Print

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

[valnar]

Basically the title says it all.  For all you early adopters, how has your original battery been on the < 2015 models?  I don't own a Zero....yet, but this is a question I'm sure on many minds.

[Richard230]

My daughter's 2014 S seemed to have a battery problem during the past year as it wouldn't charge to 100% any more and would top out at 87% SOC.  However, I recently replaced her original on-board charger with a new one. The bike's battery is now back to showing 100% SOC and the battery pack is charging to 117 volts, just like it did when new.  All of the battery cells seem to be back to being well balanced also, within 10 mV of each other, according to the Zero app.  So I would have to say that the Farsis battery cells are not much of an issue, at least not in this one example.  It is other stuff that can go wrong after a while.

[NEW2elec]

After flushing my brake fluid after maybe waiting too long, since the pads were fine, no doubt I had been rubbing the rear pads while riding.  I found my old 13 DS got it's almost 10 miles per charge bar back. I'd say I'd still get around 100 miles of slower back roads (45-50MPH) riding from it. 
There was a battery recall for 2013 so it's a MY14 battery now but it's still going fine.  It's my weekend and backup bike now and nothing like riding one down and pulling into the garage and hopping on a fresh one and ride that one down while the other charges.

[MostlyBonkers]

The original battery on my 2014DS gave me a reliable range of 65 miles of reasonably spirited riding on country roads.  It did that consistently for about two and a half years and 20,000+ miles until I started having problems with it last summer.  It would reach 40C before the end of my motorway run on my commute. Thermal management would kick in and the bike would struggle to do 70mph.  The situation got progressively worse over a few weeks until I decided I had to do something about it.  The firmware was upgraded, followed by the BMS a few weeks later.  Neither helped and eventually I got round to doing my own analysis of the logs and sending the results into Zero.  The logs were reporting bad cell errors intermittently on a coupe of cells.  I never got any confirmation, but I can only assume that these cells had gone outside of their normal operating parameters. Why? I don't know. I suspect it was down to being too close to the on-board charger and spending more of their life at high temperatures than the rest of the cells in the pack.  Another possibility is that there was some water ingress into the pack and possibly some corrosion of some of the wiring.  That might cause things to get hot.  I'll never know...

The pack was replaced under warranty with a nice new 14.4 unit which gave me another 15 miles of range and much better performance at low SoC.

[Jarrett]

The pack was replaced under warranty with a nice new 14.4 unit which gave me another 15 miles of range and much better performance at low SoC.

That's a pretty good support story.

[pacificcricket]

So my 14 DS is approaching 30K on ODO. Even though every year I do the same types of rides, it's hard to tell if the battery is degrading or conditions are changing between the trips. I'd say there is definitely at least 80% of the original capacity, but beyond that it's just speculation. If perhaps I can pull up the logs like others suggested, then it may be more scientific.

[valnar]

Thanks everyone.. It would be interesting to hear from those who have 75-100K.  Does anyone yet?

[Jarrett]

It's really hard to get to 100k at 40 miles a day total.

Only 7 years if you ride it 365 days a year

[pacificcricket]

Thanks everyone.. It would be interesting to hear from those who have 75-100K.  Does anyone yet?

Why not go straight to a million miles ? Just as ridiculous.

[valnar]

I asked because of the equally ridiculous claim that these batteries go to 300,000 miles.

[dvdt]

On my 2012S, at the time of trade in at ~23k miles, no noticeable battery degradation. On my present 2014S (the result of the trade-in), at a tad over 35k miles, no noticeable battery degradation. In neither case have I made a careful study, but on my commute route (of 40 miles roundtrip) I end up at the same displayed charge level (provided I maintain similar speed).

Btw, I traded in the 2012S with the original belt, and the 2014S is still on its original belt (with no visible defects to prompt a replacement). The 2014S charger was replaced at ~24k miles --- apart from normal wear items of tires and brakes, that original 2014 factory charger has been the most substantial wear out issue.

[pacificcricket]

I asked because of the equally ridiculous claim that these batteries go to 300,000 miles.

At the same time Tesla claims a million miles. The claim itself is not ridiculous. If you consider street mileage of 150mi on a charge, and the fact NMC cells can easily support 2000 cycles with minimum degradation,
that's your 300K right there. Reality of it the cells will do several thousand cycles more, just with more degradation. So 500K is plenty realistic for the pack, but not for the bike.

[valnar]

OK thanks guys.  Barring any physical or warranty issues, it sounds like the factory battery should last the life of the bike.  I guess the only reason it wouldn't would be time based, not usage based.  ie. Keeping it for 15 years and hardly riding.

[MostlyBonkers]

The pack was replaced under warranty with a nice new 14.4 unit which gave me another 15 miles of range and much better performance at low SoC.

That's a pretty good support story.

Indeed. I'm sticking with Zero because they've always done right by me, in the end.  It hasn't always been the best customer service experience but knowing their heart is in the right place makes all the difference.

[pacificcricket]

It hasn't always been the best customer service experience but knowing their heart is in the right place makes all the difference.

If they heart were in the right place, they'd bother to announce some long-term support initiatives. Such as upgrade paths for older models. Gold standard of heart being in the right place is Tesla, and Zero is really far from it.