ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
General Category => Electric Motorcycle News => Topic started by: Electric Cowboy on December 06, 2020, 01:21:21 AM
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So we made the SR/F review public. It was a real challenge to do, and then again to edit. We put thousands of miles on the bike to give it a proper test. Also, just when you think my final trip can't get any worse... the world decides to surprise you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjIXCD2-CdU
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Brilliant vid. And... errrgh.
Cas :)
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The question begs...
...Why did you bother? You did something with a bike that it's not designed to do.
This video is just bunk, then. Might as well watch Long Way Up for accuracy.
-Crissa
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Well I wouldn't say bunk, but touring wouldn't have been what I would have tried to focus on.
The facts and demonstration of multiple charging sessions is absolutely worth showing but for that bike that is about a maybe 10% use case, with the SRS being the clear choice for longer rides from Zero.
I do agree it's very disappointing that these major firmware bug issues continue to show up from Zero. It does seem to show a lack of thorough testing before releasing to the public. They really must do better.
Overall a good video and I'm still impressed with Morgan "Shadoe Stevens" Vetter's voice overs.
It was nice to show the other guy the Tesla adapter to get his full charging speed. Good tip for US SRF/S owners who are thinking about the premium bikes and charge tanks. I think they get that much power out of EU J1772 stations already.
Also you missed an opportunity to say "I'll be back" at the end.
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Indeed. IF Zero's programmers ever get their act together, an SR/S Premium with 12kWh charging (and a Tesla Tap) is definitely in my future. In the US, the J1772 stations may only put out 7kW max but there are quite a few Tesla destination chargers around here to make it worthwhile.
In the meantime, I'm perfectly happy with my "mature technology" 2018 S. The 13kWh battery is "big enough" and charges in slightly less time than a 14.4kWh battery with the 6kW Charge Tank; enough for all day rides where I live. I still have my ICE bikes for cross country trips.
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Indeed. IF Zero's programmers ever get their act together, an SR/S Premium with 12kWh charging (and a Tesla Tap) is definitely in my future. In the US, the J1772 stations may only put out 7kW max but there are quite a few Tesla destination chargers around here to make it worthwhile.
In the meantime, I'm perfectly happy with my "mature technology" 2018 S. The 13kWh battery is "big enough" and charges in slightly less time than a 14.4kWh battery with the 6kW Charge Tank; enough for all day rides where I live. I still have my ICE bikes for cross country trips.
+1 Same here. :)
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The question begs...
...Why did you bother? You did something with a bike that it's not designed to do.
This video is just bunk, then. Might as well watch Long Way Up for accuracy.
-Crissa
I’m not supposed to drive 9.5 miles to try and get home?
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Overall it was a great bike for less than 200 miles a day, as mentioned before the firmware update. Would have recommended it to anyone. And hardcore riders like Morgan and I could have struggled through the touring issues, as I did on the way up from LA and he did on his trip to San Simeon.
After the update though... I couldn't recommend it to anyone for rides over 5 miles. That's why we decided to make this a part 1. Hopefully, they get test automation and quality for their software releases fixed. It's not hard. I know because I was lead dev on a team that built a bionic eye. We integrated full hardware testing including button presses with robotics and software integration. from robots all the way through the code. It is doable and not hard if you know what you are doing. It would dramatically improve their customer experience and help their reliability issues. I would help them if they wanted. I have offered a number of times, but always been told that its not a real issue, and they have it under control. I first reported the first iteration of this bug in Europe when stranded charging at 2kw on an island north of Germany, south of Denmark in gale-force winds and rain. I was tied into the bike and saw it miscalculate the amp hours and it has been happening ever since. That was 2016 or 2017...
This is different though, now it has become a legitimate safety issue. That's why we showed it. Zero would do well to budget time and money to fix this problem as it is real, and dangerous. It makes an otherwise fun bike, unusable in many scenarios, Like Morgan getting stuck after riding 9.5 miles of a 27 mile ride. It was never dangerous before. This is new, and should never be allowed to happen again.
Just to be clear, if it gets fixed, it'll be a fun bike again. It's definitely king of the hill for wheelies!
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Dear users who have been doing this for over 5 years: how dare you use this new platform for extended rides? Because I can only literally process going between two points 20 miles apart anything beyond that upsets and offends me and I will take it as a personal assault. How fucking DARE YOU ride further than I have officiated? You will answer to my milquetoast wrath.
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I’m not supposed to drive 9.5 miles to try and get home?
There are dealers quite a bit closer than that.
The manufacturer is closer than that.
Doing the one thing that it does badly and then calling it 'unreviewable' just seem unwatchable.
-Crissa
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Exposing the bad firmware issue was hopefully a good thing and Zero gets it fixed. The bad SOC calculation would be annoying in itself but when it triggers a power cut back because it thinks there is say 10% SOC left when there is really 50% is a major safety issue.
I thought it had been shown that a voltage reading was the best measurement of power left but I guess they still try to measure amp hours.
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I’m not supposed to drive 9.5 miles to try and get home?
There are dealers quite a bit closer than that.
The manufacturer is closer than that.
Doing the one thing that it does badly and then calling it 'unreviewable' just seem unwatchable.
And what is he to do if those locations are closed? Sit around overnight (or longer) to wait for them to reopen?
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There is no repair currently. This is how the bikes are. Full stop. End of story.
Either you missed the part where the bike dropped 49% in 9.5 miles or you think that's acceptable.
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Where did you guys get the Tesla Destination charger to J1772 adapter? I would love to have that on my bikes. Much smaller and easier to carry than the cabled units I find on Amazon.
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Where did you guys get the Tesla Destination charger to J1772 adapter? I would love to have that on my bikes. Much smaller and easier to carry than the cabled units I find on Amazon.
That one is custom made by a friend of ours. We're trying to convince him to make more of them. Until he does, I recommend the unit made by Lectron even though it is over 3x the size.
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A lot of the Tesla destination chargers I have used are only in the 6-7 kW range. Don't think they are all high power and that you will charge your Zero a lot faster than you will with a J1772 plug.
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A lot of the Tesla destination chargers I have used are only in the 6-7 kW range. Don't think they are all high power and that you will charge your Zero a lot faster than you will with a J1772 plug.
Definitely look at Tesla's Destination charge map: https://www.tesla.com/findus
They list what the stations are, output-wise. Super useful.
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I just jumped around and did not watch it end to end.
I watched the part about adding the heated hand grips and the statement that it would take a Zero dealership to activate such device. Kind of amusing for the TCO advocate line of thinking. This makes me wonder a) did you take such motorcycle in for the activation and discuss the problem that the video is basically about? Maybe I skipped that. b) how do you get your motorcycles to test, the Harley and the Lightning this was explained either in the video or in text on here. Did you swap your Energica with another rider? Did you make a deal to add accessories as a fee for use? Probably safe to say Zero did not loan you the bike for a while in exchange for consulting about their product. ;D
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Thanks...I was afraid of that. At least I can fit the Lectron unit in my side cases but I was hoping the one you guys used would be cheap enough for me to pick up one for each bike.
I know, I'm a cheap ba$tard... ;)
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I just jumped around and did not watch it end to end.
I watched the part about adding the heated hand grips and the statement that it would take a Zero dealership to activate such device. Kind of amusing for the TCO advocate line of thinking. This makes me wonder a) did you take such motorcycle in for the activation and discuss the problem that the video is basically about? Maybe I skipped that. b) how do you get your motorcycles to test, the Harley and the Lightning this was explained either in the video or in text on here. Did you swap your Energica with another rider? Did you make a deal to add accessories as a fee for use? Probably safe to say Zero did not loan you the bike for a while in exchange for consulting about their product. ;D
I suggest you watch the whole video.
The bike in question belongs to a dear friend in LA. She lent us Mochi (the bike's name) to review it and install the heated grips. Brandon riding it back to LA was him returning the bike to its awaiting owner.
edit- as for how we get other bikes... we find owners and ask if we can test them. Diego lent us his LiveWire for an extended time which allowed us to really dig into it on a technical level. We found a local Strike owner that lives 30 miles from us, and he let us get up close and test it as well. A second Strike owner was found in the Bay Area (gluestick motor bike) which Brandon used for the acceleration tests because we didn't have enough data.
We were in talks with Zero to get a loaner SR/S for review but they didn't have any with the Rapid Charge module, which is what we really wanted to test.
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Thanks for the reply. I guess that explains the airplane near the end. We had a power blackout when I was watching it on the smart phone that had limited battery and limited connection speed due to gigabite limit reached.
Fran
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There is nothing wrong with using SR/F for long range travel, if 400 miles was even "long range", for anyone who is willing to suffer it. And from a Zero rider's point of view, the suffering should be limited to locating stations, dealing with payment, waiting for charges, and avoiding scum of the earth along the way.
I did watch the whole video and found the personalities and drama enjoyable, but I have many questions.
Does this problem occur only when charging frequently?
Does this problem occur only with the highest rates of charging?
Are other people with Rapid Charge typically finding stations that can supply 50A?
Are other people typically using Tesla stations and adapters?
Could the homebrew Tesla adapters have something to do with it?
What happens with 32A charging?
Has anyone else here seen such behavior?
Why assert that it's a design defect with a sample size of one?
Aren't there enough SR/Fs are out there that other people would be posting about the problem?
Aren't there even Zero employees who would readily see the problem?
Has your friend since taken her bike to the dealer for warranty service?
What did the dealer determine from the logs? Did the voltage dropped along with SOC? Does the voltage recover during "magic charging"? Are batteries overheating when charging near 1C?
Could continued use of the obviously failing bike cause further damage and jeopardize the warranty?
Might there be a fire hazard repeatedly pumping 50A into a failing battery?
Was the video posted after exhausting all available recourse with Zero?
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Anything over 100 miles is definitely long range.
If I would have to refill the Ducati to do it, it's definitely long range.
-Crissa
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Anything over 100 miles is definitely long range.
<splutters tea>
Cas :)
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Anything over 100 miles is definitely long range.
I had to rewrite my first response ;) because sadly there's some truth to it for EV riders. However, delivering an SR Premium 400 miles should be straightforward, safe and fun. I'd calculate about 12 hours in a hurry, 14 hours relaxed.
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Where did you guys get the Tesla Destination charger to J1772 adapter? I would love to have that on my bikes. Much smaller and easier to carry than the cabled units I find on Amazon.
I know, right? The Tesla taps I've seen are inconveniently large. That looks more like the Tesla-to-J1772 adapters I've seen on Teslas hooked up at J1772 stations. I've always wondered why those are relatively small, but going the other way has to be so damned BIG.
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There is nothing wrong with using SR/F for long range travel, if 400 miles was even "long range", for anyone who is willing to suffer it. And from a Zero rider's point of view, the suffering should be limited to locating stations, dealing with payment, waiting for charges, and avoiding scum of the earth along the way.
I did watch the whole video and found the personalities and drama enjoyable, but I have many questions.
Sure thing. I'm going to do quote splitting which I usually abhor but you didn't number these things, so here goes.
Does this problem occur only when charging frequently?
No, as evidenced by my 9.5 mile leg that drained 49% of the battery and prevented me from safely going up a hill so I had to sit by the side of the road for 30 minutes while it magic charged to 30%.
Does this problem occur only with the highest rates of charging?
No
Are other people with Rapid Charge typically finding stations that can supply 50A?
You'd have to ask them. There's a fairly robust network of Tesla Destination stations around here that deliver up to 16kW. Consult Tesla's map for more info. There are also 2 Juiceboxes here that give 10kW J1772. But this bike only had the onboard 5.7kW units from Zero so it doesn't really matter.
Are other people typically using Tesla stations and adapters?
Typically we only find Tesla owners. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone else use adapters but us.
Could the homebrew Tesla adapters have something to do with it?
No. I've used Lectron branded ones as well. And this happens with J1772 as evidenced by the ChargePoint data session and logs.
What happens with 32A charging?
Same thing.
Has anyone else here seen such behavior?
Yes. Many people. One such person got so annoyed they rigged up a voltage meter by tapping into the lines running to the DC-DC. It's... eye-opening.
Why assert that it's a design defect with a sample size of one?
Our sample size is bigger than one. And it's firmware.
Aren't there enough SR/Fs are out there that other people would be posting about the problem?
There are. Here's one such example: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zmcowners/permalink/3335698323166019
Aren't there even Zero employees who would readily see the problem?
They were alerted to the problem months ago. In detail.
Has your friend since taken her bike to the dealer for warranty service?
There's literally nothing a dealer can do. And there's no official word from Zero on this issue anyway.
What did the dealer determine from the logs? Did the voltage dropped along with SOC? Does the voltage recover during "magic charging"? Are batteries overheating when charging near 1C?
This bike was charging at 0.5C. It has nothing to do with charging. It has everything to do with the bike knowing its own Amp Hours and incorrectly recalculating that to the detriment of the rider.
Could continued use of the obviously failing bike cause further damage and jeopardize the warranty?
What warranty-voiding behavior did we do?
Might there be a fire hazard repeatedly pumping 50A into a failing battery?
What evidence do you have that the battery is failing? There is no indication of that at all.
Was the video posted after exhausting all available recourse with Zero?
Of course.
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If I would have to refill the Ducati to do it it's definitely long range.
Do I have to repeat this?
-Crissa
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A lot of the Tesla destination chargers I have used are only in the 6-7 kW range. Don't think they are all high power and that you will charge your Zero a lot faster than you will with a J1772 plug.
Definitely look at Tesla's Destination charge map: https://www.tesla.com/findus
They list what the stations are, output-wise. Super useful.
Seems to me that Plugshare shows a lot more. For an example, here it shows (https://www.plugshare.com/location/146827) there are 8 Tesla destination chargers, each rated at 16KW (66.66666 amps @ 240 VAC).
Your "super useful" map doesn't seem to say much. Or is there something I missed?
-Don- Kingman, AZ (RV with Zero DS)
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Seems to me that Plugshare shows a lot more. For an example, here it shows (https://www.plugshare.com/location/146827) there are 8 Tesla destination chargers, each rated at 16KW (66.66666 amps @ 240 VAC).
Your "super useful" map doesn't seem to say much. Or is there something I missed?
-Don- Kingman, AZ (RV with Zero DS)
There is something you missed.
(https://i.imgur.com/brctyX7.jpg)
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Do I have to repeat this?
No, readers would already have had an understanding of your personal concept of "long distance". But among my club, 130 miles is the average for a Saturday ride 10am-3pm, and up to 400 for a summer loop through the Sierras, or even three days of that. Ignoring the Iron Butt loonies.
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No, readers would already have had an understanding of your personal concept of "long distance". But among my club, 130 miles is the average for a Saturday ride 10am-3pm, and up to 400 for a summer loop through the Sierras, or even three days of that. Ignoring the Iron Butt loonies.
Shhhh, if you ignore the crazy attention seekers they'll eventually get confused and go away
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Thank you Mark. The SR/x bikes do sound disappointing and hazardous. Since the battery characteristics don't differ significantly from Gen 2, I'd agree it's got to be a firmware problem. It would be one thing if flawed range estimates were only used for display purposes on the GOM (guess-o-meter, as we call it on the Chevy Bolt Forum), but it sounds like these calculations are used in the decision to reduce propulsion. Over-engineering? It's worthy of a recall (or OTA update).
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I don't get it. Regardless of firmware, if the bike doesn't give the range Zero specifies (which it clearly can't, when you use the SOC as a guide) this is an open and shut case of battery warranty. Even if it is firmware bringing the bike to a dealer and asking for a battery replacement would be the logical course of action and would give Zero an incentive to fixing this.
If they start spinning a story about a firmware issue and the magic recharge stuff. The battery does no longer give the range/energy it specifies -> warranty replacement.
I know the problem would still persist after a swap, but this way Zero has an incentive of fixing this asap.
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I think it would be naive to think it worked that way. It's clearly not a battery problem. You'd think they'd be all over fixing that firmware, like, yesterday though, on account of it being so easy to fix. Sheesh.
Cas :)
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I think it would be naive to think it worked that way. It's clearly not a battery problem. You'd think they'd be all over fixing that firmware, like, yesterday though, on account of it being so easy to fix. Sheesh.
Cas :)
Yes it is naive, but it's the only thing a user can do in my opinion. The problem manifests itself as a bike with way less range as promised, hence a trip to dealer and a user request for a battery warranty. If it's a firmware fix that's good for Zero but as a user it's the only thing you can do to put pressure on Zero.
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I think it'd just cause Zero to dismiss or otherwise ignore your claims. They'll doubtless have a simple test for the battery that shows it to be working fine, and then you'll have wasted your time. Especially, anyway, as they know the firmware is the problem (they're not that stupid). But again... I wonder "out loud" why they aren't all over this, and again, I wonder what if this had been Tesla.
Cas :)
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Shhhh, if you ignore the crazy attention seekers they'll eventually get confused and go away
I see, you really can't take anything but adoration.
I have liked every one of your videos, I dislike one, and now I'm an 'attention seeker'?
What does that make yourself?
-Crissa
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I have liked every one of your videos, I dislike one, and now I'm an 'attention seeker'?
I think Morgan was referring to the nutter iron butters.
I really enjoyed the suspense and drama of this video, and it was edited really well. At the same time though, I feel this is showing more what the bike CAN'T do, rather than what it can, like what Long Way Up did for the Livewire. So although this is a realistic documentation of what it's like riding an SR/F with problems caused by the latest firmware, it'll definitely steer people away from buying a Zero, and I don't know how I feel about that.
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Well they're doing a part 2 after the firmware is fixed so that's fair.
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it'll definitely steer people away from buying a Zero, and I don't know how I feel about that.
In the case of your entertaining 400 mile taco adventure (Long Day Up), in 12 hours total your Energica used 50 kWh with 2.5 hours charging. On an SR/F that would have meant ~5 hours charging at 12kW, not terrible. But with the firmware such as it is, limping along for 800 miles would be... unpleasant.
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It took him 17 hours to go 324 miles. That's just under 20mph had he been driving the whole time.
And we absolutely look forward to making a part 2 where everything works as Zero intended it to.
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Indeed... by coincidence I regularly do a 325 mile trip to visit my mum, takes me 6 hours on my XAdv (and only uses 5 gallons of petrol, not bad)
Cas :)