4LivesPerGallon
1 kW
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2015
- Messages
- 305
There's been a lot of vaporware in the history of electric cars and electric scooters.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=38827
Frankly, given the amount of time and money (many thousands) that we've spent on fixing and modifying electric "rides" has been exhausting over the 15 years now.
The latest full-on marketing onslaught is by a US company that makes the ATX-8080 Ruckus-style allegedly highly-capable electric scooter. They have inundated the Internet sites with a lot of "promises". Probably to support their Kickstarter campaign, which was cancelled:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=71288
In contrast, the Asian electric scooter manufacturers, like Gogoro in Taiwan, just hire fast riders to race their electric scooters, on very long rides -- in one case, a convincing "race" video, which shows that the Gogoro scooter can run for an estimated 45-minute run at high speeds, without needing a rest-period. See YouTube with a Gogoro search -- they have a lot of them.
The only high-speed run of the ATX-8080 is a helicopter very, very short video of it being rapidly overtaken by a car. That promotional slick video is no substitute for an owner-review. Also, text-only reviews, or any product reviews based on a short test ride, should be considered worthless, or at least suspect. That's why Amazon, DHgate are great, because there are reviews by Verified Purchasers. (Note: Amazon blocks or censors some reviews by verified purchasers; and they have highly-suspect "Vine" reviews from reviewers that got free products. Most of the "Vine" reviews are positive, because those reviewers continue to get more free products.)
Imo, the claimed top speed of the ATX-8080 is probably not sustainable.
For example, the US-made Z-6 (aka Native Z-6000) electric scooter by Electric Motor Sport could only run at it claimed top speed for under a mile, in our experience.
Another US-made electric scooter by the Current Motor Company (see owner-postings at Visforvoltage forum) failed miserably, leaving owners stranded --- again!
Yet another US-company is the ZEV (Zero Emission Vehicles?). The latest posts on Visforvoltage indicates that this company doesn't stand by its warranty, even when Dead On Arrival or DOA shortly thereafter.
In summary, a lot of Americans and Canadians have been "taken for a ride".
So, what can we learn from this?
1) Only the Tesla electric car people, and Chinese/Taiwan/Asian companies know how to make Lithium-powered electric scooters that have BMS's that survive well, and are reliable.
2) The "prismatic" Lithium model doesn't work on highway-speed electric scooters/motorcycles as far as longevity is concerned. The parallel/series 18650 battery packs are the way to go. The Zero motorcycle company doesn't use 18650's, though. However, I don't see any 50,000 km. Zero motorcycles in Elmoto.net, and the older ones seem to have battery problems, with "zero service" from Zero, alleged by some Zero motorcycle owners, in forums.
3) Making a highly-efficient, reliable, Lithium-powered electric scooter with smart battery charger, fully-functional BMS has been an unsolved puzzle for US electric scooter makers. My opinion is based on the huge heat sink on the ATX-8080 hub motor whereas the Chinese and Taiwan scooters can run these speeds without heat sinks. (The Gogoro, though, is water-cooled. Water cooling on scooters is a great idea -- the Kymco Super-9 Liquid Cooled gas scooter was the best stock 50cc scooter ever made, with twice the horsepower of the air-cooled 50cc's.)
4) Water cooling of batteries/controllers works much better than air-cooled, unless you have fan-forced air-cooling, too. This was one of the 10 modifications we made on the history-making revived-battery electric pickup truck. The successful Zilla controllers are water-cooled, too.
5) The series-only battery pack design is inherently obsolete. There's more to this, too, besides just using parallel blocks. We had another discovery in the revived battery pickup truck project, nearly 8 years ago, which made our group of tinkerers realize that there are 'ancient Chinese secrets' in fundamental battery-powered devices, even small ones.
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=38827
Frankly, given the amount of time and money (many thousands) that we've spent on fixing and modifying electric "rides" has been exhausting over the 15 years now.
The latest full-on marketing onslaught is by a US company that makes the ATX-8080 Ruckus-style allegedly highly-capable electric scooter. They have inundated the Internet sites with a lot of "promises". Probably to support their Kickstarter campaign, which was cancelled:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=71288
In contrast, the Asian electric scooter manufacturers, like Gogoro in Taiwan, just hire fast riders to race their electric scooters, on very long rides -- in one case, a convincing "race" video, which shows that the Gogoro scooter can run for an estimated 45-minute run at high speeds, without needing a rest-period. See YouTube with a Gogoro search -- they have a lot of them.
The only high-speed run of the ATX-8080 is a helicopter very, very short video of it being rapidly overtaken by a car. That promotional slick video is no substitute for an owner-review. Also, text-only reviews, or any product reviews based on a short test ride, should be considered worthless, or at least suspect. That's why Amazon, DHgate are great, because there are reviews by Verified Purchasers. (Note: Amazon blocks or censors some reviews by verified purchasers; and they have highly-suspect "Vine" reviews from reviewers that got free products. Most of the "Vine" reviews are positive, because those reviewers continue to get more free products.)
Imo, the claimed top speed of the ATX-8080 is probably not sustainable.
For example, the US-made Z-6 (aka Native Z-6000) electric scooter by Electric Motor Sport could only run at it claimed top speed for under a mile, in our experience.
Another US-made electric scooter by the Current Motor Company (see owner-postings at Visforvoltage forum) failed miserably, leaving owners stranded --- again!
Yet another US-company is the ZEV (Zero Emission Vehicles?). The latest posts on Visforvoltage indicates that this company doesn't stand by its warranty, even when Dead On Arrival or DOA shortly thereafter.
In summary, a lot of Americans and Canadians have been "taken for a ride".
So, what can we learn from this?
1) Only the Tesla electric car people, and Chinese/Taiwan/Asian companies know how to make Lithium-powered electric scooters that have BMS's that survive well, and are reliable.
2) The "prismatic" Lithium model doesn't work on highway-speed electric scooters/motorcycles as far as longevity is concerned. The parallel/series 18650 battery packs are the way to go. The Zero motorcycle company doesn't use 18650's, though. However, I don't see any 50,000 km. Zero motorcycles in Elmoto.net, and the older ones seem to have battery problems, with "zero service" from Zero, alleged by some Zero motorcycle owners, in forums.
3) Making a highly-efficient, reliable, Lithium-powered electric scooter with smart battery charger, fully-functional BMS has been an unsolved puzzle for US electric scooter makers. My opinion is based on the huge heat sink on the ATX-8080 hub motor whereas the Chinese and Taiwan scooters can run these speeds without heat sinks. (The Gogoro, though, is water-cooled. Water cooling on scooters is a great idea -- the Kymco Super-9 Liquid Cooled gas scooter was the best stock 50cc scooter ever made, with twice the horsepower of the air-cooled 50cc's.)
4) Water cooling of batteries/controllers works much better than air-cooled, unless you have fan-forced air-cooling, too. This was one of the 10 modifications we made on the history-making revived-battery electric pickup truck. The successful Zilla controllers are water-cooled, too.
5) The series-only battery pack design is inherently obsolete. There's more to this, too, besides just using parallel blocks. We had another discovery in the revived battery pickup truck project, nearly 8 years ago, which made our group of tinkerers realize that there are 'ancient Chinese secrets' in fundamental battery-powered devices, even small ones.
