-sales organization, technician training, parts availability and the ability of BMW to stand behind their dealers financially when things go wrong (such as 51,000 motorcycles being recalled for a badly designed fuel hose bracket).

Zero's real problem is a weak dealer and distribution network that is the result of their small company trying to advance the electric motorcycle industry by pulling up on its boot straps.  It is just going to take time to create and manage a world-wide manufacturing, distribution and sales network that many of us expect from our experiences with the long-time established auto and motorcycle firms.  Let's all hope that Zero is up to this task. 

[Richard230]

Here are the battery statistics on my fully-charged "power tank" optioned 2014 Zero.  When you see 115 amp-hours, instead of 92 amp-hours battery capacity, you know it is all hooked up correctly.  When you see this, you know you are ready to ride.   

[ultrarnr]

Richard230,

Thank you for posting the photos. My Power Tank was shipped on Thursday and hopefully I can get it installed sometime this coming week. Will take those numbers with me to know whether or not the Power tank is set-up/working properly.

[WindRider]

Nice.   Very cool to be rolling with 13KW of stored energy.   

Glad they sorted it out and got your bike running correctly and I am looking forward to seeing some big mile single charge reports from this bike.   

[kingcharles]

Here are the battery statistics on my fully-charged "power tank" optioned 2014 Zero.  When you see 115 amp-hours, instead of 92 amp-hours battery capacity, you know it is all hooked up correctly.  When you see this, you know you are ready to ride.   

If I am not mistaken this should work to make a screenshot with you phone:
To capture your phone’s screen image, press and hold both the Power key and down volume key for three seconds, or until you hear the camera shutter click.

[oobflyer]

Way cool - now you can ride to my place in Stockton - I'll even hook you up with some electricity   

[Richard230]

Here are a few things that I noticed about my bike recently: 

The ignition does not have to be on for my smartphone app to pair with the bike.  It only has to be plugged in and charging for that to happen.  But once the bike finishes bulk charging you do have to turn on the ignition for the phone to pair with the bike.

Ever since the power tank started working, charging stops at 98%.  Turing the ignition on and then off again will allow it to continue to charge up to 100%.

My bike was reprogrammed with the latest Zero firmware.  Ever since then it seems like max regen is showing one "bar" less on the instrument panel when braking than it did before the extra battery module was connected.  I don't know if this is due to the additional battery or to the reprogramming.  It is hard to tell by my seat of the pants if regen drag is less than before or if it is just a function of the instrument panel display.

[Richard230]

I just returned from my longest ride so far with the power tank working - and it worked very well, I might add.  I rode about 25 miles at freeway speeds, 25 miles at expressway speeds and about 23 miles on surface streets, with 35-40 mph speed limits.  When I returned home the Zero app was showing 38% battery power left, battery voltage was 101volts, balancing was at 10mv and there was 4.343 kWh remaining in the pack.  My plan is to charge the bike with the Kill a Watt connected and then compare the amount of power taken from the wall, vs the 8.88 kWh it will take to recharge the pack to its max capacity of 13.22 kWh.  That should give us an idea how efficient the charger is.  Only 5.5 hours left until fully charged.

[dc5dd]

Ever since the power tank started working, charging stops at 98%.  Turing the ignition on and then off again will allow it to continue to charge up to 100%.

My SR stops at 99% I never tried the ignition or unplugging the cord but if I ride it and charge again it charges to 100%.  Hopefully that is normal.

[Richard230]

So yesterday I rode my ZF14.2 Zero S around for 73 miles. I ran the battery pack down to 38% and the Zero app was showing that I had 4.34 kWh left in my pack (voltage was 101V and balancing was at 10mv) when I returned home. So I figured that I would check the efficiency of the bike's on-board charger by plugging it in to my Kill A Watt meter and charging away until it was fully charged. Which I did. After about 8 hours of charging, starting at 1250 watts and ending at 1450 watts, the bike finally was 100% charged. (Well, actually it stopped charging at 89% and then I unplugged it  and plugged it back in and it started charging again.  After 15 minutes at 1450 watts, it was suddenly up to 100% and power dropped to 4 watts.)

The Zero app said that the voltage was now 116V and the battery pack had a total usable capacity of 13.33 kWh (balancing was at 3mv). Then I checked the Kill A Watt and discovered that I had pulled 8.47 kWh from the wall. Let me see, 8.47 kWh to replace 9 kWh of battery energy.      My charger must be 106% efficient and is generating more power than I am paying for. This is sure a lot better than keeping my money in my bank account - which is not nearly as efficient.   

So what is going on? Is the Zero app exaggerating about the battery pack's kWh capacity? Could my Kill A Watt be funky? Or is something else going on? My money is on the Zero computer not calculating the pack's kWh correctly. Maybe the voltage change while charging and discharging is confusing its calculations?

Whatever is going on with the charging program, the bike is running really well - especially on the freeway where the power doesn't seem to drop like a rock the way it did on my 2012 S.  And when riding at 30 mph, I can really believe that claim of a 170 mile range - not that I ever plan to test it.  That would be over 5 hours of riding at slow speeds and I don't think I could take that.   

[protomech]

About 8 hours of charging at 1250-1450 watts should use 10.0-11.6 kWh. Is it possible your time estimate is off, or that it dropped down to low power before then?

[benswing]

Seconded.  Assuming linear increase in electricity (it probably isn't, but this should be a close approximation), you should have gotten about 10.8kWh from the wall. (using an average of 1350W for 8 hours).

[protomech]

Whatever is going on with the charging program, the bike is running really well - especially on the freeway where the power doesn't seem to drop like a rock the way it did on my 2012 S.  And when riding at 30 mph, I can really believe that claim of a 170 mile range - not that I ever plan to test it.  That would be over 5 hours of riding at slow speeds and I don't think I could take that.   

Definitely seems like overkill for city operation - but couriers that drive all day long could probably use that range.