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[CScalpeL]

So I've had my bike for about two months and thought its a good time to update about my experiences thus far...

Some background, I live in Israel and pre-ordered my bike in October. I believe we were some of the first to receive their bikes outside the US. Our country is pretty small, so none of us are that far away from the importer/dealer, who is a real believer in this tech and is a value added supplier in that he really understands the bike and is fully committed.  These conditions are what allowed me to feel relatively comfortable buying into this new tech and knowingly ride on the bleeding edge.

So after receiving the bike and taking it for a spin near the dealership, I quickly returned to let them know that I have a pulsating front brake, the dealer put me in touch with his mechanic who initially thought that it maybe a bent front rotor even though there was evidence that the steering head was loose (a ripped o-ring and forward to backward movement). The dealer ordered the part and after a few days, went back to the shop to replace the rotor and it turned out not to be the rotor but that the steering head was not adequately tightened at the factory.

After about 2000 kms started experiencing problems with the charger which I described in the following to my dealer:

I have encountered a charging issue that occurred when charging my bike at work. I began charging with ~30% charge at 10 AM using the same socket I have used for the last 3 weeks. Upon finishing work at 6 PM, I went down to ride home to discover the bike with only a 52% charge and the LCD display showing 4 hours to full charge then 0 hours to full charge and back again. The green indicator light was not flashing. I disconnected from the outlet, turned on the bike, turned off the bike and plugged it in again. The bike commenced to charge showing the correct time to full charge and flashing green indicator only to continue the previously described problem only about 10 seconds later. I then drove home and with 17% battery I connected to my home electrical socket only to find the same problem.

It turned out to be a faulty charger which was diagnosed by disconnecting the Anderson connector coming from the charger and taking a look at the output voltage which was fluctuating between 116 and 30 volts. To allow me to keep riding, the dealer gave me a quick charger until he replaced the charger a few days later. I was very impressed by the way he handled the problem and took the initiative to allow me to keep riding and get it fixed quickly.

In addition, I was testing the acceleration of the bike on a flat isolated road by my house and couldn't get the 0-100 km/h times below 4.3 seconds (using a camera filming the speedometer). I'm about 80 kgs and all I had on was a helmet, Zero leather jacket (which I love BTW) and DS windscreen. Anybody try testing their times? What have been your results?

Overall, I love the bike. Range is not an issue, I have almost no maintenance costs (I charge at work) and love riding it. I feel like I got the whole "can't have your cake and eat it too" proverb beat with this thing!

[Richard230]

You might find this review interesting:  http://www.motorcycleconsumernews-digitalmagazine.com/mcnews/september_2014d?pg=20#pg20

[CrashCash]

Huge kudos to your dealer for being on top of things. We need more like that.

[protomech]

Glad you have a solid dealer.

Do you have a Power Tank SR? 4.3s 0-100 km/h sounds about right for your weight on a PT SR (the MCN review tested the 2014 PT SR at 4.58s 0-60 mph with a 110 kg rider), but slow for a non-PT SR.

[CScalpeL]

no PT, I only tried in custom with the torque settings all the way up, though there should be no difference I'll try it in sport mode next time.

Thanks for the article Richard - that guy has about 30 kgs on me with a 20 kg PT (like riding with a light pillion) and he got to 100 km/h only 0.3 sec slower than myself (interesting that according to the SR spec the 20 kg PT results in a 0.6 sec lag) ...

After I do the run in sport mode hopefully I'll check in with better results

[Burton]

I thought the official 0-60 results featured a 100lbs rider fully crouched?

If so you have 70lbs over the test rider. Also is there any delay in your speedo or can you play back the exact moment you hit 60mph? It might be the test were done with external hardware making the measurements.

[KenMac]

Has anyone ever tested the speedo to determine how correct it actually is?  I know I've had many motorcycles that were off by about 10% when tested against my garmin GPS. 

My BMW was spot on but my Hondas & Suzukis have never been right without adding a speedohealer.

Just got my Zero so haven't yet tested it against my garmin considering we've had so much snow & ice here lately.

[Richard230]

I always assumed that the SR acceleration figures by the factory were taken with a light rider riding an 8.5 kWh SR.  Adding weight with larger batteries and rider is sure to slow down the 0-60 results.  (Personally, I always take advertising performance numbers with a large grain of salt.   

I have checked the speedo on my 2014 S and it is dead-on when checked by the many speed check sign radars that we have around here.  However, the speedometers on both of my BMW motorcycles are 8% optimistic.  I figure that BMW does that instead of making their bikes faster and more powerful.  They just raise the top speed that you see on the speedometer and call it a day.  Much cheaper than actually making the engine more powerful. 

The speedometer of my very fast Yamaha FZ1 is also exactly correct, while the one on my slow Triumph also reads about 10% fast.

You just can't trust speedometers now-a-days.   

[Doug S]

I thought the official 0-60 results featured a 100lbs rider fully crouched?

Also is there any delay in your speedo or can you play back the exact moment you hit 60mph? It might be the test were done with external hardware making the measurements.

I found a drag-racing calculator online, and according to that, a 407-lb vehicle with a 150-lb pilot should be able to hit a 3.3 second 0-60 time on a vehicle that has 106 ft-lbs of torque, so I think it was a smallish rider, but not THAT small. And I doubt crouching would make all that much difference on a 0-60 run; certainly it would be useful at higher speeds.

My guess is that there's some lag in the speedo. It seems pretty responsive, but when you're dissecting seconds, maybe it's not responsive enough. There are some pretty cool smartphone apps that use the g-meter in your phone and/or GPS to record vehicle performance, I think I'd look into one of those.

[kensiko]

Has anyone ever tested the speedo to determine how correct it actually is?  I know I've had many motorcycles that were off by about 10% when tested against my garmin GPS. 

My BMW was spot on but my Hondas & Suzukis have never been right without adding a speedohealer.

Just got my Zero so haven't yet tested it against my garmin considering we've had so much snow & ice here lately.

Yep, 10% here.

[CScalpeL]

Burton - I was referring to the dude in the article that Richard sent, he was 240 lbs with a PT. I didnt notice any lag in the speedo and I was able to capture the moment of initial acceleration and the 100 km mark. I'll try a gps based speedo on my phone just not sure if sample rate and accuracy are sufficient.

Doug, can you use the calculator to solve for the 0-60 time provided a given weight and torque?

[Doug S]

Doug, can you use the calculator to solve for the 0-60 time provided a given weight and torque?

Yep, that's exactly what I used it for. I've lost track of the calculator I used but there are lots out there, Google is your friend. I actually tried several and they agreed pretty closely, so I figured they probably weren't too far off.

It wouldn't be that hard to do it from first principles. Calculating the thrust generated by a motor with X torque and Y gearing, with a drive wheel of Z radius is pretty straightforward, and someone already did the work and posted the numbers in another thread -- IIRC, it worked out to about 445 pounds of thrust for an SR. Dividing that number by the weight of the rider plus the bike would give you the fraction of a G force the acceleration would result (which shouldn't change TOO much up to 60 mph), then the standard equations would give you distance and speed as a function of time. Again IIRC, S = A * T where S is speed, A is acceleration (the fraction of a G force we calculated), and T is time; D = 1/2 * A * T^2. I'd do the work myself if I wasn't surfing at work while my boss is in a meeting. 

[protomech]

I thought the official 0-60 results featured a 100lbs rider fully crouched?

Also is there any delay in your speedo or can you play back the exact moment you hit 60mph? It might be the test were done with external hardware making the measurements.

I found a drag-racing calculator online, and according to that, a 407-lb vehicle with a 150-lb pilot should be able to hit a 3.3 second 0-60 time on a vehicle that has 106 ft-lbs of torque, so I think it was a smallish rider, but not THAT small. And I doubt crouching would make all that much difference on a 0-60 run; certainly it would be useful at higher speeds.

If the calculator doesn't consider gearing then its output is not going to be very useful. Let's see if I can remember basic physics..

The Zero SR should be able to produce a fairly constant 144 Nm from 0 until just under 100 km/h (reached at approximately 3700 RPM), per MCN's review.

Approximately 2 kilo-newtons of thrust (or force). (torque * gearing / wheel radius)

Accelerating 258 kg with 2kN to 100 km/h takes 3.5 seconds. (target speed * mass / thrust)

Accelerating 313kg - as with the MCN test rider and power tank - should take a bit longer @ 4.3s. (MCN tested 4.58s)

These calculations ignore tire slip, drivetrain losses, motor ramp up time as throttle is twisted, actual motor output variations including field weakening which begins slightly before 100 km/h, aero drag, and sensor latency and error. So MCN's test result deviation from expected of 0.3s is probably reasonable .. 0.8s seems like something else is wrong. Perhaps the speedometer is slow to update, perhaps the actual weight of your vehicle is different than Zero's specs, maybe there's extra rolling resistance or aero drag, maybe the motor in Custom tune isn't properly outputting its maximum torque.

[oobflyer]

I quickly returned to let them know that I have a pulsating front brake

it turned out not to be the rotor but that the steering head was not adequately tightened at the factory.

Interesting - I have the same thing with my SR. I have just under 500 miles on the bike, which I've had for about a month now. I emailed my dealership about the vibration that occurs when using the front brake (before this thread was posted) - I'm waiting to hear back from them. When they do get back to me I'll share this info with them.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Other than the brake-vibration I've had no problems at all and love the thing. I weigh 160 lbs and it sure feels like I'm getting 0-60 MPH in 3 seconds. I haven't tried to measure it 

[Richard230]

Vibrating brakes are unusual.  I have heard of pulsating brakes and noisy brakes, but I can't ever recall anyone complaining about vibrating brakes.  Perhaps there is some sort of incapability between the brake rotor and the pads selected for this use.  The cut of the rotor looks pretty aggressive to me.  It will be interesting to find out how Zero deals with this issue.