Monday, April 25, 2011
Zero S Test Ride at MC Electric Vehicles on S Dearborn Street in Seattle Washington on Friday April 22nd, 2011
I wanted to get these pictures up following my test ride last Friday. I'm still digesting all that this vehicle means to me, and my impressions of riding it, and its build quality etc. I will post those thoughts very soon.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Can an Electric Motorcycle be justified? Interesting information learned from both Brammo & Zero
Over the last couple of weeks I've spoken with Laura at Brammo, located in Ashland Oregon, and Jeff of Zero, of Scotts Valley California about some of the finer points of the battery arrays running their respective electric motorcycle lines Brammo and Zero.
Brammo lists information about their battery array as being serviceable for the rather nebulous "thousands of charging cycles". They also list a 2 year battery warranty period in their Owner's Manual Brammo Enertia Owner's Manual. I asked Laura if the battery arrays we manufactured in the United States, and she told me yes, that they are supplied by a company in Austin Texas named Valence. She said that Valence would directly service the warranty. I asked her the replacement price for the entire array and she told me $4,000 ! So replacing the battery array would cost me $1 more that buying a complete new Honda CBR250R gasoline powered motorcycle, on day 731 after purchase of my new Brammo Enertia. I asked her if the price of the battery array would be roughly the same for the Enertia Plus and the Empulse, Brammo's two new models, and she said she didn't know yet, as at this point those models would not be released for sale until, at best, the end of 2011. To put this in perspective, I could buy 2 brand new 2011 Honda CBR250R motorcycles for just $3 more than 1 new Brammo Enertia motorcycles ! I could keep the second Honda for parts ! Of course I only would have sales tax on about one half of the retail price of the Enertia, and there is also a 10% Federal tax credit valid until the end of the 2011, but seriously, come on. Now on the Brammo forum, this topic is discussed, and many point out that after roughly 2000 charging cycles the battery still has about 80% charging capacity, so you could then expect only about 40-ish miles [instead of the max 50 miles on a new battery array], and that it might live another 500 cycles. If I had to buy a complete replacement engine for the Honda CBR250R, it might cost me around $1,000. Another consideration, is that Brammo currently does not have a nationwide dealer network. They are currently being sold through a couple of handfuls of Best Buy stores, mostly on the West and East Coasts. So, right now I would have to somehow ship, or trailer my Brammo Enertia down to Ashland Oregon and have them replace the battery array, and an additional labor cost on top of the $4,000. Clearly it is expensive to be an early adopter. The Honda CBR250R also gets 71 miles per gallon, as recently tested by Popular Mechanics magazine ! And they even offer a combined ABS version for just $500 more.
Let's move on to Zero Motorcycles now. When I spoke with Jeff, he told me they also have a two year battery warranty. They currently sell 5 different models, 2 street, 1 dual-sport, and 2 dirt models. Interestingly, three of their models, the XU [street], the X and the MX [dirt]. The pricing is as follows:
DS $10,495 [dual sport]
XU $ 7,995 [street - with swappable battery]
S $ 9,995 [street]
X $ 7,995 [dirt - with swappable battery]
MX $ 9,495 [dirt - with swappable battery]
I asked Jeff about day 731, concerning the battery warranty, and he said they would work with the owner, if something happened to the battery beyond the 2 years, if whatever died was a defect in parts [but just how long beyond the 2 year border they would "work with" me is undefined. The most interesting factor with Zero is that 3 of their models have swappable battery packs, however these are not cheap ! They cost $2,995.99, and include a battery charger. They weigh 47 pounds, so you could put one in a tail bag. With only about 50 miles of range you may want to get a second battery pack. All of their motorcycles also offer a quick charge option for an additional $595.00. I didn't ask Jeff, but because they are larger, one must assume that the battery arrays for both the S and DS models would be around $4,000 to replace as well. So that brings one back to the delemna: do I become an early adopter and have an operating cost of about $0.01 per mile in the case of an electric motorcycle? Or, do I pay around $0.07 a mile [at $4.90 a gallon - hopefully gas won't get that high this year!], and have "unlimited range" as long as I can get to a gas station? Clearly the fun factor and one's Green beliefs would have to be strong to currently justify spending the kind of dollars it would take to be an early electric motorcycle owner/rider. I intend to drive south in May or June and take a bunch of demo rides on these electric motorcycles and find out !
Here are some videos to look at of some of the motorcycles mentioned in this blog post:
Brammo lists information about their battery array as being serviceable for the rather nebulous "thousands of charging cycles". They also list a 2 year battery warranty period in their Owner's Manual Brammo Enertia Owner's Manual. I asked Laura if the battery arrays we manufactured in the United States, and she told me yes, that they are supplied by a company in Austin Texas named Valence. She said that Valence would directly service the warranty. I asked her the replacement price for the entire array and she told me $4,000 ! So replacing the battery array would cost me $1 more that buying a complete new Honda CBR250R gasoline powered motorcycle, on day 731 after purchase of my new Brammo Enertia. I asked her if the price of the battery array would be roughly the same for the Enertia Plus and the Empulse, Brammo's two new models, and she said she didn't know yet, as at this point those models would not be released for sale until, at best, the end of 2011. To put this in perspective, I could buy 2 brand new 2011 Honda CBR250R motorcycles for just $3 more than 1 new Brammo Enertia motorcycles ! I could keep the second Honda for parts ! Of course I only would have sales tax on about one half of the retail price of the Enertia, and there is also a 10% Federal tax credit valid until the end of the 2011, but seriously, come on. Now on the Brammo forum, this topic is discussed, and many point out that after roughly 2000 charging cycles the battery still has about 80% charging capacity, so you could then expect only about 40-ish miles [instead of the max 50 miles on a new battery array], and that it might live another 500 cycles. If I had to buy a complete replacement engine for the Honda CBR250R, it might cost me around $1,000. Another consideration, is that Brammo currently does not have a nationwide dealer network. They are currently being sold through a couple of handfuls of Best Buy stores, mostly on the West and East Coasts. So, right now I would have to somehow ship, or trailer my Brammo Enertia down to Ashland Oregon and have them replace the battery array, and an additional labor cost on top of the $4,000. Clearly it is expensive to be an early adopter. The Honda CBR250R also gets 71 miles per gallon, as recently tested by Popular Mechanics magazine ! And they even offer a combined ABS version for just $500 more.
Let's move on to Zero Motorcycles now. When I spoke with Jeff, he told me they also have a two year battery warranty. They currently sell 5 different models, 2 street, 1 dual-sport, and 2 dirt models. Interestingly, three of their models, the XU [street], the X and the MX [dirt]. The pricing is as follows:
DS $10,495 [dual sport]
XU $ 7,995 [street - with swappable battery]
S $ 9,995 [street]
X $ 7,995 [dirt - with swappable battery]
MX $ 9,495 [dirt - with swappable battery]
I asked Jeff about day 731, concerning the battery warranty, and he said they would work with the owner, if something happened to the battery beyond the 2 years, if whatever died was a defect in parts [but just how long beyond the 2 year border they would "work with" me is undefined. The most interesting factor with Zero is that 3 of their models have swappable battery packs, however these are not cheap ! They cost $2,995.99, and include a battery charger. They weigh 47 pounds, so you could put one in a tail bag. With only about 50 miles of range you may want to get a second battery pack. All of their motorcycles also offer a quick charge option for an additional $595.00. I didn't ask Jeff, but because they are larger, one must assume that the battery arrays for both the S and DS models would be around $4,000 to replace as well. So that brings one back to the delemna: do I become an early adopter and have an operating cost of about $0.01 per mile in the case of an electric motorcycle? Or, do I pay around $0.07 a mile [at $4.90 a gallon - hopefully gas won't get that high this year!], and have "unlimited range" as long as I can get to a gas station? Clearly the fun factor and one's Green beliefs would have to be strong to currently justify spending the kind of dollars it would take to be an early electric motorcycle owner/rider. I intend to drive south in May or June and take a bunch of demo rides on these electric motorcycles and find out !
Here are some videos to look at of some of the motorcycles mentioned in this blog post:
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