Good move, but another thing this brand does is charge you a monthly subscription to unlock the full battery range on your bike. If you don’t pay, you lug around a dead weight extra battery you cannot access. Overall this brand is notoriously unfriendly to consumers.
I'd been considering getting a Zero versus other brands for over a year, and you comment got me to reconsider, thanks! I wasn't are of this scummy behaviour of theirs until now.
I am not disagreeing with you - I believe that you should be able to use something you bought however you wish - but I think it is worth noting that the lower you allow depth of discharge, the more cycles you can squeeze out of a pack. So it’s not dead weight per se, its trading weight and range for pack longevity, which equates to economy over the life of the motorcycle.
Eh, no it's not. It's getting a monthly fee out of what could be a button or switch, a monthly fee that could be just an unpaid, free to use feature of the bike.
This is some serious "c-suite message to help you fall asleep at night territory".
How will you un-wear a battery with a press of a button?
I don't see anything inconsistent with a subscription if the manufacturer is responsible for replacing the battery during a warranty time. I prefer large ecosystems with 3rd party parts to dealing with proprietary manufacturing and warranties though.
It's the monthly fee I have a problem with. Unless the monthly fee guarantees a new pack if the battery degradation from an increased DoC, then it is good. As it currently stands, it is literally a jerk move on the company's side.
Even the phone in your pocket isn't using it's full battery potential (by design). You can hack this with software to "get more out of your battery", but really all you're doing is shortening the length of your battery life and creating a fire hazard.
He doesn't care how long the total life span is. It's perfectly capable of it (access to the option can be paid for so it's not equivalent to a hack) and he wants to go further on a single charge, so this is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff to make.
Just let the user make that choice without an absurd subscription.
Right. "By design" is doing all the work there, because the design goals are different.
Phones are designed that way as a way to prolong the longevity of the phone. This bike is designed this way as a way to extract a subscription. These two things are not the same.
It's the other way around, you can hack it and get longer battery life. But that is not an option because phone manufacturers prefer that their non-user-replacable batteries get worn out.
Oh my god, this should be illegal. What an environmental waste to block what hardware can do for business reasons, is there any global lobby fighting bullshit like this?
This kind of thing has existed forever. Cars are starting to do it, too, as it gets cheaper to make them all the same and disable some features in software.
HEVs also use only about 50% of the battery to reduce wear on it (go from 30 to 80 charge, no more).
But anyway, I won't buy a vehicle with a subscription based feature list that isn't something like a concierge service. If it's in the vehicle, I've already paid for the gear. (This changes once there's a community of moto hackers that can disable the lockouts... ish)
Ehh, you're never supposed to drain an old school lead-acid battery below 50% either. And car engine controllers won't let you give it more gas to go past the redline.
The evil here is purely "pay monthly to unlock a configuration option", not the existence of such wear limiters. And that part is new.
Zero SR/F owner here. I was also put off by this before buying a Zero. They did back off of this a bit, but most of the stuff floating around online is from when they initially did it.
Now, if you purchase any premium Zero like the SRF and SRS, every software upgrade comes unlocked and is apart of your purchase as you’d expect.
If you purchase their cheaper tier models like the DS and SR, then the “upgrades” can be software unlocked. I’m not a fan, but it is a one time fee from what I understand. It’s not a subscription. (correct me if you have conflicting data)
That in mind, my SR/F came off the lot with everything already enabled. I checked the app and there are no “upgrades” that can be purchased.
Zero also had a reputation of being one of the less repairable bikes, but they’ve been slowly going in the other direction.
I walked into a dealer being dead set on buying an Energica bike and not buying a Zero. They had no problem selling it to me, but after updating me on where the current state of Zero was vs Energica, I decided to buy the Zero and didn’t regret it in the least.
If the actual cost to the consumer to unlock the features isn't more than other brands would charge for something with everything enabled, I don't really see a big issue, aside from that it requires closed firmware.
Seems like it could allow higher quality and cheaper products because they don't have to spend the money on keeping track of multiple hardware versions. Fewer models means the ones that do exist will be more tested and mass produced.
Then again, I've never ridden a motorcycle or even a bike, maybe things are different.
Not sure that's fair - the battery packs come with a 5 year warranty. If you increase the 'full range' - you're increasing the odds you'll need to claim on that, which needs paying for.
it does, generally the deeper lithium ion batteries are discharged, the higher the likelihood of dendrites forming on the anode.
basically the more time that is spent not in the fully discharged state, the longer li-ion will last.
(this doesn't mean you want to leave it 100% charged either, that can also damage the pack; if leaving for extended non-use, leaving it at ~50% state of discharge is the generally recommended advice)
The disagreement is not with the science but with the idea that "because the company will have to honor more warranties, it is okay for them to charge more for features of the things they have already sold consumers". Maybe they should make less money, instead. Perhaps they can split the difference by amending the warranty to take into account the health of the battery. I don't really care! I (we. everyone.) hate a world where people retain control over things that they have ostensibly sold you and, predictably, scummily, attempt to extract more profit from them.
What if they did it the old way and simply never implemented deep discharge in the first place? The product would never tap into the extra battery performance, you'd retain control over what you bought, and they wouldn't extract more profit.
Industrial battery packs extract a fair bit more value from their cells than consumer packs because those customers pay for the extra expense to the manufacturer and they're willing and legally able to accept more complex warranty terms. It's tough to bring something like that to consumers. The fact that this is an option at all shows that competition is increasing along this axis.
I wonder how this works in practice. Is this, in practice, equivalent to some laptops' and newer androids' setting of never fully charging the battery in order to improve the overall battery lifetime if you know you won't use the 100% anyway? Or is it just dead weight which is never touched and you just use fewer cells, but always the same?
You can't mix and match batteries varying in wear, or address and charge arbitrary inividual cells, so it has to be just lower state of charge, e.g. 80% true charge displayed as full.
It’s literal dead weight. It’s especially bad because the bikes already don’t have great ranges (and the estimated ranges are often pretty optimistic), and extra dead weight cuts into your limited range even further.
I'd be surprised if it was literally dead weight. It's much easier to design a software control system that uses a common set of cells and caps the full charge than one that switches different cell blocks in depending on what's enabled.
It is not as simple as it seems. If you connect the "unused" cell in a series, it could alter the battery's output voltage by as much as 4.2 volts, which has the potential to damage the voltage regulator.
On the other hand, if you connect the "unused" cell in parallel, it's absolutely crucial that it holds the same charge as the other cells at the time of connection. This is because the parallel pack's voltage will level out, leading to a substantial flow of current (essentially causing rapid charging/discharging of the cell). This can result in a fire or even a battery explosion if the cell voltages are too different.
All in all, physically detaching a battery might not be the best approach. The cells will experience different levels of wear, and variations in internal resistance will lead to problems with cell balancing and longer charging times.
No that would be more complex. You’d have to add a relay and something to control it. Much easier to just map 80% to “100%” on the display and in the BMS.
Every cells have to hold roughly same charge for the concept of battery pack to work. Else the weaker cell becomes overcharged as others take in the charge, and (in the absolute worst case) the entire thing goes kaboom. Not worth doing.
I’m fine with subscriptions if it provides value to me as a customer. If it enables a consistent stream of new content or features, or covers things like cloud storage where there is clearly an ongoing cost to the company to provide a service then I understand and accept the fees. Otherwise, it’s just rent seeking.
Are there any OEMs whose service manuals are hard to find? I restore cars and motorcycles and have never had trouble finding a pdf or hard copy for around $20. Its good that they are doing this though a lot of the secrets I’d want to know about an electric motorcycle are about the ECU when that software is some of the most tightly guarded of any.
I acquired an old Sony CMT-EX1 CD player a while back and was tinkering around with it. I found the service manual online and was blown away. There are pinouts! Block diagrams [0] for the PCBs! Capacitor inventories! I wish we still did this for consumer hardware.
Japanese service manuals for electronics, especially ones starting in the early 80's when the printing quality started getting really good, are a sight to behold. In the era before the EDA software did everything, the annotated schematics and PCB board layouts in the manuals are gorgeous, especially those by Sony and Matsushita / Panasonic.
When the EDA tools started making the prints fully automatically and all the tables and notes just became automated outputs to PDF... it kinda killed a bit of the artistry that went into the layouts of the prints. I also feel that the care and choosing the fonts / lettering styles / etc. have become eschewed in favor of just putting out whatever the defaults are from current software without care of adjustment. It's why all published schematics these days look alike, and boring by comparison.
The early Walkman manuals are a good example of this:
> killed a bit of the artistry that went into the layouts
Yes. Absolutely.
Sadly, EDA tools like KiCad and Altium (two of the ones I use most often) make absolutely ugly schematics. Just horrible looking stuff. I always thought this had to do with engineers who did not necessarily come up drawing schematics by hand.
In the later-70's to early 80's --and a little beyond-- you could pickup magazines like Byte and Popular Electronics and see beautifully drawn schematics that were well laid-out and easy to understand. Same with data books. I built lots of projects from those magazines back then. Later on, professionally, I developed a schematic drafting style that mimicked the beautiful schematics from those publications.
CAD requires an effort. You can produce great looking schematics. It depends on how you choose to produce your libraries. We make libraries that make great looking schematics. The difference in legibility is, in my opinion, worth the time we spend creating good looking symbols and parts.
Making old technology viable instead of buying new one, or even worse tinkering with it and unlocking or adding new functionality corporations reserved for higher end models, professional equipment or just outright didn't want to implement assured it will never happen. In the past only few tinkerers actually cared about this. Now everything is on the internet and everyone have access to it. This is a season for planed obsolescence after all.
this is out of nowhere but if anyone can help me find a service manual (not owners manual) for a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-50 i would be in deep gratitude. a few octaves intermittently don't work and i'd love to tinker
BMW no longer sells service manuals for their bikes.
There are, essentially, bootlegs on line, but my understanding is that while before they had a dedicated Window application for their manuals, they're moving to an online only system, and only for dealers.
So, while there are manuals floating around now, who knows how that will go moving forward.
Obviously, this will be a key sticking point in the future with the "right to repair" laws trickling through the state legislatures.
What’s the rationale for not releasing a manual? To force you to take into a dealer for service? It’s not like they have to make a separate manual. It has to exist for the dealer anyway right?
The $200/hr service charge most european motorcycle dealers charge. There are two things I can't do myself. Particularly, bleeding the ABS (which requires the dealer tool) and re-shimming the engine (which also requires a dealer tool).
My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It's ALL service fees. Reshimming the engine (once every 15k miles or so) costs a minimum of $1200 going up to $2000 if the engine needs significant adjustment. I've shimmed sportbikes for years and 6-8 hours worth of work is insane. I can do it in a few hours excluding the time to go get beer.
It's borderline theft. "Stealership" is not tongue in cheek. I am seriously considering trading in my motorcycle for cash (even at a loss) and re-buying an old R100GS.
I think it may depend on brands and models. When I take my specific Honda in for the scheduled maintenance, the dealer seems to apply a standard, Honda-dictated price, which is the same at all the dealerships I've visited. This usually includes the labor and replacement for the parts which the manual says need replacing on a schedule, except for fluids. If I need tires, brake pads, that's separate.
I know this is a fixed price because last time I took it in, it was a "bigger" service, where they had to check valve clearances. But apparently something went wrong when they tried to take apart something (I forget the details) so they had to work much longer than expected on it. In the end, I didn't have to pay more than I had expected, taking it in.
Now, all this isn't to say it's cheap. I was horrified with the prices: it often costs more than my Mercedes' service at a Mercedes dealership.
That depends on the number of cylinders, valves per cylinder, and so on. Your parallel twin is probably easier to service (accessability of valve covers, valve mechanism). Some designs require the removal of the gas tank and even camshafts (eg Suzuki V-Strom).
(Old) Ducatis are also a pain with the desmodromic valves (i.e. springless valves). Some of their valves have 0,0 clearance and the mechanic needs to hone down shims to an exact fit. Also the reshimming needs to be redone on older Ducs after only a few thousand kilometers/miles, or annually.
In contrast, BMWs older air/oilcooled boxer engines are a joy to service, easiest accessability (cylinder heads stick out sideways), only 3 tools needed for adjusting valve clearances (two types of Torx/allen keys and a feeler gauge set), 20mins of work or less depending on your routine.
MY 90 minute number includes pulling the fuel tank, valve cover, camshafts and other body panels from my Suzuki. It's pretty quick if you're familiar with the procedure. I can have that bike torn down with all body panels and subframe off in about 10 minutes if I'm in a hurry.
Ugh, pulling and especially re-inserting the camshaft shouldnt be done in a hurry. At least from my experience with the V-Strom's V-engine. Needs to be cooled down and insertion of the camshaft needs proper care (no dinging of the bearing shells) and one must make sure to not skip a tooth at the geartrain/chain.
I mean, I take my time with the cams, but it's not rocket science. There's timing marks to help line everything up and I snap a pic with my phone before taking them out.
Yep, you can bleed it physically but the system will refuse to re-activate the ABS until you trigger something in the ROM. Absolutely insane. You can't get even order the tool directly from Triumph to do it because you need to be some kind of verified auto mechanic for them.
Even the oil change was a pain. I had to quite literally crush the dealer oil filter and break it off in pieces with a pipe wrench because it was shaped in such a way you needed a special tool to get a grip on it. I called the dealer, the tool was $180 and would take 3 weeks to ship. It only worked with Triumph brand oil filters (probably white labeled semi-custom K&N's) and they wanted $60 for a filter (vs. $14 for a K&N at the local bike parts store).
Even my best universal clamps + duct tape + sandpaper couldn't hold a grip on the stupid filter. Several trips to the local auto parts store trading wrenches back and forth until I said fuck it and went to Home Depot. Lucky for me a K&N oil filter fit exactly (dummies still used a standard thread for the oil filter port)...otherwise that would've been somewhat hard to explain. Even the crush washer for the drain plug was 10x as expensive... ended up taking the old one to Ace and finding a replacement for 10 cents. The only thing that was about equal in price was the recommended oil which I was able to score on sale at Walmart but otherwise would've been a wash.
As you can tell I can not stop complaining about this stupid thing. Do yourself a favor and avoid Euro motorcycles.
Honda is pretty decent. Suzuki doesn't sell service data but the info you need is readily available from Clymer. Royal Enfield is fantastic for service data.
Most Japanese bikes are very user friendly. Even the newer ones aren't terrible to work on. If you want the easiest mix of technology and ease of repair shoot for a Japanese motorcycles before 2014-ish.
Not condoning the prices your stealership charges, but consider:
Have you spent thousands of dollars out of your own pocket for the tools you use at your job? Do you have to maintain a commercial brick and mortar location? How much are your services worth?
> have you spent thousands of dollars out of your own pocket for the tools
Yes, but it is not my job. I would estimate my tool's at around $5000 or so. Collected over a little under 2 decades of riding.
> Do you have to maintain a commercial brick and mortar
No. But a Japanese bike shop has the same tools and brains as the stealership and charges half as much.
It's well known dealers upcharge for everything. If you don't believe me, find the best 3rd party shop in town and simply compare hourly rates. You may even ask them to itemize a modestly challenging job (CV boots for a car, maybe) that would need a skyjack. I would bet dollars to donuts the dealer price is 1.5x-2x more.
"Special" motorcycles (e.g. euro motorcycles in America) are NOTORIOUS for absurd dealer upcharges. It wasn't until ECUs started becoming smart that this was a problem. I could service a 90s-0x's BMW, for example, for pennies on the dollar to BMW's specification in my own garage. This is why Right To Repair is so important. Car dealers are the tip of the spear in the fight against it because they lose quite literally millions because of people like me. It's one of the reasons I will never own an EV as long as I live. They are (especially Tesla's) money printers on 4 wheels for the dealer.
My Triumph, for example, has no fundamental reason I need to plug in and tell the ECU I bled my ABS. No reason AT ALL. They do this because if you do the work yourself they can still charge you an hour (~200 dollars) to plug their tool in, re-enable your ABS, and give you a finger wag about doing work yourself. This is the John Deere-ization of consumer vehicles. This isn't unique to Triumph. Many consumer brand cars have the same problems. They even build in anti-tampers (such as the oil filter I had to literally break into pieces to remove). Modern vehicles are hostile to the consumer. The auto lobbies would tell you this is because the "advanced technology" but in reality it's used exactly like John Deere does. That is, to screw the consumer out of every single penny for even the most modest of trivialities.
Less than 3. Job's simple when you don't charge by a book. I am not even particularly adept at it. Just familiar. Someone with thousands of bikes under their belt could probably reshim an engine in an hour.
A legitimate reason is to move the service data online so it can be continuously updated and accessible from a web browser instead of the chunky Windows app they were using before straight out of 1995.
But other manufacturers who do this make the data available to consumers via AllData or similar services. BMW does not, presumably to make more money on service.
For modern vehicles, the dealers really don't use manuals anymore. They connect their proprietary diagnostic computer, it runs all the tests and figures out what is wrong, and tells the mechanic what to replace or adjust.
You can sometimes find bootlegs of these computers (generally a "tough" Windows laptop with software and connecting cables). They usually don't have the latest and greatest version of the software, but if your car is older/out of warranty it's generally covered. I don't know if they get them from a recycle stream or dealer mechanics sell their old ones or how it works.
The computer diagnostics don’t tell the technician how to do the replacement. The service manual has all of the procedures, parts lists, and special tools necessary for the job.
This doesn't make any sense. Many regular issues are not diagnosable by computer. I have legacy access to some current BMW service data and it does not behave the way you describe at all- I only have to whip out the scanner for certain electrical and computer issues, and to update service schedules.
Everything on a modern car runs through the computer. Climate control, entertainment systems, windows, lights, seats, various driver aids such as cruise control, lane-departure, blind spot warnings, hands-free driving, automatic/antilock braking, traction control, etc. as well as the engine and transmisison. Sure, something like a failing wheel bearing would still be diagnosed by the mechanic, but they need the scanners for most of the problems on a modern car.
You're right, but just to have fun with the example you gave- some wheel bearings now incorporate a wheel speed sensor. So even those might, in fact, be first diagnosed by the computer, depending on the failure mode.
Yup, exactly. I was one of the last mortals to get a copy of the software for my BMW motorcycle and now field emails from riders worldwide looking for service data.
I fully expect the Apple model next, where even if you can physically replace a part, the system will refuse to operate until the new part is blessed by the proprietary software.
That is really bad I did not know that. I assume it goes for automobiles too. Have no plans to get a new BMW bike but I will definitely take that into consideration in the future.
Triumph in particular is notorious for this. For most bikes made beyond 2018 or so there are nearly no 3rd party manuals available. You have to pay, quite literally by the page or by the hour, to view the manuals on their website.
For older bikes its often easier. Clymer's has a substantial library that are often better than even the dealer mechanic book. I'm the mechanic among my group of friends and newer bikes are exceedingly difficult to not only work on, but also find proper manuals for.
It’s impossible to get them for a modern Volvo, for example. I couldn’t even get them to provide me with a wiring diagram for the rear fuse block so I could wire in a trailer brake controller. I managed it via inspection, but it was really poor.
I pay like $8/month for access to my 2021 Triumph’s service manual.
As far as I know they keep it as an interactive website so that PDFs are hard to make.
I haven’t found a good copy yet but it’s also possible that I’m just not as good at searching for pirated content as back in the old torrenting days (or perhaps just less motivated)
Do they not go out of their way to make it difficult? I had to scrounge google which led me to a forum thread for Triumph bike manuals. Only managed to get a link to a website associated with Triumph where they let you pay on a per day basis to look at manuals. Spent almost an hour making folders and manually downloading every individual section.
My takeaway is that they want their bikes to get serviced at dealers rather than allow people to more easily work on their own bikes.
I have a 2003 Citroen and it's easy to find the service manual but very hard to use it.
It's not a PDF you can just flip through, it's software.
You have to run it in a windows XP VM, following a very specific set of installation instructions. Getting locked out for no reason is very common (so you just boot a backup of the VM).
I waited for a technical thread to ask this question: where can DIYers that want to fix their own car get a manual with wiring diagrams, service bullettins, troubleshooting procedures without paying alot in subscription (hundreds per year)?
Haynes or Chilton manuals (they are the same company now). You can pick them up at auto parts stores, Amazon, or buy PDFs online.
They are based on the official tech manuals and only cover the stuff that is within reason of a home or small shop mechanic, and don't require you to have manufacturer specific tools in most cases.
Your mention of "restore" suggests mainly older models, which certainly did have far more widely-distributed service literature and are simpler than newer vehicles.
It’s possibly because I’m looking for Australian models and it’s a smaller market, but I’ve never had much luck finding service manuals free or paid for my vehicles. Do you have any tips for where to search?
I should say specific examples are the Ford Territory and the Great Wall Steed (Wingle 6 in the domestic market).
Those are models I haven’t heard of. The best place used to be enthusiast forums but in the past decade that has switched to Facebook groups for a lot of vehicles.
This is great news, and somewhat unfortunate something so benign requires celebration.
I used to ride a Zero SR. It was a phenomenal bike but also completely unserviceable in Australia. I ended up reverse engineering the log protocol [1] to get a sense of how it was performing and maintain what I could myself. It was horribly painful, inefficient and completely avoidable spend of time.
Hackability for devices is one thing but when you straddle an energy source that propels you, a fragile meat sack, at speed imo it's essential to have absolute confidence in how the machine behaves.
The more I get problems with different machinery (chainsaw, raider lawnmower, waterpump, powerwasher) I've really started thinking more and more how every piece of equipment should automatically come with a service manual included which would also have all the bits and pieces clearly stated and catalogued. I've seen some of these manuals not being a detailed as I hoped. For context, I'm in Europe.
For an example I needed new lifting chain for the raider lawnmower and it was an ordeal finding the correct chain and making it correct length without such manual. With manual I'd expect it to take 5 minutes to find the correct piece, it's size, lenght and required stress endurance level.
It's 2023, doesn't have to be physical (or could for some extra buck), but at least have one available on your website.
I'm thinking about starting to ask for it for everything I buy... Not really hoping to get it every time but still...
Blows my mind they didn't provide the service manual for free. I raced KTM off-road for 30+ years, and every bike came with the service manual, complete diagrams, and product replacement part numbers. Every time I pulled out on my KTM 990 Adventure R I had the manual with me as well.
Off topic, but does anyone make simple electric motorcycles? You know, a frame, battery, motor, etc., but without a connected app and all the goo that comes with it.
They have a different name in the US, but in Germany the bike is called tinbot Esum pro. I am very satisfied. Have driven over 3000km in half a year. No issues so far. They aren't powerful but still fun to drive. Coming from a Kawasaki Z900 which was to expensive for me to justify. You can buy a tinbot for 5000€ brand new. They have a range of 80 km full throttle in the summer and about 60 km in the winter.
I've got a Zero and an Energica and neither really uses the app (the energica app is actually too old to install on my Pixel 6). The only compelling use for the Zero app is to download bike log data and upgrade the firmware.
You can always build one yourself. Buy an older bike for the frame and VIN, swap in a motor and a battery pack along with the rest of the controller stuff and you are good to go.
I'm still wondering why there's no regulation on this, forcing manufacturers to hand-in both the user and service manuals. I own a Kawasaki motorbike and tried to get its service manual just to understand a bit more about it, and is impossible to get it at this point unless I pay Kawasaki 100€ for its printed version (a fucking ripoff). It doesn't cost them anything to release PDFs as a courtesy to its customers.
I have almost always had luck with searching the web for “Kawasaki vn800 service manual pdf”. The hardest manual to get was for my Harley but for $20 I was able to buy a scanned PDF from a site that’s almost certainly illegal but delivered exactly what I needed.
Yeah, I think for particular models it can be easy to find them. But for others no luck at all. My guess is that maybe after few years they can be found. In particular for the z650rs I wasn't able to get any good results.
It's going to take a while for people to get used to tinkering with electric vehicles vs ICEs. There's lots of great ways to get yourself fried in those manuals. I could totally see myself skipping the "High Voltage Discharging procedure" (despite the warning on every section involving the battery) just to make a "quick adjustment" and becoming a statistic.
Is energica really the leader in electric motorcycle sales? I couldnt find any stats but Ive definitely seen some zero bikes on the road and Ive never seen an energica in person
Enigica look to be following typical Italian exotica. It’s a premium/performance motorcycle with premium parts, breaks, suspension, handling etc.
Zero seem more middle of the road. Not designed to be exotica, not designed with premium breaks, suspension, not designed for all out performance/handling, it’s a general purpose motorcycle designed for urban environments.
I think Enigica and Zero are trying to target different segments and Enigica is targeting a segment above Zero. The sportier side.
They are going nowhere. Electric motorcycles are a terrible idea because they are not the problem as far as emission go.
Given the ratio between the weight of the motorcycle and the weight of the passenger/s they are extemely efficient, having the whole passenger vehicles switch to motorcycles would be even better than have them switch to 3000 pounds EVs.
The vast majority of people are too coward to drive them unfortunately
If you ignore emissions on the environmental pros/cons and if you believe them or not…
As a riding experience, electric power delivery, the instant torque and performance will make the riding experience more fun. As a pure riding experience electric is probably far better than combustion engines, and I love my ice powered bikes, the noise, the different engine characteristics, singles, boxers, il4, v4, vtwins etc as much as anyone else.
Practicality, range, weight is different and we’re probably a long time off comparable practicality of mid to large capacity size motorcycles.
> > people aren't only into EVs for the environmental aspects; they're unique and offer a unique experience.
Automotive is a 150yr old industry, you will not re-invent the wheel. Progress has plateued in the 1970-80s as far as fun goes.
When Americans come to Europe and try the Vespas and the Lambrettas , that's about the same fun upgrade as going from an ICE which does 0-60 in 8s to an EVs which does it in 4s, only the Vespa experience costs 20$ and the Vespa itself 1000$.
for some reason they come back home and completely forget about it and decide to fork 50,000$ for an EV instead
Motocross racing is probably going to see more electric because you really can't put that much power down into the dirt. And electric dirt bikes have much finer grain control of power delivery which makes them quite competitive against gas motorcycles.
And smaller electric dirt bikes can get away with going places where the noise of a gas engine would just draw too much ire. I've seen some Surron's going onto bike paths; they're not supposed to but if you're careful and courteous, I doubt anyone's gonna call the cops on you.
Surron was also doing demo's and training with their bike's indoors with the speed electronically limited to about 12kph (7mph). No tail pipe emissions, no noise, so no problems running them in a building. Folks that have never swung a leg over a motorcycle before could confidently mess around with one in about 20 minutes without having to think first about clutch or being scared of a whiskey throttle or stalling the bike.
And you gotta keep in mind, it's not the expensive high performance two wheelers that are where they're really thriving, it's the cheap personal commuter. Pedal ebikes and low speed electric mopeds are growing pretty damn quick.
Plus there is at least one intriguing idea in regards to security that gas bike's can't do. Having the electric motor apply reverse torque to the rear when someone tries to wheel the bike away without the key, effective turning the motor into a wheel lock for the rear when parked. I don't know how practical it really is but the ideal has some merit IMO.
Terrible idea?!? Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? Or an electric one?
I've been riding for ~40 years and I don't think I've _ever_ met someone who rode an ICE bike for the fuel/emissions efficiency. It's for the fun and adventure. My stock Energica does 0-60 in 2.8s. WAAAY more fun than my 30yo 1100cc.
I’ve had by motorcycle license years before I got a car certification. I started on a 180cc scooter. Sipped gas, easy to ride, was legal (barely) on the freeway. Free parking at the university and right in the middle too, instead of the hinterlands.
Was my 100% transportation, rain or shine. SoCal, so not much rain. But, yea it rained. I had an I’ll fitting, $25 open face white helmet from K-Mart, and wore a ski jacket, ski gloves, and ski goggles for gear (the yellow lenses worked really well at night to be honest).
You could catch me with my original Macintosh in those very cool carrying cases we had back then bungeed to the rear seat. I’ve had stacks of books explode off the back when one popped out like a drunk jenga player.
I can attest that my ad hoc gear performed adequately when things got horizontal.
When I got a new job requiring a 30 mile one way commute into the heart of West LA, I traded the scooter in for a 600cc street bike. $2000 with highway robbery financing interest rates. It never crossed my mind to buy a car.
I got free parking at the building (vs $60 per month), free use of car pool lanes and, the crème de la crème of California motorcycle riding, lane splitting. Lane splitting in the rain on slick Bots dots is unnerving. Lane splitting made that commute sane.
Did that for a couple of years, had a scary get off (slick right turn arrow at 2am, I simply shouldn’t have taken that route), and that made me sell the bike. I also sold the Macintosh for $750, and used the money to buy a new bike — the later to be cult favorite, Honda Hawk GT. Dealership had a fire sale on them one weekend, so I got a good deal. The Hawk was notoriously expensive in the day.
Selling the Mac for the bike is one of the best things I ever did. I was a computer geek sans computer for several years.
Oh, the Hawk charted at 38 horsepower. Less than my previous bike. Got it to 110 once at a “high desert test area”. Fast enough for me. I never bought a bike on performance numbers. They were all fast enough (save the scooter). But speed was never my thing.
That bike took me up and down California and around the southwest. Plus my even longer commute when I changed jobs again.
I did finally buy a truck. Test drove it with my M certified license. Didn’t get my actual car license until after I bought it. As many have with many things, I bought the truck because of a girl. And so it goes.
Maybe not the only reason, though that's certainly high on my list. I don't find much time to ride recreationally, so probably 98% of my rides are for my commute. My 50 mpg bike is much cheaper to ride than either of our cars. Plus HOV benefits.
I absolutely would factor fuel efficiency into my purchase decision, but it's also not the only reason. Because you're right, they are definitely fun :)
Should I be impressed? That's the same of a 1999 Yamaha R6 selling for less than 1000$ [0]
And the R6 can do it all day, you'll run out of tires before you run out of clutch and gas.
The Energica does it once and then it's panting and overheating.
And as always the point in motorsport is that every noob squid and every idiot is capable of going fast in a straight line, the light supersport bikes such as the Ducati and the Yamahas will smoke the Electric motorcycles in corners because the latter are heavy due to the batteries
The R6 is an inline 4, 15500rpm red line, 68nm of torque. Fun bike, on a track or doing illegal speeds on the road. Rest of the time, it has no power.
The Enigica has 215nm of torque, about twice the 2022 R1.
The R6, the power is all up top, it’s gutless down low, you have to be up near the top in the rev range for it to go, engine screaming away. You’d also need to be pretty skilled at launching to get that 2.8s acceleration from it.
The Enigica you get all the torque from the get go, so much they have to limit it at the start. You just twist and it pulls from the off, no flat spots, it just keeps on pulling. It’s the torque that gives you the buzz, trying to hang on.
They are very different power deliveries and the Enigica makes a far better road bike (power wise) with all the torque rather than a high reving 600 il4 that you need to be near red line to get the most out of it. Even a 1000cc il4 with more torque, they don’t really get going until above 6,000rpm then your license is gone as you click in to second gear when making the most of the power band.
The Yamaha MT-09’s/10’a are so popular as they have high torque down low where it’s most practical for everyday riding.
> > The R6, the power is all up top, it’s gutless down low, you have to be up near the top in the rev range for it to go, engine screaming away
With the introduction of ride by wire in the early 00s the electronics became king.
You can customize the throttle ride by wire system according to your preference so the torque area becomes much larger and spread out on the throttle when you move your wrist.
Once the problem of wrist sensitivity has been solved by ride by wire customization the high revs you mentioned are much more manageable.
And also you say engine screaming away like it’s a bad thing.
1) a 4 cylinder in line at 10000rpm is music for an enthusiast ears
2) It makes people aware that you are there , which is a feature not a bug, motorcycles are notoriously invisible for car and truck drivers
Sorry this is off topic but I'm trying to talk to you about Macrosolver because I created something similar. Can you email me at the email in my profile.
> > electric motorcycles are amazingly fun to ride
Every motorcycle is fun to ride, and the acceleration part, Yamaha clocked the 0-60 in 3s bit back in 1999[0] , we are really splitting hairs to somehow elevate the concept of electrification like it's some sort of re-inventing the wheel for the fun of the consumer and not for political goals, I have come to believe that it's a form of brainwashing
That is unless the concept of 'electrification' is used to mask the inability to use a manual gearbox as it pertains to motorcycles.
Following your thought process, even better is everyone on bikes. That’s what is happening slowly in many developed cities.
Everyone on a motorcycle (mostly scooters) is what you have in southeast Asia. And true, it allows much higher densities than US highways packed with cars, but the price is reduced confort and security… Hard to make people accept that nowadays.
To give a contrarian view, I would happily become an electric bike customer. I think it is a great idea to apply electric motors to motorcycles :
- Torque is usable at low speeds. To have the same experience in a ICE bike require a huge and comparably heavy motor, like the triumph speed triple or a Harley-Davidson.
- Range is still a bit low but not far from the 250km/150miles an ICE bike can have. By the way, most bikers I know, myself included, have to stop before reaching such distances. Confort makes it hard to do more.
- Speaking of confort, less noise and vibrations is a huge plus
Price is still high bit it will reduce. We also can hope for range increases too [1].
My main concern currently is charging time, even with fast charging, 40min is still a bit too much for me, and I hope that progress will be made in this area (with 800v architecture maybe?)
Around here there's been semi-historically a bike culture in my city (certainly not at Amsterdam scale but one of the most bike friendly city in France). I see an increasing number of people with ev bikes, and in turn an increasing proportion of that are ev bikes that borderline being 70cc equivalent, maybe even 125cc, both in power, style, and usage (as in there are pedals but the drivers don't pedal). Except for the speed cap they're essentially more like small ev motorbikes (masquerading as ev bikes because regulations) than big ev bikes.
Motorcycles are the best vehicles as far as acceleration and weight/power ratio is concerned, they fare even better in the price/quickness and price/fun ratio.
A 45,000$ Kawasaki H2R has won a drag race against a RedBull F1 car, an F16, a Gulfstream G600 a Bugatti, a TeslaP100..[0]
By orders of magnitude the Kawasaki was the cheapest vehicle in that race and smoked them all..but that bike can only be driven to the limit by the 1% of riders, the ones with the best skills and massive balls.
What's the point of an EV motorbike? 0-60mph in 2.2s is not enough? Want 1.5s? Cool but what's the point of numbers for numbers sake if people aren't ever pushing it to the limit?
Also what's the point when you can only do it once before it overheats?
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with why people enjoy electric motorcycles. You seem focused on a motorcycle's racing ability as a measure of its usefulness or enjoyment.
Your numbers are completely wrong. Zero has a bike for $12k https://zeromotorcycles.com/model/zero-fx and BMW sells bikes that go well into the $20k ranges. You can get a Surron for under $4k, but it's more like a cross between a bicycle and motorcycle.
I do agree with the general premise, that electric is more expensive. There needs to be more competition to drive prices down like is happening for cars.
>but it's more like a cross between a bicycle and motorcycle.
and that's kinda the reason that the value proposition for electric motorbikes isn't very good. if you can give up the requirement of "i want to drive on the highway", an electric bicycle is going to do what you need for a fraction of the cost.
electric motorbikes lean more towards toys than practical tools, so they're priced like toys.
Maybe more like a cross between a motocross bike and a street bike— it's a dual sport like the Honda CRF450. I wouldn't take it on a road trip but I'll bet it would handle an average highway commute just fine.
yeah, that's what i'm saying. an FXE is an e-motorbike, not an e-bicycle. if you didn't need highway speed, you could have got a top-tier commuter-style ebike for $3k instead of the $12k an FXE costs.
You can get a "deathwish" scooter from Alibaba that can go 55mph for $3000 also.
The problem is that the electric motorcycle market isn't big enough to enjoy efficiencies of scale, so the only ones that exist cater to the wealthy/luxury clients.
The value proposition for motorcycles is really not as impressive either. The instant electric torque is more of a safety issue on bikes, because you can already trivially pop wheelies on regular gas-powered motorcycles.
On top of that, they have better range, because the battery capacity on a motorbike is limited by the width of the human hip, not highway lane.
The best use case for that is probably the thing you linked, Surron, which is an e-MTB essentially, where high torque is really nice for going up hills (and isn't really required for 60mph+ cruising on freeways)
I think the biggest issue with electric motorbikes is infrastructure because, at least from what I see, motorbikes aren't used the same way cars are.
I think they should work great for commuting, if you don't live too far away. But then, people would want to use the bike for other things, too, like going on road trips.
And that's where it hurts. You usually don't take road trips on the main highways because it's boring as hell. You'll take smaller roads, which often don't yet have any reasonable charging infrastructure. Combined with the shorter ranges, nobody is really going to risk it, so they'll just buy a gas bike. Hell, even with my gas bike's tank which is on larger side (19.5 liters), I sometimes have to cart around "safety gas", which I've had to use once. And no, it's not a dirt bike or anything, the only time it went off the asphalt was to go inside a hotel yard.
I think this is the reason why, at least where I live in Europe, you see next to no "serious" electric bikes, but practically all smaller ones are now electric: these bikes don't do anything apart commuting anyway, so electric is great for that.
> But then, people would want to use the bike for other things, too, like going on road trips.
I have an e-bike, I can take it on the train, go to some random town and explore. You can buy 'S-pedelecs" which are basically mopeds in bicycle form-factor - they have powerfull motors and go 45 km/h.
Then high-end electric motorcycles make sence
But lower end electric motorbikes, I dont get. You camt tale them on oiblic transport, they need a socket to charge, they cant use car-standarss for charging, and they dont have the range. So they seem to be in purgatory.
I agree with your point about taking the bike (bicycle) on a train and whatnot.
My point was about motorbikes. Which, as you say, have all the inconveniences of a full-blown motorbike, without the nice things, and the smaller ones aren't materially better than a souped-up e-bike.
I love my Eva Ribelle as well! I'm envious that you get to ride it around in the mountains in CA. I'm thinking about hauling mine out to the tail of the dragon at some point, but that's a still a long journey for me.
I'm a little jealous you have that bike. I did a test ride of it about a year ago and loved it. Sadly, as I said in another comment, I don't want a chain or belt drive bike. But, the EVA Ribelle is almost perfect.
Motorbikes in general are a toy in the west and a cost efficient tool in all of Asia. Electric motorbikes are not any special. Electrics seem more rare in Taiwan now compared to China a few years ago but they are catching up I guess.
My 22 Zero FXE was $13k. My Energica was more than double that, but what you get for that is range and 40mph higher top speed. If you're looking for a commuter bike, you don't need to kill yourself on price. If you're looking to scare the shit out of yourself every time you send it, you'll pay Ducati prices.
The range is also typically laughably bad also. I just can't justify having to perfectly calculate a trip, or ending up stuck on the side of the road with no quick ability to just gas it back up.
For $25k I would buy an Arcimoto Roadster (3 wheels), which unfortunately isn't available in the EU, and there are no similar equivalents (2 spaced front wheels, electric, not bicycle sized) over here. Patiently waiting for a EU distributor to appear.
I disagree, the 1250RS is basically a redesign of the K1200S (my current bike). Just swapping out the inline-v for the BMW boxer motor.
Top of the line, in it's class. A sports bike, with shaft drive, linked brakes, traction control, and heated grips.
Find me an electric bike with those features for anywhere near a comparable price. Specifically, I will not even consider a bike without a shaft drive (or in the case of an electric, a hub drive would be acceptable.) I am done maintaining chains and belts.
Sorry, but R1250RT is NOT a sports bike. It redlines at 8K rpm, compared to S1000RR that redlines at 14600 rpm, delivers 136 horses at 7750 rpm compared to 205 horses at 13000 rpm, does 105 lbs-ft. at 6,250 rpm compared to 83 lb-ft at 11,000 rpm.
Now if you look at K16 specs, 160 horses at 6750 rpm with 123.7 lbs-ft at 5250 rpm. And it DOES have linked brakes, traction control, ABS and heated grips.
Both R1250RT and K16 are marketed in the sports tourer segment.
So NO, R1250RT is no where near top of line sports tourer and definitely not a sports bike.
Belts are less maintenance intensive than shaft drives. A shaft drive needs an oil change every 10,000 miles. A belt needs a change every 60,000 miles or so, depending on storage condtions.
The disadvantages of belts are efficiency (especially compared to chains), off road durability and trailside serviceability.
I might just be a bad bike parent, but, my current shaft drive bike has ~42,000 miles on it. It had the shaft-oil replaced once at 800 miles (per manual, break in period).
My bike has been rock-fucking-solid. Its been in the shop once for a real break in 16 years for a busted fuel line. (not including tires and engine oil changes). Its really hard for me to believe another bike could be as reliable.
I'm too lazy to grab my Honda's manual to check, but I'm pretty sure the recommended shaft oil change interval is way more than 10k miles. I'm thinking 48k km, which something like 30k mi.
In my experience most Suzukis other than the 2000s GSXRs have superior reliability to BMW at the tradeoff of lower sophistication. Though the new VStroms and Hayabusa are competitive with BMW on rider aids. Certain Kawasakis are uo there too, like the Versys and KLR.
No market for electric motorbikes. Based on my experience the reason for buying a motorbike is to be obnoxiously loud and disturb your whole city block. Can't do that with electric.
Service manuals being free was the norm? I had to pay for the one for my Japanese motorcycle from 1982 and on every other vehicle I've owned, unless you mean bootlegging on car forums. I don't know anyone who's gotten free service manuals direct from the manufacturer.
You could borrow a physical copy from the local library, which often had a huge number of them.
There might still be automotive service manual torrents floating around with content which was partially a result of my efforts when I was in the "bookz scene" over 2 decades ago.
One of the bummers of the decline of automotive forums is the reduction in availability of the bootleg copies. So many are wastelands of broken links these days.
I can only speak for the ones I visit, which are primarily for Japanese vehicles: there's been a noticeable decline in post frequency and the info that is there has gone stale/is full of broken pic references/links.
On one of them, it's gotten comically bad, where easily >90% of new posts are from spambots, and it takes days for them to be removed after I report them.
Subreddits and Facebook are much more active comparatively, and that's a bummer in my opinion.
Yeah but there’s nothing to break or fix on a Zero! I needed all those Honda service manuals over the years because honing cylinder walls and fitting rings and grinding valves and bedding in crank bearings are things you sometimes have to do. What’s complicated about an electric motorcycle?
>Yeah but there’s nothing to break or fix on a Zero!
...........?
Wheel bearings, axle grease, wheel alignment, fork seals, suspension bearings, head bearings, chain/belt, sprockets, brake system (pads, piston, caliper, seals, master cylinder, fluid, rotors), tires, cooling system. Plus the classics of levers, hoses, bent handles bars or forks, stripping bolts, broken kick stands, etc. None of that goes away with an electric bike.
And you do need to do inspections on electrical connectors at minimum. Being electric doesn't solve small design flaws. Suzuki infamously made the green connector of death. The headlamps and ignition switch on the same connector, which inevitably burns out due to resistance in the connection growing due to corrosion which eventually causes it to melt. Saw a similar problem with a Kawasaki with corrosion interfering with kill switch circuit.
Not to be pedantic or invalidate your point, but most (all?) Zero bikes are air cooled, and they have zero hoses. Brakes get like an order of magnitude less wear thanks to regen, and the only fluid is brakes (well, and the battery, but if you find yourself in contact with it, the bike is a loss).
Fair enough on the cooling, but brakes I disagree, at least with my riding style.
I do most my braking with a combination of front and engine braking. I usually don't touch the rear until either I'm close to a full stop or if I'm doing slow speed maneuvers. So unless Zero's got regen on the front wheel, I don't see there being too much different between the two.
There's nothing tricky about fixing a brake, though. It's a portable skill from one motorcycle to another. Unlike, say, the tolerances for oval and taper of a cylinder.
I get that there's still going to be screws to turn on an electric bike, but that's going to be about what it boils down to: a list of torque specs.
> There's nothing tricky about fixing a brake, though. It's a portable skill from one motorcycle to another. Unlike, say, the tolerances for oval and taper of a cylinder.
Harder then you might think. I've seen someone not install the pads and have the rotor grind down into the caliper itself. Then installed the pad on the broken caliper and getting so crooked that it eventually warped the rotor into a dinner plate. IIRC the edge of the was about 1mm or 2mm out of line from the center of the rotor.
Swinging back on topic though, I do disagree slightly on the premise that the service manual is just a glorified page of torque specs. Speaking personally, fixing something isn't usually that difficult. Time consuming, demanding in focus, and wise to be cautious but generally speaking the procedure is usually well laid out.
What's hard is diagnosing the problem in the first place, determining what the fix is, and then locating the necessary parts or suppliers for those parts. The service manual's usually invaluable for the first bit.
Just to give a car example: You have a car who's instrument cluster who's center LCD that's stuck at minimum brightness. Is it a problem with the instrument cluster, the dimmer switch, or the PWM signal generator that controls the cluster's brightness?
As it turns out, someone thought about that. The service manual listed out a self test diagnostic for the instrument cluster; with engine off and key out, hold the odometer reset for 5 seconds, insert the key and turn to the on position. It will light up every light to full brightness and disregard the input PWM signal.
Who could have figured that out without the manual listing that procedure? I probably couldn't. I'd probably be reduced to parts cannon.
Electronics aren't immune to manufacturing defects, design flaws, mislabeled products, abuse, or the outside elements. And if something does fail, it's an absolute bitch to trace down problems with the electrical. Service manuals are invaluable both listing how things are supposed to work as well as often having extensive trouble shooting guides that give a hint at what could be a problem.
We definitely have very different riding styles. I keep the regen cranked all the way up, and I can get fifteen miles across the city without touching either brake. I'll occasionally use the rear brake for trail braking.
The regen on my Energica is definitely a lot stronger than on my Zero, though—it's a lot more like an electric car where you can keep your foot over the accelerator almost all the time.
Between the two bikes, I've got roughly ten thousand miles and all four brake pads sit at ~85%.
I bought a moto last year, and looked a little at Zero and at Sondors, but ended up just getting a small-displacement conventional bike (Royal Enfield Classic 350). It was cheap, gets excellent mileage (75 MPG), and has sufficient power for urban surface-street usage (it tops out at like 65, but honestly it's happier below 50).
I strongly recommend this path, though parts availability with RE mean I probably suggest you look more at other low-displacement bikes, like the Honda Rebel, and let RE figure out its North American supply chain issues for a while.
You need to sign in with a Tesla account. Once you sign in, the service manuals are free for all vehicles. The paid subscriptions are for their proprietary software.
Can you please walk me through it on the site? I'm logged in and can't find any service manual (I can find the regular "Owner's Manual" though under "Documents" under the a specific car selected.
Is that state specific? (I'm in CA)
At first it wasn't working for me either, then I turned off my adblock, refreshed cache, tried again, and it worked. Not sure which part specifically helped.
You need to click "Model 3" (or whichever other model you were trying to find a service manual for) in the top nav bar. If everything went right, you will see this screen[0], with all the needed links (instead of what you saw previously).
This is a step in the right direction, but Zero has some serious need to repair their reputation, IMHO. They attempted to do the scummy “pay to unlock” thing with features already on the bike.
Yeah you're right, usually you have to pay for car service manuals. I'm glad Tesla gives them away for free. Just one small step in the right direction at least.
