Hogwit, the nominal capacity is the capacity that's actually available.
It's possible that Zero has been waiting until they can deliver an integrated 6 kW charger to move to a more powerful J1772 onboard charger. The Brammo Empulse 3 kW charger is indeed about 2x faster than the Zero 1.3 kW charger, given Zero's slightly higher specified efficiency .. this is a useful increase in charge rate, delivering similar miles charged per hour to the recent round of cars with 6 kW onboard chargers. However, the charge rate is still relatively slow - it is
possible to tour with some patience, but the optimal travel speed is around 35 mph. Increasing the charge rate to 6 kW increases the optimal travel speed to around 55 mph, which is about right for non-interstate motorcycle touring. Obviously some patience is still required, but ~125 miles of range at 55 mph (supposing Zero offers a 15 kWh pack next year) with 60 miles/hour charge rate should allow for significant expansion of the bike's stock travel capabilities, to the point where 200 (4-5h riding, 2h charging) to 300 (6-7h riding, 3.5h charging) miles per day is not unreasonable.
Consider benswing's experience:
How did this trip compare to the one last summer? [4000 mile trip with 5 kW onboard charging this year vs 4000 mile trip with 2.5 kW onboard charging in 2013]
Even though I have had to make all my plans for where to stay, charging, visiting friends, visiting electric motorcycle riders, etc. this trip has been far less stressful. The Ride the Future Tour was tough, in part because only 2 of us had Verizon as our cell phone carrier. I'm not paid by them, but those maps of coverage of the US are real! Almost nobody could communicate with their cell phone, which led to lots of confusion each day.
Also, I'm able to travel much farther each day. Basically I have covered the same distance in 12 or 13 days that we covered in 44 days. I knew my Zero had the capability to do this, but it is nice to prove it.
Note benswing's longest day was 370 miles, and this with "only" 8 kWh onboard and 5 kW charging.
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Zero has historically selected sealed, passively cooled chargers. These are not very power dense; 2013-2014 supplies 1.3 kW for 7.5 kg, 2008-2012 supplies 1 kW for 5 kg. Scaling these passive chargers up to 6 kW would be unreasonably large and heavy.
One option is to move to a large air-cooled discrete onboard charger, as Brammo has done. You can see the
mounted underneath the tail, along with a large heatsink and I believe fans on the interior of the bike that force air through the heatsink. The 3 kW Powercharger IP67 weighs 4.8 kg, and the heatsink / fan / shroud assembly likely weigh another 2-3 kg, for a total system weight close to the 2013-2014 Zero 1.3 kW passive charger.
A 6 kW onboard charger would likely weigh in the ballpark of 12-15 kg - for a total gain of 4.5 to 7.5 kg over 2013-2014 - and would probably need to be mounted where the Power Tank resides today.
Another option is to use an integrated inverter/rectifier configuration, as with Tesla Roadster 1.x and Mission Motorcycles now. This reductive type charging appears to decrease efficiency perhaps by 10%, which may be part of the reasoning that drove Tesla to move to discrete onboard chargers for Roadster 2.0. Patent licensing cost may be the other reason, though I believe
AC Propulsion's patent expired early last year.
Poor energy efficiency also means that the components used for charging will put out a large amount of heat. Zero uses passive cooling for both the motor and motor controller, but may need to significantly increase their cooling capabilities for continuous operation in still air.
It's also likely that reductive-type charging will force a controller change away from the Sevcon controllers. I would be a little surprised to see Zero switch controllers before they move to higher voltage, but I've been wrong before in exactly this fashion before .. with respect to the switch to the 2012 AC motor and 18 series battery design lasting only a single year.
