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[Richard230]

Today I rode my Zero S with PT from my home in Pacifica to Big Basin State Park and returned via the coast highway, a trip of 147.6 miles on my instrument display - or 168 miles on the Zero app.  I arrived home with the battery pack showing 0%. I was able to maintain at least 40 mph when the display read 2%.  Then it suddenly dropped to the double 0, but the range estimator still said 6.7 miles remaining. Even with 0% showing, I was able to maintain 35 mph all the way up the hill to my home. That is an improvement over the performance of my 2014 S, with PT, when ridden over the same route.  It died before I could get home and I had to stop and start several times to make it back to my garage.

I used the Zero app to check the battery condition before plugging in the charger. Cell balance was 20-23 mA, but it quickly changed to 10-11 mA upon being plugged in.  Current draw was showing 9.5 amps on my Kill-A-Watt meter after a minute. Predicted recharging time is a little over 11 hours.

I might add that I was able to maintain 55 mph, even with the battery pack showing 13% and 45 mph when it was showing 5%.

I will post tomorrow how many watts it took to fully recharge my battery pack, as it will be oh-dark 30 before charging is finished.

[JaimeC]

And let us know if the estimated range when you first turn it on makes more sense. 

[Richard230]

Here is my display when I arrived home.    It looks like my memory gained almost half a mile.

[DonTom]

Today I rode my Zero S with PT from my home in Pacifica to Big Basin State Park and returned via the coast highway, a trip of 147.6 miles on my instrument display - or 168 miles on the Zero app.

What was your average speed during the trip?

BTW, I lived most of my life in San Mateo County. Last in South San Francisco, but also Daly City, San Mateo, Belmont Millbrae. I used to hike a lot in San Pedro Valley Park there in Pacifica. And would get many ticks!

BTW, it looks like Euro-Cylces here in Reno will be the new Zero dealer in about a month. That's where I purchased my Moto Guzzi and Triumph Trophy but under the x-owner. They are now in the process of moving to a larger place which is even closer to me.

-Don-  Reno, NV

[Richard230]

I just checked my fully recharged Zero and the Kill-A-Watt meter this morning. The Kill-A-Watt showed a total power draw to completely recharge the battery pack as 15.1 kWh.  If the on-board charger is 93% efficient, that would make the full recharge be 14.1 kWh.  Oddly, the Zero app said that I used 11.8 kWh during the trip.  Right now, fully charged, the cell balance is the best it has ever been at 1 to 2 mV.  Voltage is 115 volts. When the battery pack was reading "00%", the voltage on the app showed as 96 volts.  When I checked the voltage at 50% on the display the app said 105 volts. The estimated range showing on the display right now is 127 miles.  That I don't quite get, but perhaps that is the result of the last 50 miles being ridden at an average speed of 55 mph.

While the numbers are a little confusing to me, I am certainly happy with my Zero's performance, especially as it got me home without needing to push it. I really got lucky yesterday as I didn't try to force the pack to empty by riding around the neighborhood and just guessed about the trip length to get me home.  I don't think I will be doing that again anytime soon.   

[JaimeC]

But:  Does your "Range to Empty" read out seem more reasonable now?

[Richard230]

Today I rode my Zero S with PT from my home in Pacifica to Big Basin State Park and returned via the coast highway, a trip of 147.6 miles on my instrument display - or 168 miles on the Zero app.

What was your average speed during the trip?

BTW, I lived most of my life in San Mateo County. Last in South San Francisco, but also Daly City, San Mateo, Belmont Millbrae. I used to hike a lot in San Pedro Valley Park there in Pacifica. And would get many ticks!

BTW, it looks like Euro-Cylces here in Reno will be the new Zero dealer in about a month. That's where I purchased my Moto Guzzi and Triumph Trophy but under the x-owner. They are now in the process of moving to a larger place which is even closer to me.

-Don-  Reno, NV

I live a mile away from San Pedro Valley Park and hike there all the time if I don't want to go riding into the Santa Cruz Mountains and hike at the many miles of open space district trails there.  So far I haven't gathered any ticks that I know of at the Park.  BTW, I grew up in SSF and worked for the city's engineering department for over 30 years, reviewing just about every private development built from 1974 to 2004, when I retired and then was asked to return to review building permits for the following 5 years. When the recession hit, the permits dwindled and I finally gave up working and fully retired.

[Richard230]

But:  Does your "Range to Empty" read out seem more reasonable now?

I guess that depends upon how fast I will be riding. Since most of the time I don't ride much at freeway speeds and typically ride at around 40 mph, I am pretty sure that the range estimator will become more optimistic once I start riding locally again. So the answer to your question is that I don't know, yet. But I will keep tabs on the estimator display and will report back once I get a feel for what it is doing when I go back to using my Zero for local trips, which is more normal usage for me.

I might add that I was very careful when riding yesterday. I rode freeway frontage roads, along mountain highways and then up the Coast Highway. I rode up and down a lot of hills. On the frontage roads I traveled about 45 mph.  Up hill I rode at around 35 mph. I coasted down many miles with the throttle off. When I arrived at Big Basin SP the display was showing 62%. When I took the same trip on my 2014 S the display showed 50%. But on that bike, I averaged 45 mph coming back on the Coast Highway, while on my 2018 Zero, I averaged 55 mph.

It took 15.1 kWh to fully recharge my pack on this ride, while it took 13.75 kWh to fully recharge my 2014 Zero S with PT's battery pack after my 140 mile ride in 2014. So I guess there has been some improvement to the total pack's capacity, or my ability to squeeze power from my battery pack during a ride.

I forgot to mention that the average watts per mile used yesterday, according to the Zero app, was 668. So as you can see, I was very conservative with my throttle usage.

[DonTom]

In spite of claims  of a 16.6 kWh battery pack, I have my doubts. While it took 15.1 kWh to fully recharge my pack on this ride (hold on I need to check a very old post)

I heard somewhere that they never charge these batteries to the full rating, so  approx 10% below the max rating is to be expected.

-Don-  Reno, NV

[Doctorbass]

That is interesting,

On my 2017 SR with powertank I have empty the battery to 0% few times and observed that the range estimator still allow 10-15km past the 0%.  I never reset the range estimator and it keep pretty acccurate. i have lastest firmware version.

The max energy i had from the battery is 13200Wh (with the  zero apps and backed result by my cycle analyst) with 1Ah left from the total 130 Ah allowed  and cells balance was 21miliohm at the end of discharge.

The usable energy seem to be really 13250Wh with the powertank on the 2017 SR. for 130Ah on 5 small bricks)  for 26Ah usable per brick with the "29"Ah cells labeled 28Ah on the brick

however the spec say 14.3kWh  from Zero informations... i never tested past 13250Wh to verify if it can really go to the 14.3kWh...

Doc

[Richard230]

As shown on the photo of my display, with 00% showing on the battery capacity indicator, the range estimator still showed I could go another 5.0 miles after I arrived home. But when the display first dropped from 2% to 0% it said that I had another 6.7 miles to go, or about 10km. It is almost exactly 1.6 miles to my home from when the display dropped to 0.  And like I said, I noticed no obvious drop in the bike's performance when that happened, considering that I was in a residential neighborhood at the time and traveling at 35 mph. But throttle response still seemed pretty good at the time.

[Shadow]

As shown on the photo of my display, with 00% showing on the battery capacity indicator, the range estimator still showed I could go another 5.0 miles after I arrived home. But when the display first dropped from 2% to 0% it said that I had another 6.7 miles to go, or about 10km. It is almost exactly 1.6 miles to my home from when the display dropped to 0.  And like I said, I noticed no obvious drop in the bike's performance when that happened, considering that I was in a residential neighborhood at the time and traveling at 35 mph. But throttle response still seemed pretty good at the time.

In the reduced power mode for low pack voltage on 2016 DSR, you'd notice it even in "ECO" mode that there's a cutback in power WOT, it struggles to get up to 45mph and can't push 60mph+ anymore. I'd guess 2018 would not be very much different? I'm curious to learn if pessimism value of 6% has changed for different bike / model years or is that standard. That setting is accessed by the MBB console cable.

[Richard230]

All I can tell you is that the 2018 S has better performance when the battery is almost exhausted than did my 2014 S. Perhaps Zero doesn't run the voltage as low at 0% on the new models as it did on the 2014 bike's.    Keep in mind that I never upgraded the firmware of my MY14 bike after it was programmed at the factory in December 2013.

On the 2014 S, when the display said 0% it meant it. The second "0" showed up, the bike stopped dead and the only way I could get the 1/10 mile home uphill was to let it rest for a minute or two, turn on the ignition, walk alongside the bike for 100 feet, when it would stop again. I repeated that process several more times until I made it home.  (I tried pushing but I just couldn't do it up the hill to my home.) That experience really got my "range anxiety" worked up. 

[Richard230]

JamieC asked if the range estimator was any more accurate now that I ran the battery down to 00%. My answer is maybe.  It seems a little more pessimistic that it was before. The estimated range before the most recent BMS update used to show about 165 miles when first taking off. Immediately after the update, the estimated range showed 205 miles. On my most recent ride, consisting of 15 miles of city and expressway riding and 10 miles at freeway speeds, the estimator started out reading 127 miles and upon arriving home, it said 120 miles to "empty". So the range estimator is only accurate if you ride at the same speed, under the same load, all the time. So take its estimate with "a grain of salt".