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Total Members Voted: 86

[Electric Cowboy]

@burton

yeah, we kept the modular connector for a few reasons, one, someone might want to switch to a CCS connector in the future both J-Plug and DC is a sweet option if it's available in your area like mine, or in the EU. Or someone might want ChaDeMo as their primary connector. Or maybe... a tesla connector, who knows what the future holds right? Also, once you have had your Super Charger for a few years, you might want to swap out the head, and this just makes it a lot easier. Thankfully software has taught me one thing, don't assume to know what your user wants, just incase things change build modularly.

@mrwilsn

I'll have to double check that we kept support for those low voltages in production before I can say yes or no. We already have one customer with higher voltage BUT the normal control board we are shipping with the chargers is setting the voltage to Zero spec, so we would have to send you an unlocked control board with your unit and an app which supports that. If you want one of those please contact Mike to let him know that is what we need for you.

@Patrick

Thanks man!

[RedWizardChris]

Number 6 checking in, also happy to wait for updates. I don't do long distance winter riding anyway.  Cheers!

[ultrarnr]

Terry,

Have you tried using this charger at a GE Wattstation which requires communication with the BMS before it will charge? I think the PEP stations are the same way.  Thanks.

[benswing]

Yes, please doublecheck it with GE what stations and PEP stations.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Electric Cowboy]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to let you guys know that we have been getting a lot of awesome data and really thorough testing. Things are coming along well, and I'll give some more details next week on timetable.

For the time being we won't be taking any more orders directly since we have succeeded in our initial goals and needs for bringing the charger to factory production. As of today our initial support price deals have officially ended, and once we or dealers start selling again we will be moving to retail production pricing.

Thank you to everyone who got in early on this and helped us make this happen as crazy fast as it has! Stay tuned

[MostlyBonkers]

Thanks for the update EC. Any ideas about retail price yet or will that be further down the line when you have more information on production costs etc?

[Electric Terry]

Sorry Ben and Ultra, I just saw your last comments.  I know where there are some GE Watt stations to test not too far away, but I do not know where any PEP stations are within 500 miles or so.  I have never gotten a PEP station to work.  Their silly yellow air hose looking lines never liked my Vetter bike.

It may be hard to find them, their website is no longer valid (pepstations.com)

And their twitter (https://twitter.com/PEPStations) hasn't been updated in 2 years.  I think they are done and all the stations out there will probably be replaced with ChargePoint stations soon would be my guess.

I'm still doing testing and communicating my results.  There is a lot more to this than I originally thought.  All part of building a great product though.  Although things might be delayed a little, all those who ordered in 2015 got the benefit of being able to take the 30% tax credit on the charger this year!!!  And also as Brandon referred to you were able to get the pre-dealer direct pricing.   All worth the unforeseen delays that have been encountered no doubt!

[ultrarnr]

Terry,

Honestly the PEP stations aren't a big deal for me. I have only came across one of them in NC. It was at an office complex and the only reason I went there was just to see if I could charge at it with my Elcons.

The GE Wattstations on the other hand are a bigger deal. They are becoming more common in NC and in several cases there are no other charging options close to them. If you plug into them with your Elcons you will get an error message. Basically the GE Wattstation recognizes that it is plugged into something but doesn't recognize what it is. When I tried to charge at a Wattstation in Apex, NC, the guys who installed it were nearby and came over. They got the manual for the machine out and looked up the message and that is what it meant. As you know (but others here may not) when using Elcons you can not always charge with both of them and the internal charger at the same time without tripping the breaker on the station. So sometimes you have to manually adjust by unplugging the internal charger or one of the Elcons. I have charged at Blink systems before where 3800 watts was the best I could do. I think the GE Wattstations require communication with the BMS to determine charging power level prior to turning on power. With most J1772 systems the circuitry in the J1772 plug that we use fools the charging system into turning on the power. That circuitry doesn't work on the GE Wattstations.

Thanks,
Vinny

[benswing]

Terry, thanks for the update.  I won't need it until this summer, so please be thorough with your testing.  Cheers mate!

A couple of months ago I came across a new GE Wattstation and it worked with my Elcons.  Perhaps they updated the newer models.


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[MostlyBonkers]

How badly would this void my warranty and/or set the whole bike on fire? 

Cheers
--G

Unfortunately I have some bad news on the first point raised above.

I learnt yesterday that an email sent from Zero to Streetbike indicates that the use of third party chargers will invalidate the warranty. I was told this because I was talking about how to get the DSP I've ordered home. It had crossed my mind that I could drop by Justin's house and get a top-up from his Elcon. It was kind to get a warning that I might blow the warranty for the battery on day one. Apparently they can see from the logs if a non-Zero charger has been plugged in.

Perhaps the super charger and the Elcons are on a list of approved third party chargers? If not yet, then hopefully Zero will be happy to certify the super charger when it's ready? I know some of you have a close relationship with Zero, so hopefully none of this will be a problem.

Please don't shoot the messenger! I hope this can be dealt with easily by someone working on the project. My apologies if this has already been addressed here and I've missed it.

[BenS]

Hmm, that'd be a shame!

[Burton]

I would suspect Zero would be more likely to "support" chargers which talk to BMS. This charger does that, as does the Elcon's you would get from Hollywood Electrics, and of course the ever slow DeltaQ's. (I would love to know which charger they are using for their 2.5kW "tank charger" as I suspect it isn't a Delta Q and it isn't simply a stack of meanwells)

That said I wonder if Zero would be open to testing and certifying third party chargers or if they have some contract which prevents them from doing so (which would be even sadder). I say this because more batteries are not the solution for those who want large miles in a day, but faster charging is. That is till capacity will let you ride all day for the same weight / volume.

[Lipo423]

I have followed this thread with great interest, and I take the opportunity to congratulate all of the people involved in this project. Good job.

Zero, is a small company with limited resources, and we understand that. My experience is that although -as a company- they must protect their business interests, IP, etc…they seem to be good/reasonable people, with good will (if this deal were in the table with Honda, BMW, Kawasaki, etc…it will be a lost battle, as they would stick to the well known "warranty standards")
It is clearly agreed that fast charging is a far better advantage than just adding bigger and bigger batteries (in the end we would be riding a truck not a bike) 

What options do I see?

- Zero sticks to the warranty business (hopefully not), and this becomes a non supported option
- Zero certifies/homologates the charger, and respects users warranty terms
- Zero "License" the charger, and keeps the warranty
- Zero comes up with a private labeling agreement with the designers/inventors and offers it as "high power charger" (taking advantage of their supply chain and economies of scale it should be a great deal)

I would like to believe that those members close to Zero are already in discussions with them

Why not use external resources to get options developed and use internal ones to be focused in "core" products/designs?
(I have done that myself and it works pretty well)

[Electric Terry]

The Zero can protect itself from any abuse you can bring to it from charging.  So I don't think Zero is too worried about it.  Officially anything you do to the bike except ride it will void the warranty.  And if Zero wanted to push this issue, they have the right, but as was said by Lipo, the company has goodwill and wants to see the adoption rate increase, and to have customers who are happy and talk about it to their friends.

I said the Zero can protect itself from anything you can do to it from charging.  It can.  If you were to ever use a cheap Chinese charger on the bike that were to fail in any way, it will not harm the batteries.

Say the charger gets stuck in CC mode and never enters CV?  The BMS will open the contactor as soon as a single cell goes over 4.15v to basically disconnect the charger from the bike.

Say the charger has an internal short and starts sucking power from the bike?  If a current spike going in or out exceeds 100 amps on the 2015, the bikes onboard charge fuse will protect the bike.

Say the charger has different power settings and you accidentally turn it up to 20 kW?  If the charge rate exceeds 1C, the BMS will open the contactor and disconnect the charger.

Say the charger tries charging the batteries when they are too hot?  As soon as the cells hit 50C the contactor will open and protect the batteries.

I'm sure I can think of many other things but you get the point.  Plus with well designed chargers like the Elcons with the Hollywood Electrics kit that listen to the enable signal from the bike, there are multiple levels of redundancy to protect the bike and the batteries.  I think at least 50 Zero owners now use the Elcons from Hollywood Electrics, and I have yet to hear about Zero refusing a warranty issue because of anything else going wrong on the bike.

So while you are correct Bonkers, if you email Zero directly and ask them if using a 3rd party charger will void the warranty, the official company line for legal reasons has to be yes.  Think about it.  I mean really think about it... 

So yes, using an aftermarket charger is a risk of having a warranty claim rejected, with a benefit of being able to travel and get more enjoyment out of your bike and life in general.

If you take pride in worrying yourself to death, I would recommend buying the Zero Charge Tank later this spring.  It too should be a great product and is a little less expensive, just has less power.  Although if you worry about these things, I might also recommend not ever leaving your house.  It's a dangerous world out there, and something could happen, right?  Better not take a chance.

[MostlyBonkers]

That's good news Terry.  Zero shouldn't have a problem certifying the Diginow charger when it's ready then.  ;-)

Unfortunately most people don't have the level of knowledge and experience that you do with the technology, charging and indeed personal relationships with people working for Zero and Diginow.  Most people make an assessment about a high value product, which the fast charger certainly is, and then look to see what warranty and customer service covers them if something goes wrong.  It's bad enough having to go through processes around warranty claims when there is a problem but at least you know the issue will get resolved ultimately.  If there is no warranty, it just leaves the customer at the mercy of whoever they happen to find themselves dealing with.

Since my last post, I've had confirmation that the Diginow fast charger is not supported by Zero and will void the battery warranty.  That's a little like Yamaha saying you'll void your ICE engine warranty if you fill up at Texaco instead of Shell.  Isn't there some onus on Zero to test and certify the most common chargers with their equipment?  It sounds like they've gone to great lengths to put protective measures in place to avoid damage to the BMS or batteries.

Personally, I hope Zero embrace the Diginow charger with open arms as it will encourage more people to buy their bikes.  I'm sure this is just a matter of timing and the right people from each camp talking to each other.

If they had their own product that was as good, then it might be a little different.  The charge tank should be capable of charging the bike at 1C, or as close to it as the BMS will allow just like the Diginow.  Instead, at only 2.5kW it's no different to a single Elcon, thus it will take approximately 4hrs to provide a 10kWh charge.  For someone with a power tank, that's likely to be at least the amount of power they will need for a top-up if they're touring and I'm sure they won't want to stop for 3-4 hours every 100 miles or so.  Oops, just remembered you can't fit a power tank if you have a charge tank...  I know you can use the on-board charger at the same time, but I imagine many charge stations just provide one lead to plug in at a time.  Even so, it's still a 3 hour charge to top up a recent model year bike without a power tank.

Rather than trying to avoid the issue and risk storing up problems for the future (angry customers trying to sue Diginow because Zero won't replace their faulty BMS), it would be nice to hear that somebody is talking to Zero to get this warranty voiding issue resolved.  I'm sure I'm not the only person who would think twice about using a fast charger if I knew it would void the warranty.