Zero FXS owner here, your power bar wasn't indicating regen was active, you probably needed to ride the bike forward a few more feet before towing it. I can confirm while being towed by my supermoto friends you can tow charge a Zero motorcycle. *Edit* You do NOT have to press the brake, it activates as engine breaking in all modes with different levels of regen. If you don't first give it throttle regen will NOT activate.
Lol. Who cares. Even if you're charging it en route to your destination, there's still alot of wear involved while towing.....tire,chain/belt,bearings etc
@@hitekredneck109 Is there more wear and tear form towing than from riding? Not likely. In a tight spot it'd be great to know that it can be charged while towing, especially if no trailer or truck is available.
I have a zero ds too with 14.4kwh battery. I can typically do 200km. Going down to 160km if I include a lot of highway. Basically you can ride for 2 to 2.5 hours before you have to take a break. Which is perfectly fine for me. After 2 hours I need a break anyway. And I like it a lot that I do not annoy anybody else with excessive noise.
@@tonymartin346america used the metric system in some areas and ALL vehicles in production now days have metric bolts and stuff as well. May wanna learn it…
And once again, another great video where a bike just bought is actually tested in reality. No click bait, just "let's see if it can"..... This is how bike testing video's should be done.
But not reading the instructions,oblivious to charging points and how to use them and the cost of charging at home,Ignorant of the kwh cost,in relation to gas,Yes we want to go green at least the brainwashed ones,And most believe electric is the way forward,But here in the UK,We don't have deserts so loads of sunshine isn't on the card,fare bit of wind,Thats about it for renewable energy 27% the balance nuclear power and the dreaded "fossil fuels" hybrids stand a better chance,But my suggestion will have Americans in more fear the nuclear! Hydrogen no not Saturn 5 rocket fuel,Tap water H2O the h is the Hydrogen and the o is the oxygen released into the atmosphere,We have buses and taxes than run on it,Water vapour from the exhaust,I was hoping to find a link but will keep looking
@@Johnketes54 petrol here in England is very expensive compared to the state's, but hydrogen power was dangerous before now, not sure how safe it is now but I do know a lot of big car manufacturers are seriously looking into it now.
Correct me of I'm wrong, but I think to recuperate energy through braking, the brake of the bike must be pulled. Otherwise the system just sails along because it thinks you are just rolling letting the Air Resistance slow you down. Equally to a vehicle with an ICE, when you Release the Clutch and let it roll without braking. Maybe they did pull the brake and I Overhead it.
On some electric motors you can to set the level of regenerative braking when the throttle is released. I thought the switch to eco mode would have worked
Didn't realize the older DSR looks just like the older SR. My 2018 SR 14.4kw gets about 75miles riding hard thru the mountains. Cost about $2 to fill up, $0.16 per kw. When towing regen you need to hold the front brake. That is what activates regen under the Zero settings. Unless you do the custom setting to do regen while coasting.
@@BikesandBeards It is actually a two stage regen. 1st is off throttle, has light regen. Second is brake switch activated (same as brake light switch), stronger regen. But don't expect the regen to feel like down shifting engine braking. 1st stage feels like 5th or 6th gear engine braking. 2nd stage feels like 4th or 3rd gear engine braking. Lots of time I just want to slow with regen instead of brakes but 1st stage is too soft so I'll lightly activate brake just enough to activate brake lights to go into 2nd stage regen.
You can set up 100% regen in coasting mode in Custom mode in the Zero app. Regen on a bike is only useful in city riding as far as range extension goes, because at highway speeds you never get all the way off the throttle even going down steep hills.
FYI: Regen only works if you are "breaking". It uses power to assist breaking, by "generating" power to create the resistance. The more you break, the more it switches to manual breaks.
This is not true, regarding Zero motorcycles. There is neutral regen, which occurs whenever you let off the throttle, it's equivalent to engine braking. There is also brake regen, which happens when you pull the brakes. These are separate types of regen and both are customizable on a Zero, you can set either between 0% and 100% in a custom riding mode. The reason this likely didn't work is they needed to set Neutral Regen to 100% in the app, and, after keying on the bike, they needed to hit the throttle, to engage the drivetrain and get the bike into "idle". If you simply key on the bike and never hit the throttle, it's not "running" yet. So no regen will happen. You'll notice that the moment you touch the throttle on a Zero that you start hearing a whine even if it's sitting still, that's the motor encoder etc. It shuts off after a few seconds to save energy.
@@JosiahKuenzi The issue here is that you are simply robbing power and energy from the tow vehicle. Great if you want to recharge while driving to a riding spot and don't care about the energy usage. Less so if you wish to save money or burn less gas.
@@TheNicksievers he mighta thought it works like some cars, where you turn regen on and in place of braking your car will feel like its "engine braking" which is charging the batteries. no pushing of the brake pedal required.
@@TheNicksievers that's literally what it does, the esc just wants a signal on this bike to start it because it's going to make you slow down since the bike doesn't weigh much. Don't be so confident in your stupidity in the future.
cycling the bike from 100% to a complete stop may have recalibrated the battery so maybe you'll get more accurate battery gauge although it's always nice to have a small buffer when you reach 0% to get you to the next charger instead of needing a tow. I think you can also use a mobile charging service that drives to you with a battery powered charger that gives you the extra charge you need
It probably hits 0% once the battery voltage falls below what’s necessary for the rated performance. The bike is not limiting the speed, it just cannot physical go faster with the voltage.
@@Finder245 you're right that battery at lower state of charge have lower power output. also the motor can't make as much power or top speed from the lower voltage. but usually power doesn't just go down gradually since some limitation from the controller or BMS kicks in and suddenly reduces power output (limp mode). I think the zero motorcycle battery cells are high discharge which explains why they keep decent torque even at 0%, and also because all the torque is available low, you don't need 100% of the torque to make the. bike still feel quick
@@geemy9675 I used to work on an electric vehicle as an engineer, so I am familiar with how these systems work. As the battery discharges, its voltage also decreases. The motor has a “Kv” rating that limits the maximum RPM achievable with a certain voltage. As the battery voltage drops, eventually it reaches a point where the power may still be available, but the voltage is too low to get you to acceptable speeds. This is a physical limitation and not a limit imposed by the controllers. We would consider this to be 0% since the remaining energy is not really useful. It might let you limp for a while though, so no beed to cut power completely until the battery voltage gets close to where it could cause permanent damage.
I've been reading about ZERO for a while since they're right down the coast from my home. They're making groundbreaking bikes. They're exploring that envelope and pushing the boundaries. They're really good at what they do... They're not that inexpensive, used, here in Cali...
@@clvrswine Not 'that' inexpensive. The one word changes the meaning of the claim. I think he is right to say that they are not that inexpensive. They are not prohibitively expensive like an electric car is. They are expensive.
@@SirNarax"they're not that inexpensive"... Are you a lawyer or politician? Who TF talks like that? Reminds me of that impractical jokers show "don't stop letting people not help"
Honestly I always thought these bikes were stupid, but after watching this vid I’m considering buying a used zero as a second bike for commuting. I live in a pretty big city and don’t commute more than like 20 miles a day ever so I don’t see why not. Sean is the only guy who could’ve even made me start considering this what a legend
These are the best bikes for commuting in the city! I have one and was living in Los Angeles and it was great. When you have 32 traffic lights in 5 miles, you will appreciate the lack of clutch. Plus it doesn’t get hot when you’re stuck in traffic. So easy to lane split (which is legal in California and you would never get anywhere if you didn’t). I rarely paid to charge it using public chargers, otherwise it’s about $10 or less a month to charge (depending on what the charging company charges, the most I’ve paid to charge was $1.95 at ChargePoint in West Hollywood from 15%, but it was usually .75 cents-$1.00 per charge from 20-30%).
New rider....but all about electric bikes. My buddies who ride are against electric. I know they aren't good cruisers but as commuting bikes they are awesome. Five more years and they will be getting great range, chargers will be prevalent, and quick refills. Just hope prices on bikes drop.
That is the ONLY reason imo to get an electric motorcycle. I rode the Zero SR/S a couple weeks ago. As a Ducati and aprilia and Moto guzzi owner, these electric bikes have nothing for me, EXCEPT commuting. Keep the start cycles off my ICE vehicles and charge overnight. Like riding a really powerful sewing machine. But they’ll get the job done as long as pure fun and exhilaration are NOT the goal. I’m not down on ev motorcycles. But they’re competing with the wrong bikes. CHEAP(er) electric grom/versys300/super cub equivalents would be the sweet spot until we can get 200+ highway miles on one charge. Ryan f9 did a cost analysis. Compared to a KLR 650, the electric Zero FX isn’t a better deal (maintenance /fuel/parts) until AFTER 30,000 miles. knowledge is power. Don’t buy one for savings. Buy one to keep start/stop cycles off your ICE vehicles.
@@JpOcDenver LOL what a maroon. You haven't actually ridden a Zero if you think they're anything other an absolute blast, especially in the corners. The only reason NOT to get a Zero (other than the lack of customer support) is the lack of DC fast charging, which will forever constrain them to short trips or joyrides. But if you *really* want to get your mind blown get an Energica. They do *everything* well and have DC fast charging.
@@muskiet8687I mean if you ride bikes you’d know most gas motorcycles with a stock exhaust are quieter than the wind noise at highway speed. Not to mention, I like my bike to be as loud as it legally can be because drivers have a hard time seeing bikes. If they can’t see me they’re damn well gonna hear me coming.
20-30% of the LION battery is reserved. You probably shouldn't drain it lower than that because it adversely affects recharge cycles, but the bike likely allows you to go farther if you really need to.
As a commuter, it would make sense ..or so you would think. It depends highly in your commute. I tried a zero fxe with 160km ot range supposedly. My work has chargers so that would have been ideal. My commute is 60km one way, mostly highway. The range drops extremely fast on the highway, after 15 minutes , it went down to 80km, doing 120km/h. Another 10min later, it was down to 50. So you start to realise that you have to slow down to 90km/h behind a lorry to get some range back. And I was thinking to myself..what the hell am I doing. And they are not cheap. I know there is a expansion pack etc...but it's expensive. If your commute is like 20km in city traffic, go for it. Any highway miles that are longer than 30 min, better forget about it .
its what is called the peaukert effect, the faster you pull amps out of a battery the less amp hours the battery will give, thats why they do much better about town where the battery gets recovery breaks than constant full tilt on a highway, you can overcome this by having a bigger battery (which might sound obvious) but the load will be shared over more cells, therefore, the load on the individual cells will be less (which is what tesla opted to do having the capacity in a car to carry more cells than just ample which they also use to extend the lifetime of the battery by not fully charging it and not fully discharging it ie having a battery twice the size required will extend the range well in excess of twice as far and not fully charging and discharging will extend the cycle life of the pack) unfortunately there is a practical limit the size a battery pack can be on a motorcycle which limits the number of cells you can carry, i think a trike would be a much better base for an electric motorcycle for longer distances given current battery technology, i know it all sounds obvious but doubling the battery size gives a lot more than double performance back because of the peaukert effect for the same reason you get more miles if you sip the power and ride slowly
Wrong bike for 60km highway. The FXE has only half the battery size of the S ore DS. Zero claimed 160km in town and 64km at 113kmh. The range drops because of the high current on higher speeds. So the internal software recalculates the possible range at your actual riding style.
It can never make sense with current technology ;-) So unless there is some crazy breakthrough you can forget about electric motorcycle. Especially if you are not asian guy of 165cm/65kg. Otherwise ALL of them have similar range be it bike for 4500 USD or 14500 USD ;-) Plus like 90% of those under 15k USD do not have quick chargers so it takes 4 and more hours to charge. You can't replace your gas bike with this for next dozens of years. And things like Zero and such do not make economical sense at all. The place where it makes sense are e-MTB stuff or trial. Next will be MX/enduro races. But street.... Purely electric was wrong idea in 19th century and good to see that nothing changed 😀
This is gonna be long but I hope it helps to clear up confusion over regen.. People often assume that an electric bicycle will have regenerative braking, or that it will charge up as you pedal. Both assumptions are incorrect, and in this blog post we explain to you why. “Does it charge as you pedal?” This is a question frequently asked about electric bikes. The simple and quick answer is no - there is virtually no point charging the battery with your pedal power, because you would be taking away some of your leg power from pushing you forward, to convert it into battery energy (losing some in the process), to then convert it back into mechanical power via the motor, to push you forward. It makes much more sense just to use all of your leg power to drive you forward! The motor should be run off of a battery that can carry a huge amount of energy, charged up from the mains power in your home a lot faster than you can charge it by pedalling. “Does it have regenerative braking”? This is an equally common question. Regenerative braking means capturing your kinetic (movement) energy as you brake, putting it back into the battery to be used again later instead of just wasting it as you stop. Because most hybrid electric cars have regenerative braking, the term is synonymous with “electric vehicle” and as such many people tend to assume that an electric bike will also capture and recuperate energy as you pedal or brake. “Why do no eBikes have regenerative braking?” However - almost no electric bikes have regenerative braking. Why? Because a person on a bike weighs about a lot less than a car. Therefore there is a lot less energy available to be captured (which is what regenerative braking does). When you cycle, 90% of your effort and energy goes into pushing you through the air which resists you as you move. Perhaps less than 10% is lost because you brake - so even in the best case scenario when you capture all of your kinetic energy when you brake, you’ll only go 10% further as a result. Don’t believe it?Let’s do the maths! Standard flat commute: how useful is regenerative braking? Imagine you cycle 20 miles on your 10Ah battery on a totally flat stretch of road. You’re going at 25kph which is 7 metres per second (nice and legal) and the total weight of you and your bike is 120kg. The equivalent energy of that is 1/2 mv^2 which is equal to 2,940 Joules of energy. This is the equivalent to just 0.022 Amp Hours in a 36V battery. Assuming that you have regenerative braking capturing that energy with 50% efficiency then you would have to stop 45 times in 20 miles to get just a 5% increase in range. Put another way, if you expect to come to a full stop 10 times during your trip (which seems reasonable), having regen braking would only increase your range by 0.22Ah which is just 2.2% increase. So all in all I think it is fair to say that for flat commutes regenerative braking is totally pointless. “Hilly commutes: any better?” Obviously a better use regenerative braking is for hills. The potential energy of you on a hill is mass x gravity x height. Let’s work out, for a 120kg eBike rider and ebike, how much height you would have to be expecting to climb and come down again to make regenerative worth it. Let’s say 20% increase in range So 2Ah with a 36V battery is equivalent to 259,200 Joules. Given a mass of 120kg, and gravity of 9.8, this gives a height of 220 metres But! Don’t forget the efficiency. With a 50% efficiency of regenerative braking that changes to 440 metres.… So there you have it - assuming you want increased range of at least 20%, if you don’t expect to climb more than 440 metres in your average commute then regenerative braking is not worth it. So where does all the energy go? The reason regenerative braking doesn’t help increase your range as much as you think, is that most of the energy from your battery is being used to combat air resistance. Because most of the energy from your battery is lost to air resistance, recopuing the kinetic energy as you brake doesn’t make much difference. So we suggest that instead of getting regenerative braking, try just wearing Lycra!
“Does it charge as you pedal?” If bicycles did this it would be just like carbon capture technology in its current state. I say *current state* because the technology is still work in progress, but right now the whole thing is pretty funny.
I am not sure why you think this but motorcycles do indeed have regenerative braking, including at least some models of Zero. The ones I am familiar with all do. Also while your point about a car being heavier and generating more energy due to regenerative braking is valid, cars also use much more energy for the same reasons. Bike regenerative braking generates less energy, but bikes also use much less energy and have smaller batteries.
All very interesting but completely irrelevant and wrong when it comes to electric motorcycles. Electric motorcycles are NOT ebikes, ebikes are push bikes with electric motors for assisting the rider.
Proud owner of a 2020 Zero SR, they are great for city-based riders, commuters... Zero unfortunately has taken a page out of Apple and Tesla's playbook by gating off the motor's full potential in its 2022 model year series... By locking off features already present in the motor they have really gut-punched the future of adaptation. Via their Cypher Store, Zero intentionally lessened the value of their products and created measures of obviously planned obsolescence, sure maintenance is minimal but the issue is this bike can't be repaired just anywhere and it creates issues for longevity with their firmware updates by creating an anti-consumer based eco-system.
It’s the instant torque that makes the Zero a traffic killer. No shifting, instant power delivery is the way to go. Battery life aside the performance thru traffic of a Zero is no contest.
I have a few answers for the regen braking problems you guys encountered. Loved the video though, these bikes are definitely worth the money, even second hand. You guys had to hit the brake lever at a certain speed, I think it's around 3 MPH when it engages. It won't work unless you pull the lever once at speed, I mean it's called regenerative braking for a reason. You don't want to brake every time you let off the throttle do you? Maybe you just want to coast at speed or downhill without losing speed or basically braking. Regenerative braking is for when you are using your normal brakes but a portion of the stopping power comes from the regen braking or KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) and in return it charges your battery. Or imagine you are coming to a stop at a red light and you are way ahead of the lights. You just tap/squeeze the brake lever once and it kicks in the regen braking and again slows you down but at the regen strength you choose. So you come to a full stop without using your mechanical brakes which in return puts more energy back into the battery than with both together. That's how it works, it would definitely be very interesting to see how much it would've recovered from all that towing. A follow up video would be desirable for sure!
This is not true, regarding Zero motorcycles. There is neutral regen, which occurs whenever you let off the throttle, it's equivalent to engine braking. There is also brake regen, which happens when you pull the brakes. These are separate types of regen and both are customizable on a Zero, you can set either between 0% and 100% in a custom riding mode. The reason this likely didn't work is they needed to set Neutral Regen to 100% in the app, and, after keying on the bike, they needed to hit the throttle, to engage the drivetrain and get the bike into "idle". If you simply key on the bike and never hit the throttle, it's not "running" yet. So no regen will happen. You'll notice that the moment you touch the throttle on a Zero that you start hearing a whine even if it's sitting still, that's the motor encoder etc. It shuts off after a few seconds to save energy.
Good point about the charging. I was thinking of purchasing this one for work, but it would be nice to have charging available for pleasure riding. Maybe Tesla could make extra $$$ by making adapters, and selling charging time to other non-Tesla owners. It would be nice if the display was larger, and had a built in GPS map showing the nearest charging station for this bike. I sure wish the regeneration option worked. It's good to know that at least I can charge while on the road.
@@sammmyDaviS they won’t be having those for long. Apparently Tesla hasn’t paid the property owners that those chargers are sitting on. They pay a monthly lease to those property owners and haven’t paid out to anyone in over 8months.😅 So maybe making an adapter and charging external customers that don’t have Tesla’s for charging would help recoup some of those leases.
On the electric vehicle stuff, in the city, electric bikes are sick! If you’re already in the market for one, it’s in your price range, your driving needs match up with the range (and available charging near you), or you just really want one; I guess go for it…
@@dustinflowers1914, say that you're on the interstate and have crested a mountain (Donner Summit) and are starting down a 50 mile downgrade to Sacramento. Dynamic braking should have the power to maintain speed and return power to the battery. Supposedly, Teslas do this.
I own a 2019 Zero SR (almost the exact same bike)... IT IS A BEAST around town. But only around town. Even thought it's a 2019, it's still got the same highway range as any new electric motorcycle. I.e. 70 miles. Then it's 4 hours to charge at a type-2 charging station. Here's the thing. I only wanted an "in city" motorcycle to commute and bop around on. It is perfect. I can commute 10 days on one charge (I have a short commute). I got mine used for $10k (3 years ago). Thing is, even if the battery life drops to 50% from new, I'd still only have to charge it once a week. (Best part, the local power company has a free charging station near my office. I have never had to pay for charging in the 3 years I've owned it... score...) - What's funny about this video is that the DSR comes with knobby tires so you can take it off-road. Someone put slicks on it. (Which is too bad)
Another video to keep me busy while being deployed overseas. I enjoy your videos man thanks for keeping me entertained during these months away from home.
3 smart things to do with an E-Bike 1. To not ride it on longer trips, rather doing short city runs n saving fuel 2. To not waste a lifetime waiting it to charge 3. To not measure 0-60 on a downhill... its so heavy it`ll make 10s just in neutral.
You can buy an adapter to charge from a charging station and plug it into the AC charger. It takes so long to charge because the slower the batteries charge the longer they last.
Tim, it’s James from HR. I’ll need tou to turn in your corporate laptop by Friday at 3pm. You’re being terminated for excessive tardiness. We wish you luck in your future endeavors.
You soon learn how to get the best out of them. I could do 10 miles on my Moonster and still show 100% charge. By leaving the brakes alone and rolling to a stop it put charge back into the battery faster than the charge units.
Literally every EV made today (except Tesla) uses a standard charger. Tesla didn't want to wait for the standard to be created and went with their own. Tesla announced they'll be introducing comparability soon.
There was no standard. Additionally, Tesla wanted other vehicle manufacturers to pay them to use their charging ports. Telsa is NOW making their stations universal due to the new Federal regulations on universal EV access. EV batteries ought to be interchangeable as well.
@@clark7117 the problem is that's not at all practical yet. Even with smaller batteries, the range would be so far diminished. That being said, solid state batteries are currently in development and may be a viable option for that.
Regardless of what the average EV cost is doesn't mean there aren't cheaper options available the Leaf/Bolt/egolf are all around the 30K MSRP but they have lower range (the bolt is higher) than the expensive Teslas. Batteries are the the real cost. If you have a secondary vehicle in your life which you can utilize for long distance travel then the addition of a EV can actually make a lot of economic sense... I'm also in Cali paying over $7 for diesel so the savings add up quick.
Plus it’s not that everyone should run out right now and buy or trade in for a electric vehicle, but should consider one when thinking about their next vehicle purchase.
Lots of people told me I should have gotten my wife an EV. Problem was they are double what the fiesta cost, at 31mpg average it would take the life of an EV to come close to breaking even. Add in thousands to get a charger installed at the house and its even longer.
@@randombuilds8336 With fuel costs varying so much from region-to-region it really is dependent on where you live. I think the economic incentive is really only there for people who live on a coastal state where gas prices are the highest vs the rest of the country and not only in a coastal state but also in a metropolis where there is decent charging infustructure. With the home charger you don't need some thousand dollar charger. You can just have a smart toggle on your dryer and the charging cable, $100 for a home charging set up.
@@motocache6645 Yeah, they'll be great in places like CA where you get told to turn your ac to a higher temp because there isn't enough electricity generation to run everyone's appliances.
@@randombuilds8336 lol. Hey, if you want to base your life around fake news where you need to spend thousands of dollars to charge from home and the CA power grid is imploding, I can't stop you.
ReGen in a EV comes from braking lol. It captures kinetic energy from braking and converts it in a tiny bit of charge. Currently Formula cars are hybrid and have the same technology. Whenever you see the “Brake light” in F1 cars, the driver is using regen to charge up the battery.
yea, I know how ReGen works, I explained it above. You're fixating on the fact that I said it happens during braking. Doesn't make any of what I said false.@@Magicinstalls
I'm not familiar with that bike but regen is usually triggered by braking. It uses the regen to substitute braking and charges while doing it. I'm not sure how much regeneration takes place while coasting, especially on a small vehicle like a bike.
This is not true, regarding Zero motorcycles. There is neutral regen, which occurs whenever you let off the throttle, it's equivalent to engine braking. There is also brake regen, which happens when you pull the brakes. These are separate types of regen and both are customizable on a Zero, you can set either between 0% and 100% in a custom riding mode. The reason this likely didn't work is they needed to set Neutral Regen to 100% in the app, and, after keying on the bike, they needed to hit the throttle, to engage the drivetrain and get the bike into "idle". If you simply key on the bike and never hit the throttle, it's not "running" yet. So no regen will happen. You'll notice that the moment you touch the throttle on a Zero that you start hearing a whine even if it's sitting still, that's the motor encoder etc. It shuts off after a few seconds to save energy.
@@protonus no, the reason this did not work is because the front wheel was not turning. The bike knows that the front wheel is not turning because of the front brake sensor. It will not activate Regen unless it knows it's on the road and not on the back of somebody's truck…
700 dollar electric scooter goes 32mph gets me everywhere my car used too, and in some cases faster. I can cruise past traffic, no need to worry about parking, or getting my car out the lot. Just on, and go. Ive honestly saved thousands on gas in the last couple years. Plus. its fun as hell! It really is the future, batteries are getting insane.
I believe you have to hold the brake "SLIGHTLY" to engage "DRAG" on the motor for "RE-GEN" to even work. you should def. try again with a rubber band or hair tie around the brake lever and roll it to charge.
Yes, and if you have a garage or access to a household current plug-an overnight charge regularly is a surefire way to keep the battery charged and lasting longer.
Complete opposite when it comes to the limp mode on these. My 2018 Zero S starts bogging down around 40% and limps at 10%. My Livewire even down to 3%, still had full power.
I'm open to these being a commuter tool. Just something to ride to work each day during the week. That is... if they bring down the cost these things and the cost of the replacement battery. The battery would also have to last 10 years or more and be serviceable by the end user. I'm hesitant for the simple fact that you will get price gouged somewhere along the way. Either by purchase price, parts, or service.
The price of the Zero motorcycle S model with the quick charge capability is approximately $14,000. I paid $12,800 for a new T120 Triumph Bonneville and will be paying substantially more to fuel it with gas and maintain it that one would every pay for the Zero S. Electric motorcycles are clearly cost competitive now for the average rider. The Zero S makes perfect sense if you are riding in an urban or suburban environment which the typical motorcycle owner does. Few riders take the big motorcycle trip piling on thousands of miles at a time Most are riding less than 100 miles at any one time. Which is doable on a modern electric motorcycle
@@johnpaulgarzaniti5065 keep us posted with the lifespan of the battery, availability of the replacement, cost of the replacement, and user serviceability. The motorcycle I own now is 20 years old so I tend to keep my bikes for a very long time.
@@johnpaulgarzaniti5065 Not a very good example wasting your money on a bonnerville then making a comparison,How about a cheaper Japanese bike like a Kawasaki twin at £9,000 a better comparison,Anything other than Japanese is a waste of money but heh it's your money,Even £9,000 on a twin is a waste of money,I've had twins OK when i didn't know any better,Four cylinders is money well spent,But your promoting a electric bike on a overpriced Triumph,I'm British myself but not that patriotic
I'm sorry to say but you completely misunderstand re-gen. re-gen happens when you break and converts your movement back in to power. re-gen is breaking.
no. all regeneration is is an alternator some cars only allow it when braking because whatever energy you’re making by it spinning is just being wasted while accelerating. if you’re spinning it without any power, it will generate electricity.
btw, if you are braking, you are throwing that energy out as heat. to generate as much possible, you want to keep that core spinning as much possible inside that coil, with absolutely 0 braking and 0 throttle. more spin = more energy
@@svndwich977 That's assuming it is an alternator. It's been a while since I watched this video but if I recall it's an E Motorcycle not a hybrid Motorcycle. I doubt hybrid Motorcycles are a thing. It is true that an increase in speed on the "generator" whatever form it is will make more power but that's assuming that the vehicle is not controling it. For electronic breaking/re-gen systems the vehicle does have varying control of this allowing you to chose your breaking/re-gen amount.
To be clear I'm not talking about the mechanical breaks. No friction based breaking here. That's on top of the electronic breaking. If it's anything like my E-Scooter once you pass a certain speed and have pressed the throttle at least once at that speed letting go of the throttle is when it passively Re-gens slowing me down slowly and when I press lightly on the breaks is when it activates the breaking mode for the Re-gen . When holding the breaks lightly the mechanical breaks are berly touching and the Re-gen activates breaking mode. The transition is rough on my scooter but even my scooter has multiple levels of re-gen.
I am guessing the charge remaining is set up similar to fuel tanks. Depending on how you drive it and the type of vehicle, it still has a small reserve once the guage hits empty so you can still have enough time to get to a refuelling point.
Yes! I own a very similar Zero S (11.4 battery). Everything you say about the bike is correct (really bad suspension, mediocre brakes, pretty bad seat, stealthy feel). I will note that regen does work for me, but I think you need to change a setting for it or it mostly only regens when brake is applied. It'll be interesting to see how long it survives in your hands. On a side note: I think you got a good deal on it, but these are super hard to sell. I think you could get 9k for it on a perfect day but also will likely struggle to find buyers at 7.5k.
@@johnfarr5415 It's easy in places like Orange County. In the midwest (like I live) - nope. I can't find a single used one for sale within 300 miles of me. I bought mine from a dealer.
It actually as you have already mentioned calculates range based on your riding habits ... And I don't believe that it recalculates that range until you fully recharge again. It does make on the fly adjustments with calculated distance.
I Love electric bikes, but sadly its gonna take a long time for battery's to get small and powerful enough that decent range can be a thing. For lower speed/ Moped kinda bikes it's probably already good enough. I drive a Super Soco for Work - Home traffic and with free charging at work it's pretty nice
I feel like that’s the best option is if you live in a city and drive something electric on the sidewalks at slower speeds to commute to work. But trips or anything like that you can forget it for now,
Agreed I have a VW e golf I get 80-100 miles on a charge. Great for my needs. But on a motorcycle that I would use for pleasure. Current ranges just wouldn’t do it. For me anyways I would need or want 175-200 miles per charge at 70 mph. I know they will get there.
It's not about the batteries so much but the charging speed. If a motorbike could take the same 150-250kW charge a modern EV gets, the entire battery could be charged in a few minutes. A 20 kWh battery can get you 200 miles of range already. That's more than most gas powered bikes. If the charging time would be as long a fueling up at a gas station, there is no competitive advantage for gas bikes anymore even if all you do is long-distance riding. For cities electric bicycles are already the most efficient mode of transportation there is.
i think it depends on your use case. i actually started on a super soco, a great learner bike. i ride a zero s now, and i get about 150 miles out of it in the city, which is perfect for a day's work delivering food. charging takes just shy of 2hrs. i guess more range would be nice for road trips and such, range is more like 110 miles at higher speeds. but honestly, once i got the fast charger installed, i've never felt restricted. maybe it's just me, but my backside appreciates a rest by the time the battery's gone.
12:08 Funfact: My Home City in Germany, Mainz has a custom built diesel Hybrid MK1 Facelift Mercedes Citaro Hybrid thats ARTICULATED and to this day i still think its crazy that they pulled that off
it's an amazing idea, you buy an electric vehicle and then tow it around on your diesel-powered truck to recharge it, brilliant idea we should all do that lol. but seriously thanks for the show, Sean. just one more thing is that grey we can see in your beard old friend lol.
its actually stupid, there is no free energy in this world, regen slows you down because thats how it makes the energy, transform from rotational to fill the battery tldr, the van will use much more many times more fuel than what it'll cost to refill, the bike will provide resistance to the van
Probably one of the best Zero reviews out there lol unbiased opinions are priceless, the only real question is… are you going to give it away????!?!?!?!!
So that would be the unbiased opinion, if he did absolutely all the homework then he’d have a biased opinion. So what he didn’t fully know about the brake regen, he did a review that no one has done. A past warranty battery that he took to 0% twice, testing whether you can ride and charge, and giving his unfiltered opinion based off of his overall motorcycle knowledge. I own a Zero and wouldn’t dare taking it past 20% and mine is a ‘22. I’m biased to zero of course, so IN MY OPINION, it was the best review I’ve seen to date. Not just a guy riding it and telling us how Torquey it is, we get it, they’re quick as hell… saying this guy has a lot to learn just tells me you’re not subscribed to the channel… might wanna check it out lol
@@themikeali32 With respect, I think you're confusing the word 'bias' with the word 'knowledge'. More knowledge doesn't make you more biased. FWIW I've been riding electric motorcycles since 1998 and Zeroes since 2009, but I'm also the happy owner of 10 ICE bikes of all kinds!
I agree in that regard, the knowledge vs biased aspect. But I guess I’m speaking more to the fact of his delivery of content. Yes he could’ve gained some knowledge on the bike, I just happened to enjoy the fact that while I am biased and own one, he came from an unbiased and albeit less informed point of view… still tho this guy Sean is super knowledgeable. I knew nothing about bikes 3 years ago 🤷🏽♂️ now I can’t stop myself from trying to buy every bike I like
Many places give free charging, my brother uses it frequently. Towing in regen would not be free, the extra load on the car will likely cost more in fuel than buying electricity. The towing regen possibly didn't work because you started from 0 MPH; you might have to get it rolling, hit the throttle on the bike so that it thinks you're riding, then continue towing. And that's assuming that you have regen on, pretty sure it's selectable. I've ridden my brother's Zero, but I'm a real man so I ride a kickstart 2 smoker and I don't know much about the Zero's idiosyncrasies.
That digital display is actually pretty good and the horn is pretty good compared to the electric mopeds and it sounds amazing..that's a great find for 3500
Best damn videos on earth! You fellows deserve a lot of success. I find myself binging multiple episodes, staring at my phone while I cook dinner! Pure fun! Cheers!
Hydrogen? Tell me more,We have buses and taxes in London England,I think Hydrogen is the way forward not all this electric crap maybe the Hybrids,40 miles to a charge and two hour's probably better than public transport
@@minrvusnova2303 I hear ya. I'd love to get a zero myself those things are super nice. Still just a bit too out of my price range though. I'll have to give it a few years or so before they get cheap enough for me to consider it.
@@minrvusnova2303 You know honestly I have no idea how the EV tax system works. I'll probably look up some more info about it and who knows, maybe it'll be good enough to make me go electric. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Why was it inconvenient? Other than the very last section which was just to test the actual range. In reality you would plug in while you stopped for lunch, so it wouldn’t have been an issue at all.
26:32 Regardless of what I am driving, people cutting into the wrong lane is freakin' terrifying. I've never ridden a motorcycle (I've off and on considered it for quite some time; I'm just watching a suggested video), but someone I knew used to, until she was in a similar turn and the driver of a rental truck coming the opposite direction thought cutting corners was a good idea. She spent the next several weeks in the hospital. The instant on a bike would be an extreme clencher.
Just yesterday, I just spent $30 to fill up my 2018 M109R to go spend $130 for the oil change after putting roughly 2K miles this past year on it. When riding it, I can't lie, not having 100% torque on demand is.... well, kind of boring to me now. 🤣 I plan on selling it AND my Zero and going for an Energica.
I think you should Google torque yours is 118,It's pulling power,riding solo you won't even notice it,Your is a fast cruiser perhaps a Hayabusa is what you meant to buy and the salesman convinced you otherwise
I can't wait till electric motorcycles are a bit more efficient. They seem like a ton of fun with the instant torque. And if I could charge for free at work it'd save me so much money. So long as the bike itself isn't $30,000...
@@chrishall734 how much faster do you want a level 3 charger is like 2% a minute thats insane as it is. Lol My sur-ron with a 5amp charger does 1% 90ish seconds zero with a stage 3 does 2.5% a minute. All you have to do is map out your trips there is charging stations every 10 miles or so almost every where on the eastern sea board and west coast mid states 🤔 idk
correct. instant torque ftw. especially when you get a bougie porsche driver rev his engine at you at the lights, and you laugh to yourself as you smoke him (it's always a him) off the line.
Looks like your getting about half the battery capacity that a New DSR gets. And for about half the price of a new Zero DSR. Sounds about right. Not a steal but not a RIP
@@miguel360kmc level 3 at home isn't that easy to get. not that it matters at home as much. the problem is really the cost of the bike (or conversion parts, converting motorbike to electric isn't that hard but still $$$).
Large ebikes can't be charged and run at the same time because the BMS would go nuts trying to balance all of the batteries while they are simultaneously discharging from the other end. Some of us who want to do cross country ebike trips simply get a couple of spare batteries and charge them in a trailer separate from the bike. Most trailers have solar panels on them for charging on the go.
@@franklaskus2395 the stock battery with proper care last about 2,500-5,000 charges you dont see dips till around 800 charges do the math keep it simple say 100miles 100% to 0% 800 times before you even see a small dip in battery output thats a lot of miles. Hell say 50 miles 100%-0% thats still a very long life = if not better than gas bikes
@@miguel360kmc just don’t care for any manufacturer that makes long term ownership hard or impossible. Like refusing to sell parts for a customer repair.
A big problem with Battery powered stuff is that after a long time they get less efficient and lose charge faster and if you have bad charging habbits. Honestly wouldnt feel comfortable buying a used electric vehicle until that bit of technology improves.
@@joemontes4658 I know and you have to change those every few years, but because they are small in size, thats no big deal there. And most manual cars could even run fine without one, just: almighty push.
The electric "bike" market is sadly shady when it comes to their range stats. When they say 100 miles they leave out thats at low-mid level speeds on flat land with a 150lbs rider with the wind at his back. Zero is better than most but still over clocks
@@cliveswabs9365 they dont lie they just leave out the conditions in their range test. If they say 40 miles it can hit 40 miles but at low speed on flat land
For max range your enemy is speed. The energy required (gas and ev) goes up exponentially (or squared) with speed…so keep to 50 instead of 70 and your range improves by about 30%. BTW..running it until it won’t go is v bad for batt life.
This is not true, regarding Zero motorcycles. There is neutral regen, which occurs whenever you let off the throttle, it's equivalent to engine braking. There is also brake regen, which happens when you pull the brakes. These are separate types of regen and both are customizable on a Zero, you can set either between 0% and 100% in a custom riding mode. The reason this likely didn't work is they needed to set Neutral Regen to 100% in the app, and, after keying on the bike, they needed to hit the throttle, to engage the drivetrain and get the bike into "idle". If you simply key on the bike and never hit the throttle, it's not "running" yet. So no regen will happen. You'll notice that the moment you touch the throttle on a Zero that you start hearing a whine even if it's sitting still, that's the motor encoder etc. It shuts off after a few seconds to save energy.
They had it in 100% regen which is actually quite aggressive. The regen is engaged when the throttle is rolled of, not when the brake is applied. It was probably working but the gauge coupd be funky and or the fact that the pack at drained so low could have caused the BMS to go into safety mode and reject the energy from the regen. Just a guess.
@@motocache6645 Zero's so-called '100% regen' is actually nothing of the sort. It's barely 30%. Zero's regen was very disappointing on those models - the later ones have much more, as the Energicas have always had.
@@pnblondon1087 Really? I had a 2015 Zero SR and if you cranked up the regen braking to max it was super sketchy, legit tank slapper risk. Sort of sketchy to ride it thru the twisties with regen on; the entire regen braking design was/may still be flawed in that it is either on/off, there is no smooth rolling off the throttle to modulate decel, it would just kick abruptly at a position on the throttle... Horrible. Hence you pretty much would have to ride it with super low regen; if they haven't yet changed it so throttle position does modulate regen engagement then I wouldn't be suprised if they changed later models so they couldn't be cranked up very high. Hope this has changed because this alone has stopped my interest and or recommendation to own a Zero.
@@motocache6645 I'm really surprised by your experience. I rode the complete Zero range in 2011 and again in 2015 (down some great twisty Californian roads) and never felt there was as much regen as I wanted, compared to, for example, the Energicas and electric BMWs. I went on to ride both 2017 and 2018 DSRs a lot of miles and had the same experience. It was only with the 3rd generation SR/F and SR/S that I was able, finally, to get the amount of regen I craved...
@@pnblondon1087 I've owned the Zero SR and the Brammo inertia, those are my exclusive experience on E-motos. Did you actually go into the software and change the regen %? Otherwise the stock setting was moderate from what I remember but regardless of % has an abrupt engagement for regen. You never want to experience much impulse while cornering, having the abillity to modulate decel is in my opinion a must and the on/off nature of the regen on the zero I had was the deal breaker unfortunately. But it's not just Zero I would complain about for it, I rode my friends Aprillia V4 last week and fly-by-wire throttle was not well implemented and suffered a similar symptom of abrupt engine braking and poor abillity to modulate. I am definetly a fan of electronic throttle bodies, lot's of bikes have no issues, but I'm not sure how so many bikes are falling short on their implementations, especially premium bikes like the Aprillia I rode. But I am picky for sure, I know it.
I don't have time to read all 2k comments to see if others said this or not so apologies in advance if it has been said. Firstly, replace your batteries. Their capacity goes down with usage. That is probably why it was cheap. There are probably shops that will rebuild the battery pack instead of just replacing. The regen is ONLY in braking (when it is on). It takes up a major part of the stopping force when you hit the brakes by turning the motor into a generator and (all motors are generators). The energy to turn the generator comes from the momentum of the bike through the wheel. The problem I see with a bike with a single wheel motor is that it is only the REAR brake, meaning you only can get as much energy back as you can apply rear brakes. That means that the energy going back to the battery is only the REAR/FRONT brake ratio times the the bike's kinetic energy. The rest is just dumped as heat in the front disk brake, which unfortunately is the majority of your energy. The faster you are going, the more braking force available all the way to zero braking when you are almost stopped, which means you have to have conventional brakes as well. In total regen, with both wheels, the operation still isn't very efficient . Let's say the efficiency is 85% power into motion. That means that you lose 15% going out. Now that same 85% applies to going back as regen. So you double the losses recovering your energy. Now lets say you can only get 40% off the rear brakes. So your are at 85% out * (40% * 85% in) = 29% energy recovered with no other losses. I think you said you left the regen off? It typically adds about 5 - 15% range on an e-bike depending on the terrain.
No, regen works when the back tire spins - just release the throttle. The battery on this bike is perfectly fine, I know because it's my old motorcycle. I sold it in the summer of 2021 to get a bike equipped with DC fast charging.
@@AdventuresonZero You are right, but the ebrake has to be on, it doesn't come on when you coast. I wasn't thinking. Most of us with ebikes don't use it anyway, they are too variable depending on the battery voltage and actually cause the axle nuts to come loose from bi-directional torque.
Any idea if that was a complex for a business (regarding free charging)? Some businesses offer free charging for employees as an incentive. I didn't see employee-only charging or any sort of restrictions, so maybe that wasn't the case here? Pretty curious.
My guess and it’s a guess is they get a pretty nice tax write off having that charging station and them paying to charge us probably more tax write offs so it pays that person to charge up their bikes
Thought the same myself, lots of manufacturers say that the regen works when braking, it activates when the brake pedal is pressed so when the brake lights activate the signal also tells the car to charge the battery, so the car switches from using the battery to returning the power backwards from the wheel motors that charges the battery. The car or bike will need to be able to know when to switch the regen on with the users input.
@@tcooperpersonalgains528 yeah it is normal to coast (freewheel) when releasing the throttle, and to regen only when light braking. Under heavy braking it uses the brake discs.
@@doublej42 Yes. The main issue is weight. A bike with reasonable range would probably need a battery between 20 and 30kwh, which with current tech would weigh 100 to 150kg. That would completely destroy the handling of any converted bike, but it should be possible to make a sort of electrified boss hoss even with last year's tech.
I bought one fully customized & it's the smartest purchase I've made....down side, parts are hard to come by.....very very specific parts...if one thing goes bad....good luck..it's not a perfected model yet...but very worth the risk...gata do a full computer reset.....& building your own lithium battery is way more economic....
Im actually impressed. I was against the idea of electric bikes mostly because of the range and cost but used its really not bad at all. Problem is what about traffic and temperature difference? Like how long will it last on say a commute down the surekill into philly durring rush hours? 2nd how long does ir rake to charge w the quick charge and last will a solar charger help at all like a harbor freight panel?
I can't answer all these questions, because I don't own one, I only own a regular EV car. Traffic shouldn't be much of an issue, EVs do extremely well in slow traffic, because they're only using what they need and recuperate if you're stopping again. Heat isn't so much of an issue, in the summer the battery would probably only need cooling if you're either charging of pushing the bike really hard. What makes a difference is cold, I just came back from the alps and -12°C cut range, power and recuperation by about 20%. What I found out about charging for that model: 4h from a socket and 1h to 95% from a quick charger. 1h for that amount is honestly pretty bad. Normally EVs can get impressive charging speeds from 10% to 80% with DC charging. Usually 30min. A battery that size would probably be able to handle 30kW DC, but I'm guessing there isn't enough space for the necessary cooling and wiring for DC fast charging. So if you want to "quick charge" while traveling, you should plan for 2 coffees instead of 1. For charging with a "cheap" solar panel? Totally not worth it. 14,4 kwh is still a lot of battery. Because you need an AC outlet to charge, you'd also need one of these battery/inverter units. You'd need about $3000 in solar panels with a power supply unit, to charge that thing in like 2 days. For that small thing it's just not worth it. Especially not in the US, you're paying less than half than we do here. Charging via solar makes mostly sense, if you have spent 15-20k on a solar system for your house. With that you could also quick charge that motorcycle or regular charge a car
Nothing quite like turning the key, pulling back the throttle and hearing the reminiscent sound of a dentist drill winding out
🤣😭
My teeth felt that one... 🤣
well, at least its a noise that make even the beardy harley guys cringe.
@@pezpengy9308 the wind could blow the wrong way and the Harley guys would cringe.
That's one reason why Harley's e-bike isn't selling. You can't hear it from the next county over.
Zero FXS owner here, your power bar wasn't indicating regen was active, you probably needed to ride the bike forward a few more feet before towing it. I can confirm while being towed by my supermoto friends you can tow charge a Zero motorcycle. *Edit* You do NOT have to press the brake, it activates as engine breaking in all modes with different levels of regen. If you don't first give it throttle regen will NOT activate.
Lol. Who cares. Even if you're charging it en route to your destination, there's still alot of wear involved while towing.....tire,chain/belt,bearings etc
@@Senioritis012 totally agree
@@hitekredneck109 it was done for testing and entertainment purposed dawg
Good to know
@@hitekredneck109 Is there more wear and tear form towing than from riding? Not likely. In a tight spot it'd be great to know that it can be charged while towing, especially if no trailer or truck is available.
I have a zero ds too with 14.4kwh battery. I can typically do 200km. Going down to 160km if I include a lot of highway.
Basically you can ride for 2 to 2.5 hours before you have to take a break. Which is perfectly fine for me. After 2 hours I need a break anyway. And I like it a lot that I do not annoy anybody else with excessive noise.
No idea what a kilometer is I'm from the US
@@tonymartin346 One mile is 1.609344 km, so 200 km is 124.27 miles. It means that he gets the same mileage per charge as in this movie.
@@tonymartin346
1km=0.62 miles. I don’t know how I knew this I’m from England.
Not worth 7grand whaaaaa
@@tonymartin346america used the metric system in some areas and ALL vehicles in production now days have metric bolts and stuff as well. May wanna learn it…
The grass repair in the beginning was on point. Only a seasoned professional could get that kind of results!!! Great video!!!!
🔥🤘🏼🔥
And once again, another great video where a bike just bought is actually tested in reality. No click bait, just "let's see if it can"..... This is how bike testing video's should be done.
But not reading the instructions,oblivious to charging points and how to use them and the cost of charging at home,Ignorant of the kwh cost,in relation to gas,Yes we want to go green at least the brainwashed ones,And most believe electric is the way forward,But here in the UK,We don't have deserts so loads of sunshine isn't on the card,fare bit of wind,Thats about it for renewable energy 27% the balance nuclear power and the dreaded "fossil fuels" hybrids stand a better chance,But my suggestion will have Americans in more fear the nuclear! Hydrogen no not Saturn 5 rocket fuel,Tap water H2O the h is the Hydrogen and the o is the oxygen released into the atmosphere,We have buses and taxes than run on it,Water vapour from the exhaust,I was hoping to find a link but will keep looking
@@Johnketes54 petrol here in England is very expensive compared to the state's, but hydrogen power was dangerous before now, not sure how safe it is now but I do know a lot of big car manufacturers are seriously looking into it now.
Am from Cornwall UK myself so know the score here
Yeah that's what i like on these guys.
Correct me of I'm wrong, but I think to recuperate energy through braking, the brake of the bike must be pulled. Otherwise the system just sails along because it thinks you are just rolling letting the Air Resistance slow you down. Equally to a vehicle with an ICE, when you Release the Clutch and let it roll without braking.
Maybe they did pull the brake and I Overhead it.
This
No brakes were pulled in the making of this Regen attempt.
On some electric motors you can to set the level of regenerative braking when the throttle is released. I thought the switch to eco mode would have worked
It’s regenerative braking
I would think normal mode is best.
Give it a small amount of throttle, see if it works then.
The first electric charging station probably paid for by the restaurant within walking distance you guys spent 30 dollars at for lunch.🙂
Didn't realize the older DSR looks just like the older SR. My 2018 SR 14.4kw gets about 75miles riding hard thru the mountains. Cost about $2 to fill up, $0.16 per kw. When towing regen you need to hold the front brake. That is what activates regen under the Zero settings. Unless you do the custom setting to do regen while coasting.
Good to know. How do you set up the custom modes ?
@@BikesandBeards Via the Zero app
@@BikesandBeards It is actually a two stage regen. 1st is off throttle, has light regen. Second is brake switch activated (same as brake light switch), stronger regen. But don't expect the regen to feel like down shifting engine braking. 1st stage feels like 5th or 6th gear engine braking. 2nd stage feels like 4th or 3rd gear engine braking. Lots of time I just want to slow with regen instead of brakes but 1st stage is too soft so I'll lightly activate brake just enough to activate brake lights to go into 2nd stage regen.
Also don't expect much if any regen power back. For me it only reduces consumption just like off the gas on a ICE going downhill
You can set up 100% regen in coasting mode in Custom mode in the Zero app.
Regen on a bike is only useful in city riding as far as range extension goes, because at highway speeds you never get all the way off the throttle even going down steep hills.
FYI: Regen only works if you are "breaking". It uses power to assist breaking, by "generating" power to create the resistance. The more you break, the more it switches to manual breaks.
This is not true, regarding Zero motorcycles. There is neutral regen, which occurs whenever you let off the throttle, it's equivalent to engine braking. There is also brake regen, which happens when you pull the brakes. These are separate types of regen and both are customizable on a Zero, you can set either between 0% and 100% in a custom riding mode. The reason this likely didn't work is they needed to set Neutral Regen to 100% in the app, and, after keying on the bike, they needed to hit the throttle, to engage the drivetrain and get the bike into "idle". If you simply key on the bike and never hit the throttle, it's not "running" yet. So no regen will happen. You'll notice that the moment you touch the throttle on a Zero that you start hearing a whine even if it's sitting still, that's the motor encoder etc. It shuts off after a few seconds to save energy.
@@protonus exactly custom mode set to 100% regen would work - I had 3 of these Zeros.
@@JosiahKuenzi The issue here is that you are simply robbing power and energy from the tow vehicle. Great if you want to recharge while driving to a riding spot and don't care about the energy usage. Less so if you wish to save money or burn less gas.
You would think they would have done some research. Seems like they just bought it and did zero googling.
Braking
Hey Sean, I am pretty sure that in order for regen to work you will need to apply the brake in order to activate.
Does he really think that coasting would charge the batteries god help him for real.
@@TheNicksievers Bro that's what regen is
@@TheNicksievers he mighta thought it works like some cars, where you turn regen on and in place of braking your car will feel like its "engine braking" which is charging the batteries. no pushing of the brake pedal required.
Start by closing the headlight...
@@TheNicksievers that's literally what it does, the esc just wants a signal on this bike to start it because it's going to make you slow down since the bike doesn't weigh much. Don't be so confident in your stupidity in the future.
cycling the bike from 100% to a complete stop may have recalibrated the battery so maybe you'll get more accurate battery gauge although it's always nice to have a small buffer when you reach 0% to get you to the next charger instead of needing a tow. I think you can also use a mobile charging service that drives to you with a battery powered charger that gives you the extra charge you need
It probably hits 0% once the battery voltage falls below what’s necessary for the rated performance. The bike is not limiting the speed, it just cannot physical go faster with the voltage.
This video is genius 🤣🤣
@@Finder245 you're right that battery at lower state of charge have lower power output. also the motor can't make as much power or top speed from the lower voltage. but usually power doesn't just go down gradually since some limitation from the controller or BMS kicks in and suddenly reduces power output (limp mode). I think the zero motorcycle battery cells are high discharge which explains why they keep decent torque even at 0%, and also because all the torque is available low, you don't need 100% of the torque to make the. bike still feel quick
@@geemy9675 I used to work on an electric vehicle as an engineer, so I am familiar with how these systems work. As the battery discharges, its voltage also decreases. The motor has a “Kv” rating that limits the maximum RPM achievable with a certain voltage. As the battery voltage drops, eventually it reaches a point where the power may still be available, but the voltage is too low to get you to acceptable speeds. This is a physical limitation and not a limit imposed by the controllers. We would consider this to be 0% since the remaining energy is not really useful. It might let you limp for a while though, so no beed to cut power completely until the battery voltage gets close to where it could cause permanent damage.
Regen is dumb it wastes energy that would normally be saved when coasting.
I've been reading about ZERO for a while since they're right down the coast from my home. They're making groundbreaking bikes. They're exploring that envelope and pushing the boundaries. They're really good at what they do... They're not that inexpensive, used, here in Cali...
Not inexpensive? That means they are expensive, fella.
@@clvrswine Not 'that' inexpensive. The one word changes the meaning of the claim. I think he is right to say that they are not that inexpensive. They are not prohibitively expensive like an electric car is. They are expensive.
I'm just gas that they've actually managed to stay alive over this whole last decade, that might be the most impressive aspect of Zero!
@@RyTrapp0 seriously one of the only places still around that hasn’t sold out
@@SirNarax"they're not that inexpensive"...
Are you a lawyer or politician? Who TF talks like that? Reminds me of that impractical jokers show "don't stop letting people not help"
Honestly I always thought these bikes were stupid, but after watching this vid I’m considering buying a used zero as a second bike for commuting. I live in a pretty big city and don’t commute more than like 20 miles a day ever so I don’t see why not. Sean is the only guy who could’ve even made me start considering this what a legend
Definitely a great bike, it'll make your money worth the investment.
These are the best bikes for commuting in the city! I have one and was living in Los Angeles and it was great. When you have 32 traffic lights in 5 miles, you will appreciate the lack of clutch. Plus it doesn’t get hot when you’re stuck in traffic. So easy to lane split (which is legal in California and you would never get anywhere if you didn’t).
I rarely paid to charge it using public chargers, otherwise it’s about $10 or less a month to charge (depending on what the charging company charges, the most I’ve paid to charge was $1.95 at ChargePoint in West Hollywood from 15%, but it was usually .75 cents-$1.00 per charge from 20-30%).
New rider....but all about electric bikes. My buddies who ride are against electric. I know they aren't good cruisers but as commuting bikes they are awesome. Five more years and they will be getting great range, chargers will be prevalent, and quick refills. Just hope prices on bikes drop.
That is the ONLY reason imo to get an electric motorcycle. I rode the Zero SR/S a couple weeks ago. As a Ducati and aprilia and Moto guzzi owner, these electric bikes have nothing for me, EXCEPT commuting. Keep the start cycles off my ICE vehicles and charge overnight. Like riding a really powerful sewing machine. But they’ll get the job done as long as pure fun and exhilaration are NOT the goal. I’m not down on ev motorcycles. But they’re competing with the wrong bikes. CHEAP(er) electric grom/versys300/super cub equivalents would be the sweet spot until we can get 200+ highway miles on one charge. Ryan f9 did a cost analysis. Compared to a KLR 650, the electric Zero FX isn’t a better deal (maintenance /fuel/parts) until AFTER 30,000 miles. knowledge is power. Don’t buy one for savings. Buy one to keep start/stop cycles off your ICE vehicles.
@@JpOcDenver LOL what a maroon. You haven't actually ridden a Zero if you think they're anything other an absolute blast, especially in the corners.
The only reason NOT to get a Zero (other than the lack of customer support) is the lack of DC fast charging, which will forever constrain them to short trips or joyrides.
But if you *really* want to get your mind blown get an Energica. They do *everything* well and have DC fast charging.
I'm seriously considering an electric bike now.
The quiet ride alone seems fantastic.
Until you hear the wind hitting your helmet.
@@Okurka.
Yes... that would be horrendous... 🤷
@@muskiet8687I mean if you ride bikes you’d know most gas motorcycles with a stock exhaust are quieter than the wind noise at highway speed. Not to mention, I like my bike to be as loud as it legally can be because drivers have a hard time seeing bikes. If they can’t see me they’re damn well gonna hear me coming.
@@jasongermon9450 logic at work!! I feel the same way.
don't forget the short Trips and long silent charging Times. A nice Tour could be longer than you think. Where are you? 4 Charge Stops away.
20-30% of the LION battery is reserved. You probably shouldn't drain it lower than that because it adversely affects recharge cycles, but the bike likely allows you to go farther if you really need to.
A friend of mine has a Zero Bike (the SR/S model) and its fun as hell. The instant power is a bit scary to mess with, but still fun
Every time I'm in a state that has a Wawa I absolutely positively have to stop and get store brand mocha cappuccino in a bottle just like that
@@THEPAINOFITALL Cycletrader has 18 used Zeroes under $10k, 3 or 4 of those under $7k.
As a commuter, it would make sense ..or so you would think. It depends highly in your commute. I tried a zero fxe with 160km ot range supposedly. My work has chargers so that would have been ideal. My commute is 60km one way, mostly highway. The range drops extremely fast on the highway, after 15 minutes , it went down to 80km, doing 120km/h. Another 10min later, it was down to 50. So you start to realise that you have to slow down to 90km/h behind a lorry to get some range back. And I was thinking to myself..what the hell am I doing. And they are not cheap. I know there is a expansion pack etc...but it's expensive. If your commute is like 20km in city traffic, go for it. Any highway miles that are longer than 30 min, better forget about it .
its what is called the peaukert effect, the faster you pull amps out of a battery the less amp hours the battery will give, thats why they do much better about town where the battery gets recovery breaks than constant full tilt on a highway, you can overcome this by having a bigger battery (which might sound obvious) but the load will be shared over more cells, therefore, the load on the individual cells will be less (which is what tesla opted to do having the capacity in a car to carry more cells than just ample which they also use to extend the lifetime of the battery by not fully charging it and not fully discharging it ie having a battery twice the size required will extend the range well in excess of twice as far and not fully charging and discharging will extend the cycle life of the pack) unfortunately there is a practical limit the size a battery pack can be on a motorcycle which limits the number of cells you can carry, i think a trike would be a much better base for an electric motorcycle for longer distances given current battery technology, i know it all sounds obvious but doubling the battery size gives a lot more than double performance back because of the peaukert effect for the same reason you get more miles if you sip the power and ride slowly
Wrong bike for 60km highway. The FXE has only half the battery size of the S ore DS.
Zero claimed 160km in town and 64km at 113kmh. The range drops because of the high current on higher speeds. So the internal software recalculates the possible range at your actual riding style.
I drive 28 miles 1 way at 55mph barely made it than it was almost impossible to sell to get some of my money back
@@oldskoolhead0 interesting, thanks. It’s not often I find something truly useful in the comment section haha
It can never make sense with current technology ;-) So unless there is some crazy breakthrough you can forget about electric motorcycle. Especially if you are not asian guy of 165cm/65kg. Otherwise ALL of them have similar range be it bike for 4500 USD or 14500 USD ;-) Plus like 90% of those under 15k USD do not have quick chargers so it takes 4 and more hours to charge. You can't replace your gas bike with this for next dozens of years. And things like Zero and such do not make economical sense at all. The place where it makes sense are e-MTB stuff or trial. Next will be MX/enduro races. But street.... Purely electric was wrong idea in 19th century and good to see that nothing changed 😀
This is gonna be long but I hope it helps to clear up confusion over regen.. People often assume that an electric bicycle will have regenerative braking, or that it will charge up as you pedal. Both assumptions are incorrect, and in this blog post we explain to you why.
“Does it charge as you pedal?”
This is a question frequently asked about electric bikes. The simple and quick answer is no - there is virtually no point charging the battery with your pedal power, because you would be taking away some of your leg power from pushing you forward, to convert it into battery energy (losing some in the process), to then convert it back into mechanical power via the motor, to push you forward.
It makes much more sense just to use all of your leg power to drive you forward! The motor should be run off of a battery that can carry a huge amount of energy, charged up from the mains power in your home a lot faster than you can charge it by pedalling.
“Does it have regenerative braking”?
This is an equally common question. Regenerative braking means capturing your kinetic (movement) energy as you brake, putting it back into the battery to be used again later instead of just wasting it as you stop.
Because most hybrid electric cars have regenerative braking, the term is synonymous with “electric vehicle” and as such many people tend to assume that an electric bike will also capture and recuperate energy as you pedal or brake.
“Why do no eBikes have regenerative braking?”
However - almost no electric bikes have regenerative braking. Why? Because a person on a bike weighs about a lot less than a car. Therefore there is a lot less energy available to be captured (which is what regenerative braking does). When you cycle, 90% of your effort and energy goes into pushing you through the air which resists you as you move. Perhaps less than 10% is lost because you brake - so even in the best case scenario when you capture all of your kinetic energy when you brake, you’ll only go 10% further as a result.
Don’t believe it?Let’s do the maths!
Standard flat commute: how useful is regenerative braking?
Imagine you cycle 20 miles on your 10Ah battery on a totally flat stretch of road.
You’re going at 25kph which is 7 metres per second (nice and legal) and the total weight of you and your bike is 120kg. The equivalent energy of that is 1/2 mv^2 which is equal to 2,940 Joules of energy.
This is the equivalent to just 0.022 Amp Hours in a 36V battery. Assuming that you have regenerative braking capturing that energy with 50% efficiency then you would have to stop 45 times in 20 miles to get just a 5% increase in range.
Put another way, if you expect to come to a full stop 10 times during your trip (which seems reasonable), having regen braking would only increase your range by 0.22Ah which is just 2.2% increase.
So all in all I think it is fair to say that for flat commutes regenerative braking is totally pointless.
“Hilly commutes: any better?”
Obviously a better use regenerative braking is for hills. The potential energy of you on a hill is mass x gravity x height.
Let’s work out, for a 120kg eBike rider and ebike, how much height you would have to be expecting to climb and come down again to make regenerative worth it. Let’s say 20% increase in range
So 2Ah with a 36V battery is equivalent to 259,200 Joules.
Given a mass of 120kg, and gravity of 9.8, this gives a height of 220 metres
But! Don’t forget the efficiency.
With a 50% efficiency of regenerative braking that changes to 440 metres.…
So there you have it - assuming you want increased range of at least 20%, if you don’t expect to climb more than 440 metres in your average commute then regenerative braking is not worth it.
So where does all the energy go?
The reason regenerative braking doesn’t help increase your range as much as you think, is that most of the energy from your battery is being used to combat air resistance.
Because most of the energy from your battery is lost to air resistance, recopuing the kinetic energy as you brake doesn’t make much difference. So we suggest that instead of getting regenerative braking, try just wearing Lycra!
beautifully explained, hope they learn from it
“Does it charge as you pedal?”
If bicycles did this it would be just like carbon capture technology in its current state. I say *current state* because the technology is still work in progress, but right now the whole thing is pretty funny.
Have my kids
I am not sure why you think this but motorcycles do indeed have regenerative braking, including at least some models of Zero. The ones I am familiar with all do.
Also while your point about a car being heavier and generating more energy due to regenerative braking is valid, cars also use much more energy for the same reasons. Bike regenerative braking generates less energy, but bikes also use much less energy and have smaller batteries.
All very interesting but completely irrelevant and wrong when it comes to electric motorcycles. Electric motorcycles are NOT ebikes, ebikes are push bikes with electric motors for assisting the rider.
Proud owner of a 2020 Zero SR, they are great for city-based riders, commuters... Zero unfortunately has taken a page out of Apple and Tesla's playbook by gating off the motor's full potential in its 2022 model year series... By locking off features already present in the motor they have really gut-punched the future of adaptation. Via their Cypher Store, Zero intentionally lessened the value of their products and created measures of obviously planned obsolescence, sure maintenance is minimal but the issue is this bike can't be repaired just anywhere and it creates issues for longevity with their firmware updates by creating an anti-consumer based eco-system.
Hopefully recent "right to repair" legal battles will change that.
The market of jail breaking ever expands
That's why I won't ever be buying one. Someone else will do it better and without the bullshit feature walls.
Hopefully the competition will make Zero pay for what they did. I'm thinking of buying an electric motorcycle. Thanks for the info.
This is the main issue with all these Ev companies. Same but even worse with the one wheel.
It’s the instant torque that makes the Zero a traffic killer. No shifting, instant power delivery is the way to go. Battery life aside the performance thru traffic of a Zero is no contest.
yeah the sound of a combustion engine is nice but can get old. instant torque will never get old
I have a Onyx ebike and yes the instant torque even tho my bike is capped at 50-55 mph i fly over to the next light when the light turns green.
For the regen to activate you have to be on the throttle for a little bit... Usually how it works for electric scooters etc.
regen is purely and only a breaking force ,it has nothing to do with the throttle
It was my impression that regen only works when pulling the brake lever.
I have a few answers for the regen braking problems you guys encountered. Loved the video though, these bikes are definitely worth the money, even second hand.
You guys had to hit the brake lever at a certain speed, I think it's around 3 MPH when it engages. It won't work unless you pull the lever once at speed, I mean it's called regenerative braking for a reason.
You don't want to brake every time you let off the throttle do you? Maybe you just want to coast at speed or downhill without losing speed or basically braking.
Regenerative braking is for when you are using your normal brakes but a portion of the stopping power comes from the regen braking or KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) and in return it charges your battery. Or imagine you are coming to a stop at a red light and you are way ahead of the lights. You just tap/squeeze the brake lever once and it kicks in the regen braking and again slows you down but at the regen strength you choose.
So you come to a full stop without using your mechanical brakes which in return puts more energy back into the battery than with both together. That's how it works, it would definitely be very interesting to see how much it would've recovered from all that towing. A follow up video would be desirable for sure!
Exactly, very well put! 👊🏼
This is not true, regarding Zero motorcycles. There is neutral regen, which occurs whenever you let off the throttle, it's equivalent to engine braking. There is also brake regen, which happens when you pull the brakes. These are separate types of regen and both are customizable on a Zero, you can set either between 0% and 100% in a custom riding mode. The reason this likely didn't work is they needed to set Neutral Regen to 100% in the app, and, after keying on the bike, they needed to hit the throttle, to engage the drivetrain and get the bike into "idle". If you simply key on the bike and never hit the throttle, it's not "running" yet. So no regen will happen. You'll notice that the moment you touch the throttle on a Zero that you start hearing a whine even if it's sitting still, that's the motor encoder etc. It shuts off after a few seconds to save energy.
I have the 2021 Zero DS. Living in Las Vegas, charging for free is everywhere. As a daily commuter these Zeros are friggin fun.
Good point about the charging. I was thinking of purchasing this one for work, but it would be nice to have charging available for pleasure riding. Maybe Tesla could make extra $$$ by making adapters, and selling charging time to other non-Tesla owners. It would be nice if the display was larger, and had a built in GPS map showing the nearest charging station for this bike. I sure wish the regeneration option worked. It's good to know that at least I can charge while on the road.
Tesla should make adapters? You mean like travel back in time to when adapters didn't exist?
@@sammmyDaviS they won’t be having those for long. Apparently Tesla hasn’t paid the property owners that those chargers are sitting on. They pay a monthly lease to those property owners and haven’t paid out to anyone in over 8months.😅
So maybe making an adapter and charging external customers that don’t have Tesla’s for charging would help recoup some of those leases.
@@juice84569 You saw one or two people that’s not everyone 🤡
That's actually a good looking bike. but enough charging stations nationwide is UNREALISTIC especially here in rural communities...
On the electric vehicle stuff, in the city, electric bikes are sick!
If you’re already in the market for one, it’s in your price range, your driving needs match up with the range (and available charging near you), or you just really want one; I guess go for it…
Regenerative charging should only work while breaking. So maybe pull in the front break with zip ties or something and try that way?
You can set them to regenerative without braking. Mine starts as soon as I roll off the throttle all the way.
i think it starts when you let of the throttle, to kinda simulate engine braking on a gas bike.
Na there are 2 different types of regen motor regen and Regenitive braking not sure if that year has both the newer models do.
@@miguel360kmc I drive a lower model from the same year and have both. I can't imagine an upgrade model has fewer options than the base.
@@dustinflowers1914, say that you're on the interstate and have crested a mountain (Donner Summit) and are starting down a 50 mile downgrade to Sacramento. Dynamic braking should have the power to maintain speed and return power to the battery. Supposedly, Teslas do this.
I own a 2019 Zero SR (almost the exact same bike)... IT IS A BEAST around town. But only around town. Even thought it's a 2019, it's still got the same highway range as any new electric motorcycle. I.e. 70 miles. Then it's 4 hours to charge at a type-2 charging station. Here's the thing. I only wanted an "in city" motorcycle to commute and bop around on. It is perfect. I can commute 10 days on one charge (I have a short commute). I got mine used for $10k (3 years ago). Thing is, even if the battery life drops to 50% from new, I'd still only have to charge it once a week. (Best part, the local power company has a free charging station near my office. I have never had to pay for charging in the 3 years I've owned it... score...)
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What's funny about this video is that the DSR comes with knobby tires so you can take it off-road. Someone put slicks on it. (Which is too bad)
Another video to keep me busy while being deployed overseas. I enjoy your videos man thanks for keeping me entertained during these months away from home.
Any one with you overseas selling any bikes when u guys get v
Back? 0621 usmc. OOH RAH
Hell yeah Semper Fi Boys!
Be safe out there. God bless you.
Sheesh marine cultists, hide yo crayons, hide your goats.
God bless. Stay frosty. Unless you're a South Korea near-civi POG, then you already frosty lol.
But for real, God bless, brother.
3 smart things to do with an E-Bike
1. To not ride it on longer trips, rather doing short city runs n saving fuel
2. To not waste a lifetime waiting it to charge
3. To not measure 0-60 on a downhill... its so heavy it`ll make 10s just in neutral.
the Quib charger has a output wire that stops the motor controller . if you unplug the the signal wire connector it will charge and drive .
Great episode, love these kinds of vids! I enjoy the restorations too but I love watching you guys just goof around and try experiments like this
You can buy an adapter to charge from a charging station and plug it into the AC charger. It takes so long to charge because the slower the batteries charge the longer they last.
13:09 the 1st ever diesel hybrid motovan coolest thing I ever seen it's both diesel & electric as it is botha van & a bike so sick!!!!!!!
I got a work from home job just so I could start being late to work and not get introuble because you guys always drop when shifts be starting.
oh no
Yea me too
@@coreygilbert62 lmao same
Tim, it’s James from HR. I’ll need tou to turn in your corporate laptop by Friday at 3pm. You’re being terminated for excessive tardiness. We wish you luck in your future endeavors.
@@jtec99 🤣
Finally a channel I enjoy reviewing an electric motorcycle I am actually interested in buying.
You soon learn how to get the best out of them. I could do 10 miles on my Moonster and still show 100% charge. By leaving the brakes alone and rolling to a stop it put charge back into the battery faster than the charge units.
Literally every EV made today (except Tesla) uses a standard charger. Tesla didn't want to wait for the standard to be created and went with their own. Tesla announced they'll be introducing comparability soon.
There was no standard. Additionally, Tesla wanted other vehicle manufacturers to pay them to use their charging ports. Telsa is NOW making their stations universal due to the new Federal regulations on universal EV access. EV batteries ought to be interchangeable as well.
@@clark7117 the problem is that's not at all practical yet. Even with smaller batteries, the range would be so far diminished. That being said, solid state batteries are currently in development and may be a viable option for that.
Tesla also has that proprietary instant combustion technology. So the whole vehicle Burns to the ground 🤣
@@fiendeng that feature doesn't seem to be working in any of the Tesla's I see around me...
@@fiendeng nope that would be any GM ev
Regardless of what the average EV cost is doesn't mean there aren't cheaper options available the Leaf/Bolt/egolf are all around the 30K MSRP but they have lower range (the bolt is higher) than the expensive Teslas. Batteries are the the real cost. If you have a secondary vehicle in your life which you can utilize for long distance travel then the addition of a EV can actually make a lot of economic sense... I'm also in Cali paying over $7 for diesel so the savings add up quick.
Plus it’s not that everyone should run out right now and buy or trade in for a electric vehicle, but should consider one when thinking about their next vehicle purchase.
Lots of people told me I should have gotten my wife an EV. Problem was they are double what the fiesta cost, at 31mpg average it would take the life of an EV to come close to breaking even. Add in thousands to get a charger installed at the house and its even longer.
@@randombuilds8336 With fuel costs varying so much from region-to-region it really is dependent on where you live. I think the economic incentive is really only there for people who live on a coastal state where gas prices are the highest vs the rest of the country and not only in a coastal state but also in a metropolis where there is decent charging infustructure.
With the home charger you don't need some thousand dollar charger. You can just have a smart toggle on your dryer and the charging cable, $100 for a home charging set up.
@@motocache6645 Yeah, they'll be great in places like CA where you get told to turn your ac to a higher temp because there isn't enough electricity generation to run everyone's appliances.
@@randombuilds8336 lol. Hey, if you want to base your life around fake news where you need to spend thousands of dollars to charge from home and the CA power grid is imploding, I can't stop you.
ReGen in a EV comes from braking lol. It captures kinetic energy from braking and converts it in a tiny bit of charge. Currently Formula cars are hybrid and have the same technology. Whenever you see the “Brake light” in F1 cars, the driver is using regen to charge up the battery.
Wrong. They charge when coasting to a stop. You don't even need the brakes.
yea, I know how ReGen works, I explained it above. You're fixating on the fact that I said it happens during braking. Doesn't make any of what I said false.@@Magicinstalls
It’s the chic-fil-a straws at the sushi restaurant for me 🤣🤣😂
that was soo funny
I’d noticed that
I'm not familiar with that bike but regen is usually triggered by braking. It uses the regen to substitute braking and charges while doing it. I'm not sure how much regeneration takes place while coasting, especially on a small vehicle like a bike.
This is not true, regarding Zero motorcycles. There is neutral regen, which occurs whenever you let off the throttle, it's equivalent to engine braking. There is also brake regen, which happens when you pull the brakes. These are separate types of regen and both are customizable on a Zero, you can set either between 0% and 100% in a custom riding mode. The reason this likely didn't work is they needed to set Neutral Regen to 100% in the app, and, after keying on the bike, they needed to hit the throttle, to engage the drivetrain and get the bike into "idle". If you simply key on the bike and never hit the throttle, it's not "running" yet. So no regen will happen. You'll notice that the moment you touch the throttle on a Zero that you start hearing a whine even if it's sitting still, that's the motor encoder etc. It shuts off after a few seconds to save energy.
@@protonus no, the reason this did not work is because the front wheel was not turning. The bike knows that the front wheel is not turning because of the front brake sensor. It will not activate Regen unless it knows it's on the road and not on the back of somebody's truck…
700 dollar electric scooter goes 32mph gets me everywhere my car used too, and in some cases faster. I can cruise past traffic, no need to worry about parking, or getting my car out the lot. Just on, and go. Ive honestly saved thousands on gas in the last couple years. Plus. its fun as hell! It really is the future, batteries are getting insane.
I believe you have to hold the brake "SLIGHTLY" to engage "DRAG" on the motor for "RE-GEN" to even work. you should def. try again with a rubber band or hair tie around the brake lever and roll it to charge.
You could be right
@@BikesandBeards I have an electric bicycle with regen braking and thats hoe it works
140 miles would get me to work all week on one charge. Not bad if you live somewhere somewhat suburban.
Yes, and if you have a garage or access to a household current plug-an overnight charge regularly is a surefire way to keep the battery charged and lasting longer.
Nothing like the instant speed and silence, and a button to power it up like on my solar eclipse ❤️
Complete opposite when it comes to the limp mode on these. My 2018 Zero S starts bogging down around 40% and limps at 10%. My Livewire even down to 3%, still had full power.
Yeah, but the Livewire is the fancy bike ^-^
I'm open to these being a commuter tool.
Just something to ride to work each day during the week.
That is... if they bring down the cost these things and the cost of the replacement battery. The battery would also have to last 10 years or more and be serviceable by the end user. I'm hesitant for the simple fact that you will get price gouged somewhere along the way. Either by purchase price, parts, or service.
The price of the Zero motorcycle S model with the quick charge capability is approximately $14,000. I paid $12,800 for a new T120 Triumph Bonneville and will be paying substantially more to fuel it with gas and maintain it that one would every pay for the Zero S. Electric motorcycles are clearly cost competitive now for the average rider. The Zero S makes perfect sense if you are riding in an urban or suburban environment which the typical motorcycle owner does. Few riders take the big motorcycle trip piling on thousands of miles at a time Most are riding less than 100 miles at any one time. Which is doable on a modern electric motorcycle
@@johnpaulgarzaniti5065 keep us posted with the lifespan of the battery, availability of the replacement, cost of the replacement, and user serviceability.
The motorcycle I own now is 20 years old so I tend to keep my bikes for a very long time.
@@johnpaulgarzaniti5065 Not a very good example wasting your money on a bonnerville then making a comparison,How about a cheaper Japanese bike like a Kawasaki twin at £9,000 a better comparison,Anything other than Japanese is a waste of money but heh it's your money,Even £9,000 on a twin is a waste of money,I've had twins OK when i didn't know any better,Four cylinders is money well spent,But your promoting a electric bike on a overpriced Triumph,I'm British myself but not that patriotic
I'm sorry to say but you completely misunderstand re-gen. re-gen happens when you break and converts your movement back in to power. re-gen is breaking.
There is engen regen as well. My talaria has it, but of course, you need to throttle on and let off for it to happen
no. all regeneration is is an alternator
some cars only allow it when braking because whatever energy you’re making by it spinning is just being wasted while accelerating.
if you’re spinning it without any power, it will generate electricity.
btw, if you are braking, you are throwing that energy out as heat.
to generate as much possible, you want to keep that core spinning as much possible inside that coil, with absolutely 0 braking and 0 throttle. more spin = more energy
@@svndwich977 That's assuming it is an alternator. It's been a while since I watched this video but if I recall it's an E Motorcycle not a hybrid Motorcycle. I doubt hybrid Motorcycles are a thing. It is true that an increase in speed on the "generator" whatever form it is will make more power but that's assuming that the vehicle is not controling it. For electronic breaking/re-gen systems the vehicle does have varying control of this allowing you to chose your breaking/re-gen amount.
To be clear I'm not talking about the mechanical breaks. No friction based breaking here. That's on top of the electronic breaking. If it's anything like my E-Scooter once you pass a certain speed and have pressed the throttle at least once at that speed letting go of the throttle is when it passively Re-gens slowing me down slowly and when I press lightly on the breaks is when it activates the breaking mode for the Re-gen . When holding the breaks lightly the mechanical breaks are berly touching and the Re-gen activates breaking mode. The transition is rough on my scooter but even my scooter has multiple levels of re-gen.
“I’m saving the environment!” As he rolls coal. I love this guys sense of humor
For real 😂
😆
I am guessing the charge remaining is set up similar to fuel tanks. Depending on how you drive it and the type of vehicle, it still has a small reserve once the guage hits empty so you can still have enough time to get to a refuelling point.
"EVs wont save you money" also "i dont know the different levels of charging". real expert level info here
Thats sadly a reoccurring problem on TH-cam.
The Sweet Baby Gang call out has made me even more a permanent fan. Can we please get a video of you guys teaching Matt to ride a motorcycle??
Yeah that would be a great idea
Yes! I own a very similar Zero S (11.4 battery). Everything you say about the bike is correct (really bad suspension, mediocre brakes, pretty bad seat, stealthy feel). I will note that regen does work for me, but I think you need to change a setting for it or it mostly only regens when brake is applied. It'll be interesting to see how long it survives in your hands.
On a side note: I think you got a good deal on it, but these are super hard to sell. I think you could get 9k for it on a perfect day but also will likely struggle to find buyers at 7.5k.
You Think They’ll Buy It After It Was Used To Push A 7000 Pound Van For Half A Mile. If It Was Worth a Damn I Bet It Isn’t Now
@Always Play The Game - I'm looking at these bikes. Is there a good place to find them used? I'd love to find a deal on one.
@@johnfarr5415 It's easy in places like Orange County. In the midwest (like I live) - nope. I can't find a single used one for sale within 300 miles of me. I bought mine from a dealer.
7500 for a DRS with charge tank? That's a steal. Or a friend price from someone who loves the channel.
The charge tank alone costs 3000....
Bikes and Beards is my new favourite TH-cam channel. Thanks for the entertaining,smart content.
I like that you don't just favor gas bikes, those are cool, but I always enjoy seeing what e bikes are out there
Glad you like them!
Well this is obviously a commute bike, so a decent range is there :)
It actually as you have already mentioned calculates range based on your riding habits ... And I don't believe that it recalculates that range until you fully recharge again. It does make on the fly adjustments with calculated distance.
This field is so exciting! What is going to become of electric motorcycles as the batteries get better and better?
And what become off the battery has reached the end of it serviceable life what's the "green option"?
@@Johnketes54 get a rebuilt battery
I wouldn’t hold your breath lmao😅
I'd consider a trike with the new technology.
@@Johnketes54 🎯
I Love electric bikes, but sadly its gonna take a long time for battery's to get small and powerful enough that decent range can be a thing.
For lower speed/ Moped kinda bikes it's probably already good enough. I drive a Super Soco for Work - Home traffic and with free charging at work it's pretty nice
I feel like that’s the best option is if you live in a city and drive something electric on the sidewalks at slower speeds to commute to work. But trips or anything like that you can forget it for now,
Agreed I have a VW e golf I get 80-100 miles on a charge. Great for my needs. But on a motorcycle that I would use for pleasure. Current ranges just wouldn’t do it. For me anyways I would need or want 175-200 miles per charge at 70 mph. I know they will get there.
Check out Toyotas battery tech. If money is to be made they will find a way.
It's not about the batteries so much but the charging speed. If a motorbike could take the same 150-250kW charge a modern EV gets, the entire battery could be charged in a few minutes. A 20 kWh battery can get you 200 miles of range already. That's more than most gas powered bikes.
If the charging time would be as long a fueling up at a gas station, there is no competitive advantage for gas bikes anymore even if all you do is long-distance riding.
For cities electric bicycles are already the most efficient mode of transportation there is.
i think it depends on your use case. i actually started on a super soco, a great learner bike. i ride a zero s now, and i get about 150 miles out of it in the city, which is perfect for a day's work delivering food. charging takes just shy of 2hrs. i guess more range would be nice for road trips and such, range is more like 110 miles at higher speeds. but honestly, once i got the fast charger installed, i've never felt restricted. maybe it's just me, but my backside appreciates a rest by the time the battery's gone.
12:08 Funfact: My Home City in Germany, Mainz has a custom built diesel Hybrid MK1 Facelift Mercedes Citaro Hybrid thats ARTICULATED and to this day i still think its crazy that they pulled that off
it's an amazing idea, you buy an electric vehicle and then tow it around on your diesel-powered truck to recharge it, brilliant idea we should all do that lol. but seriously thanks for the show, Sean. just one more thing is that grey we can see in your beard old friend lol.
its actually stupid, there is no free energy in this world, regen slows you down because thats how it makes the energy, transform from rotational to fill the battery
tldr, the van will use much more many times more fuel than what it'll cost to refill, the bike will provide resistance to the van
Probably one of the best Zero reviews out there lol unbiased opinions are priceless, the only real question is… are you going to give it away????!?!?!?!!
Get an idiot to ride a bike he knows nothing about and that's the best review ever? XD
I cannot agree. He started off in total ignorance, did no homework and learnt some stuff through trial and error. He still has a lot to learn!
So that would be the unbiased opinion, if he did absolutely all the homework then he’d have a biased opinion. So what he didn’t fully know about the brake regen, he did a review that no one has done. A past warranty battery that he took to 0% twice, testing whether you can ride and charge, and giving his unfiltered opinion based off of his overall motorcycle knowledge. I own a Zero and wouldn’t dare taking it past 20% and mine is a ‘22. I’m biased to zero of course, so IN MY OPINION, it was the best review I’ve seen to date. Not just a guy riding it and telling us how Torquey it is, we get it, they’re quick as hell… saying this guy has a lot to learn just tells me you’re not subscribed to the channel… might wanna check it out lol
@@themikeali32 With respect, I think you're confusing the word 'bias' with the word 'knowledge'. More knowledge doesn't make you more biased. FWIW I've been riding electric motorcycles since 1998 and Zeroes since 2009, but I'm also the happy owner of 10 ICE bikes of all kinds!
I agree in that regard, the knowledge vs biased aspect. But I guess I’m speaking more to the fact of his delivery of content. Yes he could’ve gained some knowledge on the bike, I just happened to enjoy the fact that while I am biased and own one, he came from an unbiased and albeit less informed point of view… still tho this guy Sean is super knowledgeable. I knew nothing about bikes 3 years ago 🤷🏽♂️ now I can’t stop myself from trying to buy every bike I like
Many places give free charging, my brother uses it frequently. Towing in regen would not be free, the extra load on the car will likely cost more in fuel than buying electricity. The towing regen possibly didn't work because you started from 0 MPH; you might have to get it rolling, hit the throttle on the bike so that it thinks you're riding, then continue towing. And that's assuming that you have regen on, pretty sure it's selectable. I've ridden my brother's Zero, but I'm a real man so I ride a kickstart 2 smoker and I don't know much about the Zero's idiosyncrasies.
„Someone at this Building wants me to charge for free“ also Sean drives with his free charged motorcycle through their freshly mowed lawn
Saw that and laughed my butt off
That digital display is actually pretty good and the horn is pretty good compared to the electric mopeds and it sounds amazing..that's a great find for 3500
0:35 actually he spent $7500
Are you crazy that is a steal for 3500.
Best damn videos on earth! You fellows deserve a lot of success. I find myself binging multiple episodes, staring at my phone while I cook dinner! Pure fun! Cheers!
You never got any likes because we were all too busy binge watching.
That was interesting, can't wait to see the hydrogen bike reviews when they come through!
Hydrogen? Tell me more,We have buses and taxes in London England,I think Hydrogen is the way forward not all this electric crap maybe the Hybrids,40 miles to a charge and two hour's probably better than public transport
Man seeing that almost makes me want to get one for my commute to work. Too bad the price is so high. Most are getting sold around 10-12k rn.
If you're in the US or Canada venom motorsports has some cheap Chinese bikes that are actually pretty nice.
You can get most under $3000
I cannot recommend Zeros enough. I use a Zero DS as a commuter and it's a dream.
@@minrvusnova2303 I hear ya. I'd love to get a zero myself those things are super nice. Still just a bit too out of my price range though. I'll have to give it a few years or so before they get cheap enough for me to consider it.
@@MrRoomba2321 Totally fair. Would the EV tax incentive not help you? Those Venoms he mentioned are good for short range for sure.
@@minrvusnova2303 You know honestly I have no idea how the EV tax system works. I'll probably look up some more info about it and who knows, maybe it'll be good enough to make me go electric. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I will never give up the badass combustion engine.....electric seems cool to play with....not to take serious
LOL that's the most inconvenient hundred and thirty something miles ever but the video was very amusing thank you Sean and team!! 😊
Why was it inconvenient? Other than the very last section which was just to test the actual range. In reality you would plug in while you stopped for lunch, so it wouldn’t have been an issue at all.
@@Pugjamin speed and time 😊 by all means have fun lol 😊
@@Pugjamin The crabshack has fast chargers?
Hysterical, Sean you're killing us!😂
Who would've thunked a lightweight bike could push a big diesel maxi van. Like, you scratch my back, i scratch yours
26:32 Regardless of what I am driving, people cutting into the wrong lane is freakin' terrifying. I've never ridden a motorcycle (I've off and on considered it for quite some time; I'm just watching a suggested video), but someone I knew used to, until she was in a similar turn and the driver of a rental truck coming the opposite direction thought cutting corners was a good idea. She spent the next several weeks in the hospital. The instant on a bike would be an extreme clencher.
Your reasons for doing this are hitting everyone hard, thank you for being brave enough to be honest.
Wawa owes you money. I went out and bought that drink instantly. Whatever part of Pennsylvania you live in looks beautiful.
More road trip videos 🤞🏼👍🏽
More to come!
Just yesterday, I just spent $30 to fill up my 2018 M109R to go spend $130 for the oil change after putting roughly 2K miles this past year on it. When riding it, I can't lie, not having 100% torque on demand is.... well, kind of boring to me now. 🤣
I plan on selling it AND my Zero and going for an Energica.
Experia looks like a winner
How much you want for M109R?
Can't you do a oil change?
I think you should Google torque yours is 118,It's pulling power,riding solo you won't even notice it,Your is a fast cruiser perhaps a Hayabusa is what you meant to buy and the salesman convinced you otherwise
9:57 Regen seems to only be regen braking, but I still appreciate your Ferris Bueler attempted regen tow.
I can't wait till electric motorcycles are a bit more efficient. They seem like a ton of fun with the instant torque. And if I could charge for free at work it'd save me so much money. So long as the bike itself isn't $30,000...
They are already super efficient. Way more so then a petrol bike. The problem is the battery weight and the charging times
@@chrishall734 how much faster do you want a level 3 charger is like 2% a minute thats insane as it is. Lol
My sur-ron with a 5amp charger does 1% 90ish seconds zero with a stage 3 does 2.5% a minute.
All you have to do is map out your trips there is charging stations every 10 miles or so almost every where on the eastern sea board and west coast mid states 🤔 idk
correct. instant torque ftw. especially when you get a bougie porsche driver rev his engine at you at the lights, and you laugh to yourself as you smoke him (it's always a him) off the line.
Looks like your getting about half the battery capacity that a New DSR gets. And for about half the price of a new Zero DSR. Sounds about right. Not a steal but not a RIP
@@miguel360kmc level 3 at home isn't that easy to get.
not that it matters at home as much. the problem is really the cost of the bike (or conversion parts, converting motorbike to electric isn't that hard but still $$$).
I got rid of my car and got an electric bike last year and couldn’t be happier
Large ebikes can't be charged and run at the same time because the BMS would go nuts trying to balance all of the batteries while they are simultaneously discharging from the other end. Some of us who want to do cross country ebike trips simply get a couple of spare batteries and charge them in a trailer separate from the bike. Most trailers have solar panels on them for charging on the go.
It would be really nice of the company that makes the bike to send you a brand new battery to see if it makes a difference in mileage.
It would b really nice if they sent me a bike to test.of the company
Zero Motorcycles unfortunately does not do right to repair.
Meaning that won't happen.
@@leoncaples2947 another reason not to buy one
@@franklaskus2395 the stock battery with proper care last about 2,500-5,000 charges you dont see dips till around 800 charges do the math keep it simple say 100miles 100% to 0% 800 times before you even see a small dip in battery output thats a lot of miles. Hell say 50 miles 100%-0% thats still a very long life = if not better than gas bikes
@@miguel360kmc just don’t care for any manufacturer that makes long term ownership hard or impossible. Like refusing to sell parts for a customer repair.
Thank you for spending time on the details of charging. That is what I am most curious about. Riding it is no problem.
I love the Zero motorcycles. They have defiantly come a long way the past few years compared to that bike
Are they waterproof? Can I ride in rain ?
A big problem with Battery powered stuff is that after a long time they get less efficient and lose charge faster and if you have bad charging habbits. Honestly wouldnt feel comfortable buying a used electric vehicle until that bit of technology improves.
So you buy cellphones you buy tvs that are electric. Just say your poor
@@joemontes4658So he is supposedly poor cause he doesn’t want to deal with the longierend drawback of a battery? The hell are you on.
@@JGStone yes. Even gas powered stuff have batteries
@@joemontes4658 I know and you have to change those every few years, but because they are small in size, thats no big deal there. And most manual cars could even run fine without one, just: almighty push.
@@JGStone regardless what we use nothing is good for the environment. No one cares about it anyway.
To get regen, you must have the motor working. (advance throttle until motor engages and leave it there, and when the bike moves it will regenerate.)
It'd be cool of them to send you a 2022 model to compare and test.
I have a 2021 DS and got 160 miles out of it before it died. Not a huge difference admittedly.
The electric "bike" market is sadly shady when it comes to their range stats. When they say 100 miles they leave out thats at low-mid level speeds on flat land with a 150lbs rider with the wind at his back.
Zero is better than most but still over clocks
40 miles means 25 ..they ALWAYS LIE
@@cliveswabs9365 they dont lie they just leave out the conditions in their range test.
If they say 40 miles it can hit 40 miles but at low speed on flat land
For max range your enemy is speed. The energy required (gas and ev) goes up exponentially (or squared) with speed…so keep to 50 instead of 70 and your range improves by about 30%. BTW..running it until it won’t go is v bad for batt life.
Electromagnetic brakes regen by breaking.
This is not true, regarding Zero motorcycles. There is neutral regen, which occurs whenever you let off the throttle, it's equivalent to engine braking. There is also brake regen, which happens when you pull the brakes. These are separate types of regen and both are customizable on a Zero, you can set either between 0% and 100% in a custom riding mode. The reason this likely didn't work is they needed to set Neutral Regen to 100% in the app, and, after keying on the bike, they needed to hit the throttle, to engage the drivetrain and get the bike into "idle". If you simply key on the bike and never hit the throttle, it's not "running" yet. So no regen will happen. You'll notice that the moment you touch the throttle on a Zero that you start hearing a whine even if it's sitting still, that's the motor encoder etc. It shuts off after a few seconds to save energy.
Regen only works while you’re breaking. That’s why it’s called brake regen.
And yes it’s pretty minimal even then
They had it in 100% regen which is actually quite aggressive. The regen is engaged when the throttle is rolled of, not when the brake is applied. It was probably working but the gauge coupd be funky and or the fact that the pack at drained so low could have caused the BMS to go into safety mode and reject the energy from the regen. Just a guess.
@@motocache6645 Zero's so-called '100% regen' is actually nothing of the sort. It's barely 30%. Zero's regen was very disappointing on those models - the later ones have much more, as the Energicas have always had.
@@pnblondon1087 Really? I had a 2015 Zero SR and if you cranked up the regen braking to max it was super sketchy, legit tank slapper risk. Sort of sketchy to ride it thru the twisties with regen on; the entire regen braking design was/may still be flawed in that it is either on/off, there is no smooth rolling off the throttle to modulate decel, it would just kick abruptly at a position on the throttle... Horrible. Hence you pretty much would have to ride it with super low regen; if they haven't yet changed it so throttle position does modulate regen engagement then I wouldn't be suprised if they changed later models so they couldn't be cranked up very high. Hope this has changed because this alone has stopped my interest and or recommendation to own a Zero.
@@motocache6645 I'm really surprised by your experience. I rode the complete Zero range in 2011 and again in 2015 (down some great twisty Californian roads) and never felt there was as much regen as I wanted, compared to, for example, the Energicas and electric BMWs. I went on to ride both 2017 and 2018 DSRs a lot of miles and had the same experience. It was only with the 3rd generation SR/F and SR/S that I was able, finally, to get the amount of regen I craved...
@@pnblondon1087 I've owned the Zero SR and the Brammo inertia, those are my exclusive experience on E-motos. Did you actually go into the software and change the regen %? Otherwise the stock setting was moderate from what I remember but regardless of % has an abrupt engagement for regen. You never want to experience much impulse while cornering, having the abillity to modulate decel is in my opinion a must and the on/off nature of the regen on the zero I had was the deal breaker unfortunately. But it's not just Zero I would complain about for it, I rode my friends Aprillia V4 last week and fly-by-wire throttle was not well implemented and suffered a similar symptom of abrupt engine braking and poor abillity to modulate. I am definetly a fan of electronic throttle bodies, lot's of bikes have no issues, but I'm not sure how so many bikes are falling short on their implementations, especially premium bikes like the Aprillia I rode. But I am picky for sure, I know it.
I don't have time to read all 2k comments to see if others said this or not so apologies in advance if it has been said.
Firstly, replace your batteries. Their capacity goes down with usage. That is probably why it was cheap. There are probably shops that will rebuild the battery pack instead of just replacing.
The regen is ONLY in braking (when it is on). It takes up a major part of the stopping force when you hit the brakes by turning the motor into a generator and (all motors are generators). The energy to turn the generator comes from the momentum of the bike through the wheel. The problem I see with a bike with a single wheel motor is that it is only the REAR brake, meaning you only can get as much energy back as you can apply rear brakes. That means that the energy going back to the battery is only the REAR/FRONT brake ratio times the the bike's kinetic energy. The rest is just dumped as heat in the front disk brake, which unfortunately is the majority of your energy. The faster you are going, the more braking force available all the way to zero braking when you are almost stopped, which means you have to have conventional brakes as well.
In total regen, with both wheels, the operation still isn't very efficient . Let's say the efficiency is 85% power into motion. That means that you lose 15% going out. Now that same 85% applies to going back as regen. So you double the losses recovering your energy. Now lets say you can only get 40% off the rear brakes. So your are at 85% out * (40% * 85% in) = 29% energy recovered with no other losses.
I think you said you left the regen off? It typically adds about 5 - 15% range on an e-bike depending on the terrain.
No, regen works when the back tire spins - just release the throttle. The battery on this bike is perfectly fine, I know because it's my old motorcycle. I sold it in the summer of 2021 to get a bike equipped with DC fast charging.
@@AdventuresonZero You are right, but the ebrake has to be on, it doesn't come on when you coast. I wasn't thinking. Most of us with ebikes don't use it anyway, they are too variable depending on the battery voltage and actually cause the axle nuts to come loose from bi-directional torque.
Any idea if that was a complex for a business (regarding free charging)? Some businesses offer free charging for employees as an incentive. I didn't see employee-only charging or any sort of restrictions, so maybe that wasn't the case here? Pretty curious.
My guess and it’s a guess is they get a pretty nice tax write off having that charging station and them paying to charge us probably more tax write offs so it pays that person to charge up their bikes
I wonder if the regen is related to braking. A lot of regen systems only work when braking.
Correct, the regen only works with gentle braking.
It has neutral regen when you let off throttle and brake regen. I have one
Thought the same myself, lots of manufacturers say that the regen works when braking, it activates when the brake pedal is pressed so when the brake lights activate the signal also tells the car to charge the battery, so the car switches from using the battery to returning the power backwards from the wheel motors that charges the battery. The car or bike will need to be able to know when to switch the regen on with the users input.
@@tcooperpersonalgains528 yeah it is normal to coast (freewheel) when releasing the throttle, and to regen only when light braking. Under heavy braking it uses the brake discs.
This looks perfect for commuting around a city! Very cool
Most electric bikes are in desperate need of bigger batteries, this one included.
It’s a weight , size and physics thing. It will get better but the tech just isn’t there.
@@doublej42 Yes. The main issue is weight. A bike with reasonable range would probably need a battery between 20 and 30kwh, which with current tech would weigh 100 to 150kg. That would completely destroy the handling of any converted bike, but it should be possible to make a sort of electrified boss hoss even with last year's tech.
Am I right in thinking zero is an American company? Doesn’t regen come from braking, not moving under battery power?
They have neutral regen and brake regen
Zero is right here in California! And the regen levels are user setable
I bought one fully customized & it's the smartest purchase I've made....down side, parts are hard to come by.....very very specific parts...if one thing goes bad....good luck..it's not a perfected model yet...but very worth the risk...gata do a full computer reset.....& building your own lithium battery is way more economic....
Im actually impressed. I was against the idea of electric bikes mostly because of the range and cost but used its really not bad at all. Problem is what about traffic and temperature difference? Like how long will it last on say a commute down the surekill into philly durring rush hours? 2nd how long does ir rake to charge w the quick charge and last will a solar charger help at all like a harbor freight panel?
Also we’re do they put the lithium after the bike is dead
@@rylanhefford8716 They are recycled
I can't answer all these questions, because I don't own one, I only own a regular EV car.
Traffic shouldn't be much of an issue, EVs do extremely well in slow traffic, because they're only using what they need and recuperate if you're stopping again.
Heat isn't so much of an issue, in the summer the battery would probably only need cooling if you're either charging of pushing the bike really hard.
What makes a difference is cold, I just came back from the alps and -12°C cut range, power and recuperation by about 20%.
What I found out about charging for that model: 4h from a socket and 1h to 95% from a quick charger. 1h for that amount is honestly pretty bad. Normally EVs can get impressive charging speeds from 10% to 80% with DC charging. Usually 30min. A battery that size would probably be able to handle 30kW DC, but I'm guessing there isn't enough space for the necessary cooling and wiring for DC fast charging. So if you want to "quick charge" while traveling, you should plan for 2 coffees instead of 1.
For charging with a "cheap" solar panel? Totally not worth it. 14,4 kwh is still a lot of battery. Because you need an AC outlet to charge, you'd also need one of these battery/inverter units. You'd need about $3000 in solar panels with a power supply unit, to charge that thing in like 2 days.
For that small thing it's just not worth it. Especially not in the US, you're paying less than half than we do here.
Charging via solar makes mostly sense, if you have spent 15-20k on a solar system for your house. With that you could also quick charge that motorcycle or regular charge a car
$7500 for the jokes alone was worth it 🤣