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[gborgan]

Well guys, ole ZEV from West Virginia posted a video showing a new motorcycle which comes with full faring for $13,900. .

9,000 miles on my ‘15 SR. Other than being on its Fourth charger now, it’s been perfect although There was a noticeable loss of range after the firmware upgrade done last month. 65+ mph riding uses energy at the rate of 0.5-0.6 mile per 1%, or 50-60 miles est.  used to be 0.7

But the point of the post was to forward the ZEV video FYI. Still uses their noisy hub motor design from the scooters.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Richard230]

Nice looking bike and the retail price and specifications seem decent, but I wonder how they manage to keep heat in that hub motor under control when it is being stressed out, such as riding at high speeds and up hill? 

[Ndm]

having the controller out there is quite ugly, plus they may want to balance that hopping rear wheel !

[togo]

Hub motor again.

Probably will get good range for the money, but with that much unsprung weight will have less than ideal suspension.

It'll be interesting to see if they fixed their power factor and moisture issues.

[protomech]

http://www.zelectricvehicle.com/30.html


M-15 S                       $13,900
Range at 55 mph                          140 miles
Range at 70 mph                           80 miles
Battery Capacity - 9.6 kWh

M-13 S                      $12,490
Range at 55 mph                          129 km / 80 miles
Range at 70 mph                          113 km / 70 miles
Battery Capacity - 8.4 kWh

Guessing one of these range specifications is a typo, as the M-15S seems to get a magical amount of range at 55 mph vs 70 mph.


It's nice to see a bike with a full fairing available!

With the lessons learned from the worlds most efficient electric motorcycle, the ZEV LRC, the M Series is 1/2 the frontal area of the LRC and roughly the same drag coefficient for an extremely range efficient bike.

Bold claims. It might be fun to ride up there some day and inspect the motorcycles in person.

[wavelet]

Really weird thing about them (all the models) is the complete lack of 3d-party reviews or forum discussions, in the US or elsewhere. The only info available is their website and the few YouTube videos they posted. There have been a small number of negative threads on them here and other forums a.f.a. reliability goes, but not enough to form any kind of opinion.
Normally I'd expect  moto journalists and/or any riding enthusiasts living in their area (WV, near PA) ot be curious about one of the few US motorcycle manufacturers.
A.f.a. this bike goes, it's not new, and was announced here[url] by the company owner 2 years ago; looks like it took them 2 years to  get it actually ready for market.

The claimed effciency (the M-15 S is said to do 100+ mi @70mph in the video, so the 80mi indeed looks like a typo) is much better than Zero's -- the S's ZF13 claimed efficiency is 142 Wh/mi @70mph, vs. MS-15S's , 93 Wh/mi. That's suspiciously better, esp. given the Zev is heavier, 470 vs. 408lbs -- I don't believe a non-specially designed for aerodynamics fairing would do that well. The lack of a chain/belt either -- a.f.a. I recall, chains only cost ~1% in efficiency.

No idea about manufacturing quality & handling, but one issue that does stand out is the lack of any charger on the bike itself, which makes the bike, again, not really usable for touring. The provided external charger is 1.6kW -- not clear how it charges the 9.6kW battery in just 4.5 hours...

[togo]

From elmoto two years ago:

Spoonman
05 November 2015, 0344
oh please - it's like they're not even trying to hide it.

That first one is, quite literally, just this (http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2015-new-electric-sports-motorcycle-HONDAGT_60348908211/showimage.html) with an uprated motor.
How the hell can they claim to be a US manufacturer???

There's a crowd called volt over here doing pretty much the same thing.

Richard230
05 November 2015, 0729
You might find this thread on the Electric Motorcycle Forum regarding the newly announced ZEV electric sportbike interesting. There are quite a few comments by the designer of the vehicle responding to a number of questions regarding the ZEV EV - not the least of (the questions, not the questioner) which come from Ted Dillard. :O

http://electricmotorcycleforum.com/boards/index.php?topic=5179.0

end quote

http://elmoto.net/archive/index.php/t-4128.html

[togo]

Look at that.  It's the exact same photo.