Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Demoni]

Do any dealers sell them?  I've never seen any Lightnings anywhere.

-Don-  Auburn, CA

I do not believe you can get one except through the factory. I have only seen 1 in the wild but it was a test bike putting some miles down on the local moto roads (Alice's).

Wish them the best of luck, very interested to see what they come up with.

[togo]

> IF they can actually deliver enough bikes to reach the demand for a machine that good for that price

I suspect some of the features listed are not in the base price.  Like the rapid charging.

[clee]

Once you get used to an Eva it is tough to go back to a SR. Mine has basically turned into a garage queen since getting the Eva.

You and me both!

I haven’t ridden the Zero since my lowside on it last year. And it was weeks, maybe a month or two, that it had been ignored before that.

I bet I can make enough from selling both Monsters and the SR to pay for the Strike with an upgrade or two. If that’s true, I’ll be downsizing my collection to the EVA and the Strike.

[oobflyer]

This Lightning Strike Bike does sound too good to be true - I guess we'll see in March.
Meanwhile - don't you think that Zero MUST offer fast-DC charging to compete with Lightning, Energica and other EV bike manufacturers?
We'll see in February what the SR/F has to offer - I'm hoping that Zero offers CCS Fast-DC charging. Maybe that's what the 'F' in SR/F stands for :-)

[Ndm]

That was my first guess in the SR/F thread, I really hope they have addressed it, I’m still poking along with my 2013 and homegrown “fast charger” I get 6kw so zero has finally caught up with me, I won’t buy another until they get the fast CCS/chademo thing figured out

[ultrarnr]

oobflyer,

There is no doubt in my mind if Zero wants to be competitive they have to offer DCFC on their bikes. I have both a Zero SR and an Energica Eva 107. I have dual Elcon chargers and can charge at 6300 watts on the SR. I have made a few multi-day trips to western North Carolina on my SR and have made one multi-day trip to western North Carolina on my Eva 107. I will never make that trip on my SR again. It doesn't take long to get used to charging on CCS for 20-30 minutes and the idea of going back to 2 hour charging on the SR really sucks. There is a thread here on the Zero forum about the "300 Mile Club" for those who have ridden 300 miles in a day on their Zero. I understand why because it is a big deal and makes for a long day. When I rode the Blue Ridge Parkway last July on my Eva 107 I rode about 350 miles that day and only used CCS charging and it wasn't a big deal. Yes Energica is more expensive than a Zero. But then compare the price of a Zero with either Diginow chargers or dual Elcon chargers and that price difference quickly gets a lot smaller and you still won't get charging at 22kw. Charging at 22kw/70A you can add 50%  SOC to an Energica in just under 14 minutes. I timed it 2 days ago. DCFC is what makes more trips practical on an electrical motorcycle compared to using your ICE bike and that is what will increase adoption of electric motorcycle. The frustrating part of all of this is Zero had a DCFC for their bikes. I had one on order for about 6 months and based on emails from Zero it would have worked well with the most common DCFCs in North Carolina. But there were a few issues with the models of DCFC near Zero. So instead of working through the bugs they canceled the system. Zero could have been far ahead of everyone but they couldn't see past the state of California. Sad.

[JaimeC]

Right now I can see only ONE thing that would make electric vehicles as convenient for long trips as a gasoline or diesel engine, but it is highly unlikely at the moment.

A STANDARDIZED battery form-factor that can be easily swapped out by the user and battery replacement stations as pervasive as gas stations. You'd drive as far as you can and when your battery was signaling low, you'd pull into one of these stations, swap out your depleted battery, install a fully charged one, pay a nominal service fee, and continue on your way.

Just like many of us do now with propane tanks for our grills every summer.

[ashnazg]

I'd have to posit that as long as a battery pack costs two orders of magnitude more than a propane bottle, I can't bet on seeing it as someone's business model.  I definitely do see the consumer appeal though... "refueling" as a familiar step, unlike "recharging".

[caza]

Battery swapping doesn't really work in the US. The standardization, infrastructure, training, mindset etc required before it was even viable for a small number of people is astronomical. It is the most difficult solution to implement logistically. It also creates stagnation in battery tech. If we invest in a platform for swappable batteries, we're stuck with using that platform for a very long time or to reinvest in a new platform at considerable cost, neither of which are good options.

Just increasing the availability of charge stations and how many are faster charge stations is comparably easy and affordable, as new construction tends to include charging stations more and more often and adding them to existing places is common.

Charge times can and have naturally been getting better as the tech improves.

Battery swapping works really well in small markets with very specific products, basically like what some companies are doing with electric scooters in big cities overseas. But in the american market it's a non-starter.

[JaimeC]

One caveat to caza's observation:  Just because the form factor remains the same doesn't mean the technology would remain the same.  Sticking to a specific form factor will not cause battery technology to stagnate.  I would point to a D cell battery over the past few decades as a case in point...

[Richard230]

One caveat to caza's observation:  Just because the form factor remains the same doesn't mean the technology would remain the same.  Sticking to a specific form factor will not cause battery technology to stagnate.  I would point to a D cell battery over the past few decades as a case in point...

Speaking of D-cells: I have two types of NiMH rechargeable D-cell batteries and I noticed that one was a lot heavier than the other. The light Energizer brand shows a "rated capacity" of 2500 mAh, while the much heavier Powerex brand (made by the Maha Energy Corp in Taiwan) is rated at 11,000 mAh. Apparently you can't tell a battery's capacity from its size and shape.   

[JaimeC]

Thanks, Rich.  You've confirmed my point.  The real problem is right now we're in the early days of electric transport.  Everybody in the game thinks that their way is the best, so they are all designing things THEIR way.  Once the technology matures you'll see more standardization and swappable batteries will become possible.

As a case in point, years ago Michael Cszysz designed his electric racer with swappable batteries so they didn't have to wait between practice sessions for the installed batteries to recharge.  Sadly, all of his ideas died with him and MotoCszysz is no more. 

[NEW2elec]

I think of the swapping battery solution as the bad shopping cart solution.  At some point your going to get the one with the flat wobbling wheel that locks up and throws you into the shelf.  I don't want that old beat up degraded pack that a company is trying to squeeze a little more life from when I need to go 200 miles.

We were promised solid state batteries and I'm still waiting (tapping foot). 

[DonTom]

We were promised solid state batteries and I'm still waiting (tapping foot).

What is a "solid state battery" and how do they compare to non-solid state?


sol·id-state  adj. Electronics.
designating or pertaining to electronic devices, as transistors or crystals, that can control current without the use of moving parts, heated filaments, or vacuum gaps.


-Don-  Auburn, CA

[NEW2elec]

Well I was just "trying" to be funny.  Right now it's in theory form mostly. 
Liion has a flamable liquid electrolyte which has other bad issues.
It will expand and bust a cell if over charged, it loses capacity when near or below freezing.  Charge cycles can cause dendrites which are like scars that cause resistance and more heat causing more dendrites.

A solid state battery would have a solid electrolyte which wouldn't burn, would be much less effected by temperature if at all, would have a much longer cycle life, and the weight savings of no system to hold a liquid.

Luke Workman talked about them years ago in an interview and it always stuck with me.  He was saying, in theory, 10X capacity for the same size battery so a Zero could go 1000 miles.