Print

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

[Cjd000]

Hi,

I’ve seen lost of posts with people using power monitors and various methods to assess the power going in / out of Zero’s to gauge the health of there batteries and the capacity.

Is there a way to ’professionally’ confirm the health of the battery? I’m guessing dealers and service reps read the logs or plug into the serial terminal.

Does anybody know how a dealer or zero would assess the battery properly? Is there a way we can get the same result using the bikes software? As a dealer would?

I have access to a serial dongle and terminal and know how to download the logs.
My zero is a 2015 S but I’m guessing the approach would be similar for all 2013+ zero’s

Thanks

[flattetyre]

You would have to actually ride it, discharging all the way and see what kind of capacity you get and what the balance is. Preferably more than once since the bike recalibrates itself under a certain level of discharge. You can install your own power meter like a cycle analyst to really fine-grain analyze your battery capacity.

Anything else is just guessing. That's probably not the answer you want to hear, but the batteries are pretty reliable if not allowed to fully drain.

[domingo3]

There's a very interesting post written by someone who went to a former Zero dealer and got a page of battery health pulled from the logs.  If anyone knows this post, please link to it.  I'll try looking some more, but having a hard time searching because I don't remember the context.

[dalamario]

There's a very interesting post written by someone who went to a former Zero dealer and got a page of battery health pulled from the logs.  If anyone knows this post, please link to it.  I'll try looking some more, but having a hard time searching because I don't remember the context.

You are probably referring to this post.

[domingo3]

There's a very interesting post written by someone who went to a former Zero dealer and got a page of battery health pulled from the logs.  If anyone knows this post, please link to it.  I'll try looking some more, but having a hard time searching because I don't remember the context.

You are probably referring to this post.

  Thank you! That's exactly the one.  I wish I knew how to get that page of battery data.  I haven't been able to get that using the log parser and battery logs.

  According to the warranty on the website, "To check the capacity of a Power Pack, an authorized Zero dealer can perform a battery management system log data extraction, which will confirm if a reduction is within expected norms."  I'm assuming that they use this page to make a determination, but it's also entirely possible that they do some other kind of testing in addition to or aside from that.

  When my previous bike was in for warranty service, there was one point where I was told that they suspected the battery was defective based on actual ride and range tests that the dealer performed.  I don't believe that the battery was ever the issue with my bike, but it does make me wonder how structured of a troubleshooting procedure Zero and/or the dealers have.

[Ddub]

You would have to actually ride it, discharging all the way and see what kind of capacity you get and what the balance is. Preferably more than once since the bike recalibrates itself under a certain level of discharge. You can install your own power meter like a cycle analyst to really fine-grain analyze your battery capacity.

Anything else is just guessing. That's probably not the answer you want to hear, but the batteries are pretty reliable if not allowed to fully drain.

I think I may have to do this. I use to get about 1 mile per percent of battery. I went in for the last firmware update and ever since then I now only get 30 miles for 50% battery. It does not really matter if I am in eco, sport, or custom mode it is always the same. This is a 2014 DS with only about 1200 miles on it.

[Cjd000]

I’m having the exact same issue but without updating the firmware. Last year I got around 1% per mile, now I’ll be luck to hit 70miles driving around country lanes with the 12.5kwh battery.

I loose the first 10% within 3 miles of riding.

The battery balance is always great but something doesn’t seem right and the idea of testing using power monitors as flattetyre suggested is not the ‘professional’ way to judge health.

[Killroy]

FYI, My 2015 SR 12.5 battery with 26,000 miles was replaced after I had Zero review my logs.  I had tried to do some longer rides and the SOC would drop rapidly and I would be only able to maintain 20 MPH max.  I noted that the power was weak at as high as 60% SOC.  The logs listed low cell voltage and something like   "power cut back". 

The nice this is that 12.5 pack was replace with a 14.4 pack 

[domingo3]

FYI, My 2015 SR 12.5 battery with 26,000 miles was replaced after I had Zero review my logs.  I had tried to do some longer rides and the SOC would drop rapidly and I would be only able to maintain 20 MPH max.  I noted that the power was weak at as high as 60% SOC.  The logs listed low cell voltage and something like   "power cut back". 

The nice this is that 12.5 pack was replace with a 14.4 pack 

I'm very curious how this went for you.  Was it as simple as

1)  You tell dealer about SOC and performance issues
2)  Dealer tells you to send logs
3)  Dealer tells you that Zero is replacing the battery
4)  You schedule time for install

Was there more back and forth? How did the timeline go?  Did they provide any information or documents beyond what you could read yourself from the log parser? 

The changes we see in range versus SOC could have many explanations, including wind, ambient temperature, riding more aggressively after getting more comfortable with the bike, calibration of SOC to battery voltage, or and actual drop in capacity.  Anything that people can share about what Zero uses for warranty claims would be appreciated.

I imagine Zero could add an assessed battery capacity into the app, but I can think of several reasons why they wouldn't want to do that.  Unless we come up with a way to self-assess, I think it would be wise for every owner to contact their dealer about battery degradation at the four year mark or of course any time that there are reasons to suspect a problem with the battery.

Someone that's smarter can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe sometimes the SOC wonkyness can be correctly merely by running the bike from all the way charged to almost all the way depleted one or more times.  Running the battery to empty isn't the best for battery health, so it shouldn't be done all the time.

[Crilly]

Running a battery to zero, should not hurt a thing.  Should be put on charger right away.  Programming protects it.

[MVetter]

Someone that's smarter can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe sometimes the SOC wonkyness can be correctly merely by running the bike from all the way charged to almost all the way depleted one or more times.  Running the battery to empty isn't the best for battery health, so it shouldn't be done all the time.

You're thinking of a laptop with a NiCad battery from 1996. Lithium Ion batteries want to dwell eternally between 20-80%, and every few months be allowed to balance at full. If your SoC is acting up the latest firmware seems to be quite stable and should be considered.

[Ddub]

Mine SOC started acting up the day I picked it up from the dealer after they installed the latest firmware. I had no issues with SOC until they put the newest firmware on it.

[Ddub]

Running a battery to zero, should not hurt a thing.  Should be put on charger right away.  Programming protects it.

I tried running mine to zero and recharging it but that didnt seem to change anything. Funny thing is I hit zero percent on the dash and still had the same get up and go as it did with the battery fully charged, even drove a another mile home but didnt change anything. I did take screen shots of the different states of charge so I could recall the voltage. Does the voltage look correct for 0% and 100% SOC?

[Killroy]

FYI, My 2015 SR 12.5 battery with 26,000 miles was replaced after I had Zero review my logs.  I had tried to do some longer rides and the SOC would drop rapidly and I would be only able to maintain 20 MPH max.  I noted that the power was weak at as high as 60% SOC.  The logs listed low cell voltage and something like   "power cut back". 

The nice this is that 12.5 pack was replace with a 14.4 pack 

I'm very curious how this went for you.  Was it as simple as

1)  You tell dealer about SOC and performance issues
2)  Dealer tells you to send logs
3)  Dealer tells you that Zero is replacing the battery
4)  You schedule time for install

Was there more back and forth? How did the timeline go?  Did they provide any information or documents beyond what you could read yourself from the log parser? 

The changes we see in range versus SOC could have many explanations, including wind, ambient temperature, riding more aggressively after getting more comfortable with the bike, calibration of SOC to battery voltage, or and actual drop in capacity.  Anything that people can share about what Zero uses for warranty claims would be appreciated.

I imagine Zero could add an assessed battery capacity into the app, but I can think of several reasons why they wouldn't want to do that.  Unless we come up with a way to self-assess, I think it would be wise for every owner to contact their dealer about battery degradation at the four year mark or of course any time that there are reasons to suspect a problem with the battery.

Someone that's smarter can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe sometimes the SOC wonkyness can be correctly merely by running the bike from all the way charged to almost all the way depleted one or more times.  Running the battery to empty isn't the best for battery health, so it shouldn't be done all the time.

Yes, you had the main steps right, but it was a couple months since I sent the first log I sent.  I had a couple more rapid SOC drop situations where I was almost dead in the water on the freeway and I sent those logs too.  I asked what they saw in the logs that showed the battery was "aging", but they did not say. I was asked to do a range test from ~100% to 0%.