However it was reliable enough for me to find the inherent flaw in the Zero design: lack of battery cooling of any sort. I couldn't go more than 120-150 miles in a given day before it would stop recharging (I live in the southern US, 108F days are not unheard of, hell it's 65F right now and we aren't even out of January) once we got past spring. The final straw was when it overheated while charging after a total of 90-miles ridden on an 80F overcast day.
Would you mind elaborating on this? I don't fully understand the issue here.
With a 90% payload on a 80F+ day, the most I could travel on the bike was roughly 150mi before it would overheat and refuse to charge. A normal weekend is between 300-500 miles for me during riding season (March-October), on top of any commuting needs. I put 6500 miles on this bike in about 5 months, to give you an idea for my use case (and expectations). There are a few memorable times where it failed to charge: the first one was when I wanted to go check out new ChargePoint stations (installed under the Duke Energy Coal Ashe Remediation Fund) in I think it was Hamlet, NC (I'd need to check the map). I made it to Sanford on a single charge (was very low - 10% or so), and the battery was already at 113F when I parked and plugged in. Nearly all charging infrastructure, especially in small towns, is outside in direct sunlight. Black battery, lucite-encased primatic pouches, no heat fins, and a bottom-mounted EVSE that's used even when the Level 2 (which does have a fan) is active = reached 118F around 90%. I had to make the call, do I make the next leg and possibly get stuck in this place for 8+ hours (cool down and recharge time), or do I call off this trip and head to Durham to charge at my friends house and go for a swim. Opted for Durham, and it stopped charging within 4 hours of being plugged in. I had enough juice to get it home via backroads. It was well over 100F on this trip, the whole day.
The final straw was an overcast Sunday where the high was 81F. The bike had ~88% SOC when I headed out at 8am for a 30-mile joyride. I never exceeded 55mph. I rode to the brunch spot and plugged it into a 120v outlet and it charged for ~1.5 hour. Ride it another 40-ish miles, all but 7 are highway 70+, and plugged it in at my friends house. It stopped charging due to battery reaching 122F within a few hours (but I was above 50% so I could take the highway home). I traded it the following Wednesday, and didn't look back.
Let's contrast to the Energica. I rode it over 250 miles the Saturday morning after I got it (nearly a week to the day I said I'm done with Zero), 50-60 miles between DC Charges with a total of 4 back to back charges (the longest lasting 32min). Battery temp would go yellow (warm) after the charge and returned to green (normal/cool) within the 45min-1hr ride between stations. I did this in a little under 6 hours with charging. The longest trip I took on the Zero was 213 miles (one-way) to Myrtle Beach and it took me about 13 hours to get there on the 2017 SR.
I bought the bike with 150mi, it had 300mi on it less than 48 hours later, and crossed 1000 miles before I'd had it a week. I have plans to put ~7000 miles on the energica this summer just in trips to visit Electrify America stations around the southern US (VA, NC, TN, SC, GA, AL).
