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Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Thu Dec 24, 2015 4:32 pm
by NorthernPete
We have battery powered equipment (haul trucks and low profile load/haul/dump) as well as the diesel equivalent of them in my mine. The battery equipment is ok (lots of power and cooler) but broken down often and dies a lot faster then the manufacturer suggested. Good in theory. Needs more work to be practical.
Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2015 8:59 am
by sunshine229
I just had to vote this bike awesome. Wow, what a thing of beauty! And it's amazing how far Zero has come in such a short time.
I think it's wonderful that Zero continues to improve their line year after year even though electric bikes still haven't caught on mainstream. But let's face it, the transition from petroleum based bikes to electric bikes is a HUGE leap and many of us are not ready to make that jump, even myself. It's the same when any new technology comes out, particularly in a market where there is already a stronghold by a competing technology. There is always going to be a few that jump on the bandwagon early, while the rest of us wait and wait. Some new technologies catch on to mainstream while others don't. Time will tell which camp electric bikes, and Zero in particular, fit in that spectrum. But for now I say "way to go Zero" for continuing to move in the right direction!
AWESOME!
Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2015 10:51 am
by totalmotorcycle
2016 Zero DSR - Coolness Factor = 61.9%
Featured: December 18th - December 25th 2015
Most popular vote category: Awesome
Motorcycle Cool Wall discussion: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=52443
Total Motorcycle model page: http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/motorcyc ... ro-DSR.htm
Your Coolness Factor of the 2016 Zero DSR is:
Awesome (3 points) 38% [ 8 ]
Cool (2 points) 33% [ 7 ]
Uncool (1 point) 5% [ 1 ]
Fail (0 point) 24% [ 5 ]
Total votes: 21
= a Coolwall Factor of 61.9%
Notes: New technology has always been slow to adopt and motorcycle's have, unfortunately, been one of the slowest areas to adopt it. Take a look at how long it was before most motorcycles were fitted with ABS? Traction Control? Fuel Injection and even Radial Tires! Things drivers now take for granted are still not found on many bikes! Motorcycles are all about the experience, the passion, the emotions. Electric bikes lack some of those sensations such as the growl of an exhaust and the hammering of pistons. Alternative energy is a force in today's automotive world and you have to wonder how long it will be (good or bad) before the majority of bikes are eclectic. Anyone remember the popularity of the 2-stoke motorcycle?
Get excited as the next TMW Cool Wall bike is now up for voting and discussion, have fun!
Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Fri Dec 25, 2015 3:06 pm
by ceemes
snakedoctEr726 wrote:I'm not done knocking this thing yet.
Picture this. You ride your DSR to work and back every day, then on the weekend your friends call and say "Hey buddy, want to come ride with us?" Then because you spent $18k on a bike with no range you are forced to reply "Well I want to, but I can only come on 1/4 of the ride you have planned, then I have to spend between 2 and 10 hours tied to an outlet to recharge." Does that sound like fun to you guys?
Let's talk performance. The DSR produces 106 ft-lbs of torque and it can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds. My k1300s makes 103 ft-lbs, and it's capable of 0-60 in about 3 seconds. My K-bike also weighs 140lbs MORE than the DSR. The range figures published by Zero are almost certainly taken while hypermiling the bike and riding in the most boring and conservative way. If you were to ride one is a fast/fun way, I would expect to see the range decrease by anywhere from 10% to 50%.
The electric motorcycle is not a bad idea at all. Electric motors are interesting because they offer peak torque at any RPM, and they're way simpler than internal combustion engines. The battery powered motorcycle is a terrible idea for all the reasons I've listed in this thread. The technology just isn't there yet. I'm holding out for the hydrogen fuel cell and the supporting infrastructure. I'll freely admit that liquid hydrogen is difficult to get, but so is drilling holes hundreds of feet deep in the damn ocean and collecting oil. Humans are capable of solving bigger problems.
I agree with you about battery tech, I personally believe it is a dead end technology, however at this point in time it is all we have. Hydrogen is I personally believe the future, its clean, it renewable and it is abundant, in fact it is the most abundant element in the known universe......the main problem is hydrogen is the mean of the periodic table and will hook with damn near any other element in order to make a new compound. There in lays the problem, lots of hydrogen available, but very little of it is free hydrogen. So this means we need to crack hydrogen from other sources, such as water and natural gas or any other form hydrocarbon. And that currently is costly, once that cost is driven down to say around that of cracking gasoline (petrol) or diesel from crude oil, then we will start to see hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road. The other issue is containment, hydrogen is the smallest of the elements and can pretty much bleed out of any known containment systems while in its gaseous state.
Once we can crack hydrogen cheaply, we can then start to use it in industrial scales for transportation and power generation. We can adapt our current distribution systems to be bring the fuel of the future to the market with minimum changes and costs.
Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2015 1:47 am
by Hanson
From an economic standpoint, it is a total fail.
I ride a 2014 DL650A and my average cost for fuel per mile is $0.062 and the price difference between the bikes is about 8k for the cheaper version.
Assuming that the Zero costs zero per mile for fuel, it is going to take about 130k miles to break even on fuel, or about 10 years of commuting 50 miles a day year round, which, when you consider the cost of the money, means the bike will likely never pay for itself as you must also think about what you could have done with that 8k investment wise over that same 10 year.
This is the great bike for people with lots of extra green who want to try out some cutting edge technology and who are insufferable selfrighteous about the diminutive size of their carbon footprint.
Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 12:53 pm
by Jarlaxle
faded sun wrote:It seems to me to be a matter of time before these are faster than gasoline powered engines. The Tesla is flat out faster than almost any car from a dead stop. I think the range is probably well above the daily miles the average rider would put on a bike. Yes touring is still a far off dream for these, but I'm interested to see how they tackle that.
I won't see one under the tree, but I am going to test drive one in the spring.
Merry Christmas to Mike, Andrea and all my fellow riders.
The Tesla isn't faster because it's electric...it's faster because it's AWD!
Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:30 pm
by dr_bar
We need the things of Science Fiction, today...
I had to go hunting for the darn name of this fictional piece of technology, but I found it at;
http://www.technovelgy.com
Batacitor
"A storage device for electricity that could be charged in a very short time. He called it a “batacitor”, for
“bat”tery cap”acitor”. It could take a huge charge instantly and release it at whatever rate you wanted. Slow
like a battery or all at once like a capacitor."
"A giant step-down transformer of aluminum took the energy three times a day, sent it through Brobdignagian
aluminum wires to a two-story device known as a batacitor. This was a late-twentieth-century electronic
discovery that could accept hundreds of kilovolts in a hundredth of a microsecond and could discharge it at any
rate from a tenth of a volt to one hundred kilovolts..."
- From The Fabulous Riverboat, by Philip Jose Farmer.
- Published by Putnam in 1971
And like usual, Science copies fiction and they are working on a Super supercapacitor, freakishly discovered by accident when making graphene.
https://vimeo.com/51873011
http://singularityhub.com/2013/01/29/th ... capacitor/
Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 10:36 pm
by Grey Thumper
Come to think of it, why do most e-bike manufacturers seem to concentrate on mimicking the look (and maybe even the performance) of sporty bikes (either faired sportbikes or naked bikes).
Why not concentrate R&D on e-scooters? (Like an e-Vespa). Performance and range will be less of an issue with a scooter that's really intended for commuting/urban environments. No pressure to make an e-bike engine look good; body panels can hide the engine and batteries. And in general, scooters don't sound good anyway, so a quiet electric engine would be an improvement.
Re: This Week: 2016 Zero DSR - Vote Now
Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2016 10:32 am
by faded sun
Grey Thumper wrote:Come to think of it, why do most e-bike manufacturers seem to concentrate on mimicking the look (and maybe even the performance) of sporty bikes (either faired sportbikes or naked bikes).
Why not concentrate R&D on e-scooters? (Like an e-Vespa). Performance and range will be less of an issue with a scooter that's really intended for commuting/urban environments. No pressure to make an e-bike engine look good; body panels can hide the engine and batteries. And in general, scooters don't sound good anyway, so a quiet electric engine would be an improvement.
I don't know about R&D, but e-scooters are a plague on the streets of Toronto. But to stay out of regulatory waters they max out at 20 kph. So they probably figure if you are going to get a road (highway) worthy vehicle you will be able to sell it for more if it looks like a motorcycle. Very few of the e-bikes actually come close to looking like a motorcycle. And given the flood of slow ones that look like a Vespa, the market may not be there for more expensive ones that go faster but then must be licensed, etc.
Mind you, I have always been a bit amazed at the price of a new Vespa, but I am Scottish.