The Q&A session did bolster my confidence in the brand and direction Sam/Zero (CEO) is taking with the company. I was glad to ride with all of us attending!
It was said very clearly to the group by Aaron/Zero that modding your bike with a third party charging system (specifically digiNow as a directed example), is NOT and cannot be looked at as widely invalidating the "bike" warranty, but that repairing damages from a modification would not be covered by the "bike" nor "battery" warranty. Simple Magnusson law stuff for USA people, but it is Aaron saying this is the way it is for Zero Motorcycles (not specifying any single market) and anyone who says otherwise should talk directly to him and get updated to the correct policy. The counterpoint to this as an example is that there are some firmware improvements which add protection of the Powertank for example and it disconnects if any charging power to the whole system goes over a certain limit. This is why Powertank plus QuiQ is not a supported configuration. It is totally insane to me as a technician-minded person that there's no ChangeLog mentioning this very basic and clear explanation; however as both Sam and Aaron have mentioned the Zero Motorcycle customer is a weird blend of Consumer Tech Gadget and "Motorcyclist or Motorcycle Rider" and it's always going to be the case we as a customer base will find a way to misinterpret official statements in the worst possible way.
There is also a Zero Motorcycles concept of Vehicle Off Road (i.e non operational sitting at a dealership for service) and Aaron stated the high importance of tracking these instances. I do get the feeling personally that he's still trying to scale his workflow / get assistance from other Zero employees, to grow with the demands and actionable items won't get overlooked or forgotten about; he clearly cares and is aware that an issue may have been buried by higher level and so company operations level items (the 2012 battery recall) when I interact with him.
I've seen bike logs where a contactor welded shut from this exact scenario, and a firmware update would add these protections that prevent damage to the contactor by "dumb" bulk fast charging; side-effect is that attempting to fast charge above a certain rate will lead in effect to Powertank and Monolith at different voltages, so a bike that won't run, and/or possibly no way to get it to charge without takong the bike apart... That particular bike sits with no resolution on the dealership service queue and the dealership is too short staffed to address even the main Polaris / Indian bread-and-butter service jobs. It's my local dealership too and I've experienced this gap in service with months of VOR. I'm glad to hear Sam talk on the focus to develop out the existing service model to support customers when dealerships fall flat (while firstly supporting and respecting dealerships with training). Aaron clearly shouldn't have to interact with me when he's juggling a recall so I was interacting with Nicholas, and actually I shouldn't have to do this either it is my dealership that fell into a gap, the whole thing is sort of confusing as a customer wanting some support but I do find all persons involved to be well-meaning.
I'm omitting some points but those are the big ones to me... and yes I tend to harp/ too long on this I'm excited to hear sensible things from Sam and Aaron that should (given some time) be positive for Zero Motorcycles and owners of their products.
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Topic: *APRIL 28* Zero Factory Tour, ride from Saratoga (Read 3144 times)