Bearing in mind that Tesla are in the automotive industry and have much more R&D clout, I'd say that what we have with the Zero battery pack and this new charger is the best we can expect for some time.
Ambitions of being able to get another 100 miles of range in 20-30 minutes are clearly unrealistic. To manage this in approximately an hour is a massive achievement.
100 miles with a streamliner fairing is 10 kWh of energy. Adding this energy in 20-30 minutes requires 20-30 kW of charge acceptance. That's possible with a large battery pack; the 14 kWh ZF13+PT would only be 1.5C at 20 kW, and a 20 kWh bike could do 30 kW at 1.5C. At low SOC I bet the Zero packs could take a 1.5C charge without heating up too much.
Realistically, you're correct; a faired tourer is probably a couple of years out still. But that seems to be more limited by business reasons (sales predictions for a $$$ bike that "looks funny") and risk rather than technical limitations.
A PT Zero S with a free-mounted diginow super charger and a 40A EVSE (10 kW AC) could add about 30 miles of highway range in 30 minutes ($20k). Add a streamlined fairing and this increases to 50 miles in 30 minutes (say $23k with installation).
Energica is a 12 kWh bike and it seems to charge at about 20 kW. Despite the sport fairing, however, its highway range seems very poor; 60 miles at highway speeds. It can add 50 miles in 20 minutes. Price in the mid $30k range.
Lightning claims to sell a 20 kWh bike that can DCQC with 160 miles of highway range. With a 30 minute 80% charge this can restore 100 miles in approximately 25 minutes (~30 kW). No price listed for the higher capacity packs, but $50k for the 20 kWh pack would not surprise me.
Both of these bikes have sport bike fairings and relatively conventional styling. I don't expect to see large sales success for either due to price and fledgling distribution networks.. really curious to see how Victory does selling a $20k bike that seems to fall short in many ways of the $16k SR. Name recognition, sales and service networks count for a lot.
It may take a Yamaha, Kawasaki, or Honda to actually deliver on these touring bikes. And while CHAdeMO is hugely popular in Japan, the US and Europe are a long ways away from a ride-anywhere DCQC network and no clear standards victor.
The "good news", I guess, is that the longer we wait the easier it gets to make the business case for a ~$20k tourer; the QC networks improve and component costs continue to fall. Tesla has a decent QC network already; I think the widespread availability of 150-200 mile low-priced electric cars in 2017-2018 will really get some momentum behind growing the standard networks.
Zero has seen modest success with bikes in the $14-18k space, with their limited sales and support networks and no real touring capability. The large manufacturers are clearly waiting for the right time to drop a tourer. I wonder if Zero will beat them to it.
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Topic: Hypothetically, if you could charge a zero in UNDER 1 hour (Read 35854 times)