ElectricMotorcycleForum.com
Makes And Models => Energica => Topic started by: robbar1 on May 07, 2024, 08:22:23 AM
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I bought ribelle 2023 with 1700 miles . got 3 cut offs . never charged to 100% . always some funny msgs about key not found and rear brake not released . returned to dealer who gave me 2023 ss9 with 6000 miles . again cut off and msgs about key and balancing issues where it takes forever to balance . also when it reach 40% suddenly drop in power and msg on the screen . you can be riding 70 MPH between trucks and the bike will lose power and go to some UM mode or something like that ! who is the idiot that thought it's a good idea to risk me like that?
in comparison I have the BMW CE 04 . what a pleasure . no balancing - no nothing . just take and ride . reliable . no funny msgs and no cutoffs and no sudden cut in power when reaching 40% . yes when you get to 20% the acceleration is weaker but no sudden drop in power . Energica should buy one BMW and ride it for few weeks and understand how electric motorcycle should be flawless .
the energica reminds my EUC unicycles made in china I used to ride . they try to push the largest battery available without the system around it that support it like good battery management and reliable power lines . and of course cut offs and people falling on their face .
the price of the BMW is half from the energica - I am not even talking about the TFT screen in the BMW that looks so futuristic - and you get in the energica a products that doesn't show the stability you expect from a 26,000$ product.
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I bought ribelle 2023 with 1700 miles . got 3 cut offs . never charged to 100% . always some funny msgs about key not found and rear brake not released . returned to dealer who gave me 2023 ss9 with 6000 miles . again cut off and msgs about key and balancing issues where it takes forever to balance . also when it reach 40% suddenly drop in power and msg on the screen . you can be riding 70 MPH between trucks and the bike will lose power and go to some UM mode or something like that ! who is the idiot that thought it's a good idea to risk me like that?
in comparison I have the BMW CE 04 . what a pleasure . no balancing - no nothing . just take and ride . reliable . no funny msgs and no cutoffs and no sudden cut in power when reaching 40% . yes when you get to 20% the acceleration is weaker but no sudden drop in power . Energica should buy one BMW and ride it for few weeks and understand how electric motorcycle should be flawless .
the energica reminds my EUC unicycles made in china I used to ride . they try to push the largest battery available without the system around it that support it like good battery management and reliable power lines . and of course cut offs and people falling on their face .
the price of the BMW is half from the energica - I am not even talking about the TFT screen in the BMW that looks so futuristic - and you get in the energica a products that doesn't show the stability you expect from a 26,000$ product.
Do you have the version 43 FW in those Energicas? See if you have an "about" listed somewhere with the FW number. If it does NOT show as "43", including if not found anywhere at all, you have the older FW that is full of bugs and especially when charging.
The FW will fix most, if not all of those issues.
-Don- Auburn, CA
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Ok well none of our bikes are doing that which is probably why there aren't lots of posts like this in the forum.
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both 43. well maybe I got the lemon ones .
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the only positive thing in the ordeal is the dealership that was great and wants to help. but what can they do when bike after bike fail? the problem is they are very far from me - like 5 hours drive so no immediate ability to come and get service .
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The BMW Ce04 aint exactly flawless, after an extensive series of charging errors we had the charge controller replaced in ours...which would be a $4000 item out of warranty. Then it happened again, also replaced under warranty. I note the second unit has a different part number, which seems to be a tacit acknowledgement they had a bad design that needed changing. From just a few interactions with other owners in Aus, it seems there has indeed been a high percentage of charge controller issues.
The BMW will does get noticebly less brisk under 50%, forcibly limits speeds to 110km/h under 30%, and i think its either 50km/h or 60km/h when it hits 15%. It will absolutely suddenly lose speed at those SOCs, scared the shit out of me the first time I found that out (its not in the owners manual)
The BMW does away with the obvious balacing by generally charging at a vastly lower C-rate (less than 0.8C), reserving a portion of the battery capacity (around 5%) and most critically by not display when it is balancing, it does it without telling you. Also AC ONLY charging using your own on-board unit, that only ever sees your battery is much simpler that DCFC.
$ for $ the enegica offers vastly superior performance, specification and range (although I totally agree on the screen and UI, it makes the hand-me-down aprillia screen on the energicas look like toys for poor kiddies). The suspension on the BMW is....adequate. The front brake is awesome, but do not take it on a track day, its only good for a few big stops.
BMW $774.19/kw power - Energica ss9 $587.5/kw power
BMW $2696.63/kwh battery - Energica $2186.0/kwh battery
BMW JJuan vs Energica Brembo
BMW homebrand basics suspension vs Energica Ohlins
Edit
Three other complaints, the lovely bright headlight will be full of condensation for a week after rain, the rear indicators will break off if a pedestrian looks at them too hard (at a $200 replacement cost) and the storage compartment sized exactly to not fit a helmet will jam shut randomly.
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I bought ribelle 2023 with 1700 miles . got 3 cut offs . never charged to 100% .
Can you please explain what you mean with 'never charged to 100%'? Did you never charge it to 100% yourself (SOC limit applied) or did the bike stop charging before 100%? If you don't charge to 100% regularly, or before every ride, cells will develop unbalance, resulting in cell voltage warning messages in lower-mid SOC.
Last Friday I have driven my bike home to 1% SOC. Only at 3% SOC I got the cell voltage message and short limp mode (was applying full throttle). My bike has 42.000 km on the odometer.
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the Ribelle didn't reach 100% . would stop always at 96% after that 90%, 88% and back 96 . the ss9 gets to 100% but when I want to ride in the morning it starts from 98% . to day i was riding and at 39% i get the limp msg . I wish it was at 3% . 39% limp mode !
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The BMW Ce04 aint exactly flawless, after an extensive series of charging errors we had the charge controller replaced in ours...which would be a $4000 item out of war
I find the BMW much more stable unit . I can agree on the back lights - they are plastic that only waits to break but the rest is really hands down for the BMW . you push a buttons and the screens run in front of your eyes . everything works flawlessly . I don't think BMW is charging only to 0.8C . I read somewhere that they make their own batteries. compartment size is better than the zero compartment in the energica . but I don't really care about all that . i am talking about the stability of the system. the flow of the ride . i get msgs all the time about missing FOB key , to release the back brake , at 39% Limp mode , i got in both motorcycles cut offs ( on the ribelle it almost cost me my life the first time ) . So far zero issues with the BMW vs. so many issues with the energica . at least for me with the bikes I had .
I admit I got the BMW brand new and the Energicas came pre owned .
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The 100%-->98% after standing and some cooling down is totally normal behaviour. The limp mode at 39% is absolutely not normal and sounds like one or more cells reach lower safety limit. Unfortunately I cannot judge battery balance and cell health, but you should really contact the dealer in writing. If you balance the battery multiple times (cycle balancing again when full, apply low amps), maybe you can improve. I do agree with you that the bikes have too many digital glitches. I think Energica know, but struggle with man power.
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I had some issues with my bike's battery 2 years ago as well, it took a while, but Energica made it right.
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the Ribelle didn't reach 100% . would stop always at 96% after that 90%, 88% and back 96 . the ss9 gets to 100% but when I want to ride in the morning it starts from 98% . to day i was riding and at 39% i get the limp msg . I wish it was at 3% . 39% limp mode !
If limp mode activates at 39% SOC, you have a weak cell or weak cell group that hits low voltage cut-off under acceleration. How hard were you working the throttle when limp mode activated? The cell group responsible for system keep-alive @ 12V protected by 315mA fuse will not always balance on the first charge cycle after a long storage interval when not using LPR - that's been my experience.
Older firmware will clearly indicate when the pack is not balanced, as in the Ribelle you tested @ 96% after charge is complete. Forcing another balance session or two or three is all that is required to get the keep-alive cell group back up to balance. Suggest you try this on the SS9 because me thinks the newer firmware masks this issue.
My bike (now) charges to 100% SOC on every third charge cycle and the only time limp mode has ever activated was @ <10% SOC when the pack was forced to 0% for diagnostic reasons. Generally, it never dips below 20% SOC when riding. Firmware version 37.
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Try to leave the thing plugged in overnight to balance on an AC charge, try this a few nights in a row. It will charge up to what it can, balance, might drop a percent or two as the batteries do their thing and eventually balance out. The battery will also, once charged, try to recharge on it's own every few hours I believe, to try to trickle up if it is still down below 99 percent.
If you have left the bike sit for a long while without a good balancing charge, or many cycles without a good balance, then yes it can give you errors at lower percentages due to the unbalance per battery / per arm, getting bigger as they discharge.
This is not ruling out the possibility that you got a bad battery, but on two bikes? How long did whomever had them, have them sitting, and did they take care of them properly if they sat for months before being sold? If they did not charge them properly or store them properly, which I can EASILY see happening with a dealer, then they will act up until finally charged up and balanced properly, for it to get a top reference point.
Aaron
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Hello, I got similar issues. Super frustrating! Asked Stefano and their parts guy if they know what the problem could be and all I got is a no reply. But when it came to sending all that money they were more than happy to help.
Ok back to the issue, so in order to balance the pack completely to 100 % you should once the bike finishes charge unplug and plug again until it reaches 100% indicated. You will most likely have to do it a few times since the bike times out early before the complete balance. That's also what Energica seems to recommend. But the issue that I have is the charging current would fluctuate while charging. I will try to charge to 100 more often hoping that would resolve the issue.
I love the bike but damn super annoying....I have the newest 43 firmware
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If the bike has sat for a while and was unproperly stored, ie long term storage not activated (or whatever term they use, it has escaped me at the moment), or if it has been used and short cycled several times, then YES, the batteries may become unbalanced, and you will need to give it a good long balancing charge.
I will explain in detail, this will get nit picky and fairly long, so iWARNING:
f you are one of those, TicTard educated Z tards, it's over 5 seconds TLDR types, just move on now.
One of the key factors to determine if a battery is properly balanced is comparing voltages, whether it be cell voltages, arm voltages, whatever. As little as a 50 millivolt difference can trigger an 'unbalanced' situation. At this point, the system may try to balance the entire battery pack for ideal performance.
50 mV is NOT a hell of a lot of difference, you will never feel it / see it / taste it/ etc. it is small, but IS important in battery world.
When you charge a battery, the current going through the battery can artificially raise the voltage during charge, (you need volts to PUSH the amps into the battery) The more amps you need to push thru, like a fast charge, the more volts above the batteries terminal voltage you need to push it.
If you are pushing 50 AMPS into your battery, it's impractical to try to measure 50 thousandths of ONE VOLT. Or even measuring the amps you DO push down to 50 thousandths of ONE amp. Besides, the false raised voltage you are putting on that battery is probably 2 or 3 volts by now, probably more, making the measurement of 50 Thousandths of ONE volt you need pretty useless at that point TBH.
So, if you need an accuracy of 50 millivolt, how do you obtain that kind of precision without overshooting it? You use lower amps to charge it. Lower amps means you need lower OVER voltage to push it.
So now, you are only pushing oh maybe half an amp, a third of an amp? Small enough that your amp meter on your dash that has a resolution of 1 FULL amp increments, .. is not high enough to push it to the next number yet, so reads zero amps charging current. BUT current is still flowing
Oh my bike says it's balancing but it's showing zero wtf????
If they had the resolution in the amp meter of say 3 digits, it'd be showing something like 0.225 amps 0.414 amps etc. It don't, so you see ZERO. Get one of those Kill A Watt or cheap power meters off the internet and you can easily see this.
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Back to your battery.
Short cycling them, especially multiple times, and NOT doing a periodic balance is a great way to throw the pack out of balance.
I ride 43 miles back and forth to work every day. My pack goes from 72 to 96 percent charge. Ive done this for a few weeks now without a full on balancing charge. Guess what, your battery is pretty significantly unbalanced ! You probably will not notice it until you start getting to the ends of it's limits, ie your charge is very low, or your power draw is very large. THEN this unbal will start to manifest itself in symptoms. It's sluggish, this alarm blips in and out etc. The longer you cycle it w/o a balance charge, the worse the unbalance will grow until eventually you will have no choice BUT to attend to it.
Charging your battery:
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Charge your battery with the AC charger, not the fast charger. Remember, you NEED something that is designed for and can handle very low amps for that final 'fine tuning' your battery needs. DC does not provide this. DC was not designed for fine charging, DC was designed for bulk / fast charging. USE YOUR AC.
Let's say your battery is at 95 percent. Lets say it sees a 50 ma plus unbalance, THIS is enough to throw it into a balance mode. NOW it tries to fine tune our batteries. Let's say it's using 1 amp charge current (even though it CAN use even a fraction of that).
A 20 KW battery pack, at 95 percent, you need 1 kw of energy into it to get it fully charged. The battery, nominally is at 300 - 330 volts. At one amp you are putting roughly 300 Watts into that battery. NOT KILO watts, just single ole watts. Some fast math, you'll need 3 or so hours to charge it up that final 5 percent.
Oh but wait, you are only putting HALF an amp into it, ok fine, now you need 6 hours, 1/3 of an amp, ok you need 9 hours for that final 5 percent.
Yes this FInal few percent, to fine tune, can take up most of a fine day.
Real life example.
I run my bike on the track, I pretty much go from 72 percent / 75 / 80 percent.... up to 95/96 percent, up and down, again and again and again.
I don't run it to 100 percent, as I need some room for my regen / *engine braking* to go. sp typically stop it from 94 to 96 percent, ideally 95.
I recharge it after every 20 minute session. Max performance each time, each start. One less variable to look at when examining performance.
Your lap time was slow, well battery was at same load, EVERY time, so it's not that, ok moving on.
Doing this for a few weeks, cycling the charge probably 8 times a day, for 3- 4 days in a row, for weeks on end, and no balance charge.
After a month or so, I found myself with the battery wanting to balance itself down to like 82 percent. It'd start off at like 10 amps out of 30, quickly drop tp like 5 amps out of 30 then shoot up and trip the high voltage, ok it's CHARGED and shut down.
WHen I finally DID put an AC charger on it to fine charge, yes, it began balancing at 82 percent,but only took 4 amps. 4 was all it could take w/o pushing over 50 ma ;/ mv on the error. It come up to 87 percent and was running 2 amps. at 90 percent, 1 amp was flickering on and off. From 90 to 93 we were playing 1 amp, then it just went to zero, but every hour or so, we'd gain a percent charge. So it ran, we yapped and drank. It ran... we yapped. finally 4 or sohours later, ding, the battery is finally charged, pull out the plug and you are good
100 percent, battery is charged. Cool, turn it off for the night WELL DONE!!
Your percent charge is very dominant on terminal VOLTAGE. You've been slow cooking this battery most the day, it is well warm, well balanced, evenly warmed thru and thru, at 100 percent. But now, after cooling down from 96 Degrees F down to like 74 Degrees F *your room temp* OOF, the chemical action is a bit slower, we lost some volts, dammit, it's now saying 97 percent charge and I dindu nufffins!! THe battery is BAD !
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NO, the battery is NOT bad, they DO self discharge every day as part of their own diagnostics and monitoring. and chemical reactions. This is normal.
A few percent drop off a fresh charge to an overnight next morning colder reading is normal don't sweat it
A balancing cells message while charging annoying, slows the progress down, but don't sweat it,
A balancing cells showing zero but it's sub balancing, you may want to look into, where are those micro loads coming from? especially if it's happening frequently
THis is a lot but it grows on you with time so you'll get the hang of it pretty quick.
\and if you ever do need to get rid of a batt you pooched Ill gladly take it off your hands.
I recondition and reuse them in my power wall, currently at 232 kw.
Aaron
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^^^ Well said sir!
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^^^ Well said sir!
I didn't understand it because balancing is not about selective cell charging...it's about collective discharge of the runt cells (ones w/ lowest capacity) that allows healthy ones (ones w/ highest capacity) to fully charge... In Energica's case we have the 12V keep alive group that are likely the best cell grades of the bunch given the task to wake up ECU...
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Thanks Specter or Arron. I love the bike, enjoy it every time I take it out. It is somewhat complicated for a normal person that's not that familiar with all these specific details. Charging should be easy, plug and play. But I do wish they had active balance where you don't need a full charge to balance just like Tesla does. You set the limit and the bike is balanced at all times.
And I read the whole post, thank you so much for taking your time to write it up. I want my bike to run properly, this stuff is important.
Thanks
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You are very welcome fly.
I agree with you, I wish there was a passive system in there.
I have one on my own cells at home, it's really a stupidly simple system, essentially a sort of Wheatstone bridge almost. It looks across the cells and if they unbalance it slides power from the higher ones to the lower ones to keep them all even. You can put it on a single arm across EACH battery if you so desire. You can add an external charger to keep the voltages topped, however with Lith, this is NOT generally a desired way to do it.
I run 48 volts on one of my main inverter setups. It's 4x 12 volt batteries. I put one of these between each battery. It keeps them all balanced. The same principal can be done inside each battery cell, lets say it is 4x 3 volt arm cells to give you the 12 volt battery. ok you balance each 3 volt arm.... or however you want to do it, you can get as complicated or simple as you want.
It's not very expensive either, and best of all, it's PASSIVE. I would assume though, the reason the bike and car manu's don't do this is because while this type of balancing runs great at lower voltages, when you look at the overall dielectric strength of the components, they may not like seeing 300 or more volts impressed on them during 'events'. Well this diode has insulation up to 100 volts, is awesome in a 12 volt system, but when you start stringing them together, and now the entire 'group' has a potential of 300 volts, suddenly that 100 volt insulation resistance does not mean very much does it.
As for your bike, you do NOT have to balance it every trip / recharge. But Id say once a week, lets say sunday nights, throw the thing on the wall charger, 115 or 240 volt, depending on where in the world you live, and let it steep overnight, get a nice full charge and you should get plenty of years out of it.
Remember, lith technology, they warranty it for 1200 cycles, that is FULL cycles, not just swings. So doing the math, you'd have put put well over 100k miles on your bike, realistically, to be reaching these edges of your charge cycle warranty.
Aaron
Aaron
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Def, that makes sense. I will charge to full at least once a week from now on to see if things improve. For now the only thing that bugs me is when charge current keeps fluctuating, most of the time I have it set to 14 amp. So like today it got up to 70% and started dipping to 6 amp and ramping up to 14 before dipping again. Wasn't doing that before. Bike is Eva '22 my with a little over 10k miles. Runs like a champ, looks new too, I keep it clean haha.
Think they said tested for 1200 or 1300 cycles at DC fast charge and that's why they increased the warranty to five years instead of three. As for me I rarely charge DC, that's only if I extend my ride and can't get home with remaining charge.
Sounds good Arron
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My racing bike will do that too on the first charge after sitting a few days, it'll hunt all over the place once it's in a balancing mode, but as soon as I get the percent down to where it's back into normal charge mode, uhh, mid 80s percent wise? then from that point on the charge is like you'd expect it to be. It'll do this in both AC and DC charge mode once it hits balancing.
Sometimes I'll put it up right after a run with 70 percent or so on it, im tired it's the last run of the day, it's getting ready to rain, whatever, I say ehh, and put it up for the night . Being monday, up for the night means a week or two :D. This is when I see that manifest it seems.
Not entirely sure WHY, but yah it is kind of annoying because it slows down the first charge of the day. Maybe because I just romped the hell out of the pack, and put it back like that, they are out of balance enough to cause it to go in that mode? At first I thought, hmm do I have a weak cell, but if that was the case it'd be doing this EVERY time, not just after a long set and only the first one.
Definitely sounds like a balance issue, give it a FULL charge, even if it's sitting there showing zero, but still says balancing, let it run, over night if it has to. If you come back the next morning, and it says 98 or 99 percent, even if it says charge complete, start it up again, maybe have to do this a few times until you get a good solid FULL charge where it does hit 100 percent and then says complete. This way you KNOW it has a full charge, the batteries are nice and packed and absolutely balanced, and have a good clean starting point.
If you do restart the charge at say 98 99 percent and it keeps going for half an hour, an hour etc, then it probably was that time out turn off someone talked about? Because if it was fully charged and stopped, it should very quickly, like 10 minutes or so, hit full charge again and terminate.
Make sure you have the bike off, ie no sitting there with the lights on etc, stuff to drain the battery down while it's sitting. that little bit of draw could goof with a charge Id imagine.
As for FW 43 being the culprit, I am going to have to say NO. My race bike has it's own custom software on it and does the same thing so it'd be hard to blame it on 43when it happens other places too.
Otherwise, Ditto !! I have the 23 Ribelle and LOVE IT !! Only complaint I have is it being capped at 125. This really sucks on a track... and well...not supposed to say this, but a nice sunday morning, no traffic,... it can suck other times too :P Too bad youa re not around Jax, we could go for a run together.
Aaron
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thank you for your explanation. I wonder why Tesla and my BMW ce 04 don't have these issues . never saw my BMW struggle for hours to balance. I mean it's the same technology and same electrical theory .
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I can't speak for the BMW ce 04, but Tesla's cars have enough energy to spare for periodic cell balancing throughout the day, plugged in or not.
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Price point drives design.
Low weight drives motorcycle design.
Energica made the choices it made as a compromise, as is always the case in real world engineering choices.
They could make the battery as perfect as a Tesla or BMW, they could improve the charging, cooling and balancing, but then even fewer folks would buy them due to the price point moving out into the realm of unobtanium for most.
As it is, too few people are buying electric motorcycles for the industry to thrive.
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I can't speak for the BMW ce 04, but Tesla's cars have enough energy to spare for periodic cell balancing throughout the day, plugged in or not.
Is that why Tesla can lose 1% SOC per day when not plugged in?
Teslas must be left plugged in when gone for a month. My Chevy Bolt will not lose a single SOC during the same time that my Tesla will drop 30 SOC, when both not plugged in.
“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”
? Thomas Sowell
-Don- Auburn, CA
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Is that why Tesla can lose 1% SOC per day when not plugged in?
Teslas must be left plugged in when gone for a month. My Chevy Bolt will not lose a single SOC during the same time that my Tesla will drop 30 SOC, when both not plugged in.
1% per day is not normal. You may see an initial drop in the first couple days or so but the car will go into a hibernation mode of sorts. It's very important to not open the Tesla app while it's in long term storage as it'll wake the car up.
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I It's very important to not open the Tesla app while it's in long term storage as it'll wake the car up.
I think that was my issue, I was checking it too often when away, when it was not plugged in. So now I know not to check it when away, as that will wake it up for a couple of days or whatever.
Thanks for the info. I never even thought about that.
-Don- Auburn, CA
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I've done thousands of miles between balances on occasion (including a significant delve into reserve power on one occasion) and so far my bike is fine. I'd say balancing isn't really something you need to worry about on a weekly basis.
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Id balance once a month unless you are frequently going to the outer edges either way on the percentage or run your bike in extreme conditions, ie a racetrack as an example.
a 20 / 80 range is pretty good, and would not need a balance that often. Every cycle the batteries may imbalance slightly, and over time yes it will add up, but unless you are pushing it to the extremes it should not harm your performance or battery pack.
Aaron