2012 zero line up at milano show

[maydaverave]

Brushless motors, 112 mile range, batteries that last 300,000 miles. The electric motorcycle has arrived.
http://green.autoblog.com/2011/11/09/ch ... torcycles/

[AussieJester]

Zero have definately stepped it up! Bikes
Are even looking the part!

KiM

[liveforphysics]

Wow! Mileage jumped from 43miles to 114miles on the EPA standardized range test.

The batteries last the lifetime of the vehicle, thousands of charge cycles.

That's a massive massive improvement. Perhaps the first really useful electric motorcycle to hit the market?

They must have somebody designing the batteries there who knows WTF they are doing with batteries. Wonder who it could be?

[AussieJester]

Yes seems there is a huge talent there
helping develop the Zero into a usable
Bike for the masses! I would even consider an
E-motorcycle with these specs and you know how
Anti electric motorcycle I am Luke!..any idea who it might be
At Zero overseeing the battery development side of
Things? you usually got your finger on the pulse
When it comes to knowing anything battery, Luke?
Heard any whispers?

KiM

[GCinDC]

10% fed tax credit too, but have to buy extra batt pack on some. very tempting.

[liveforphysics]

Been hearing whispers to me pretty much non-stop after the 2012 press release came out.

Yes seems there is a huge talent there
helping develop the Zero into a usable
Bike for the masses! I would even consider an
E-motorcycle with these specs and you know how
Anti electric motorcycle I am Luke!..any idea who it might be
At Zero overseeing the battery development side of
Things? you usually got your finger on the pulse
When it comes to knowing anything battery, Luke?
Heard any whispers?

KiM

[neptronix]

Aha...
Nice job to um, whoever picked out such a great battery.

I heard they were also using brushed motors and are now used brushless..

[AussieJester]

Been hearing whispers to me pretty much non-stop after the 2012 press release came out.

Yes seems there is a huge talent there
helping develop the Zero into a usable
Bike for the masses! I would even consider an
E-motorcycle with these specs and you know how
Anti electric motorcycle I am Luke!..any idea who it might be
At Zero overseeing the battery development side of
Things? you usually got your finger on the pulse
When it comes to knowing anything battery, Luke?
Heard any whispers?

KiM

Well i guess the cats pretty much out of the bag? would have to be pretty
slow to not catch on that it wasn't one LFP that is one of the genius's behind
the new 2012 Zeros battery tech ...Great job Luke, you helped turn my opinion
of e-motorcycles, the Zero is one i would buy (if of course i was still able to ride a conventional 'motorciicyle!')
it definitely looks the part now i really didnt like the old styling of previous models and of
course the performance in the battery department
Luke told me it gives him a grin riding it! , and it gets the looks :: wink wink:: it must
be an alright machine ...great stuff Luke i wish you and Zero all the best in
the future R&D for even better products!

KiM

[liveforphysics]

Nice job to um, whoever picked out such a great battery.

No "just picking" a battery about it, designing packaging that passes all safety standards and UN 38.8 vibration and shock and temp and short-circuit and overcharge and altitude and temperature standards. Making it manufacturerable and safe, and then a whole team dedicated to BMS development.

Normal ebike pack takes me about 2hours of relaxed easy work with basic hand tools to make.

Production EV packs take THOUSANDS of man-hours and many hundreds of thousands of dollars in testing and qualifying and working with mfg's from around the world. Then many proto-type iterations and 10's of thousands of test miles in real world environments (rain/mud/pressure-washers/freezing/heat/vibration etc).

You don't get a 114mile range production bike by just picking something, you get it by testing everything in the world, analyzing the piss out every option and packaging possibility, making prototypes by hand until your finger tips are rubbed off, then sending them out to get shaken by labs and ridden and hammered on in the real world, then learning from your discovery, changing designs to suit your test findings, then making more prototypes, hammering on them, taking them apart for more discovery/learning, revising designs, making new prototypes, hammering on them, until FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY, you conclude with something that you hammer on and abuse in the worst ways you can imagine, run through the most severe tests that put loads 5x higher than anything a bike can see in real life and still have the rider survive, run those test for thousands of cycles, take it all apart, and find no signs of damage or anything going wrong or wearing in any way at all.

Then and only then you can release your design to head out into the world and still sleep at night.

[liveforphysics]

Well i guess the cats pretty much out of the bag? would have to be pretty
slow to not catch on that it wasn't one LFP that is one of the genius's behind
the new 2012 Zeros battery tech ...Great job Luke

Thank you kindly KiM.

It makes the last 13months of working 12-16hrs a day and often weekends as well all seem worthwhile to please such a harsh critic as yourself (and myself!).

[neptronix]

Luke, i am not hatin' or discrediting the work done here. I understand it is a crapton of work, especially considering the sea of shitty cells out there.

I get to start a similar process soon.

[liveforphysics]

Luke, i am not hatin' or discrediting the work done here. I understand it is a crapton of work, especially considering the sea of shitty cells out there.

I get to start a similar process soon.

Even if you're doing a little baby sized pack, make sure you've got at minimum $100,000usd you can burn for prototyping, and at least $100,000usd you can burn for passing required safety tests for UN38.3, UL crap, CE, etc. If you're doing a custom BMS that needs to actually be perfect, I would set aside 1.5years of development time and $200,000usd in cost if you're doing it in-house, perhaps $350,000usd if your doing it out-sourced.

You're looking at about half a million bucks of 100% non-recoverable-costs in development just to get something off the ground that is legal to sell and ship to most places in the world. And this is for a small pack. For a large pack, you're going to be in the millions of bucks just in cells alone for RnD test packs.

[bigmoose]

Now that it is up on the Zero website, when I went into the big lab today I told our chief EE design engineer about the new range and performance capabilities. Now Mike is an all weather motorcycle and motorcycle/sidecar rider, and remember we are in Ohio. It freezes hard here. Mike rides rain, sun and cold, even a bit of snow... he was so impressed with the price/performance of the Zero he started clicking looking where he could take one for a test ride!

I too want to add, good job Luke! I think your work on batteries and range is going to be shown as THE pivotal point in Zero's corporate history. I sincerely hope they "appreciate" you in a proper way.

[mud2005]

It makes the last 13months of working 12-16hrs a day and often weekends as well all seem worthwhile to please such a harsh critic as yourself (and myself!).

HUGE congrats on a truly epic "job well done"

[neptronix]

Luke: what i'm doing is on a much smaller scale. I'm talking about selling battery packs on ES.
That's a mindblowing cost though

I too want to add, good job Luke! I think your work on batteries and range is going to be shown as THE pivotal point in Zero's corporate history. I sincerely hope they "appreciate" you in a proper way.

+1; we all know how far pretty much 95% of all EV companies miss the mark on stuff like this.

[grindz145]

I can't say how floored I am with these bikes. I haven't been so excited about electric bikes in a while. Great to have such amazing talent in a one the best US startups in a decade or more.

[Alan B]

This looks so good I'm thinking I should just get one and forget about ebikes.

Nice job!

Probably save me $ in the long run. I may be 1/3 of the way there already.

[liveforphysics]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

This was possible because we've managed to get a really strong engineering team right now. I could never have done it alone, our BMS development team has learned so much after 6 years, we had what we needed to hit a BMS home-run on these packs, and it really made my job a lot easier. The mechanical team also did a fantastic job on making the packs cases both extremely durable, easy to assemble, and kept the pieces simple and cost effective to make. Our new-found motor developer expert is also like a blessing sent from God to help electric motorcycles. Great work from our testing teams as well. This never would have been possible without support from a killer team.

I'm really damn proud of the 2012 bikes.

[adrian_sm]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

This was possible because we've managed to get a really strong engineering team right now. I could never have done it alone, our BMS development team has learned so much after 6 years, we had what we needed to hit a BMS home-run on these packs, and it really made my job a lot easier. The mechanical team also did a fantastic job on making the packs cases both extremely durable, easy to assemble, and kept the pieces simple and cost effective to make. Our new-found motor developer expert is also like a blessing sent from God to help electric motorcycles. Great work from our testing teams as well. This never would have been possible without support from a killer team.

I'm really damn proud of the 2012 bikes.

Well said Luke.

Congratulations to you and the whole team on what looks to be an awesome set of bikes.

- Adrian

[Doctorbass]

Great Work for your contribution luke

So should i understand that the Zero are using LIPO now?

I mean.. did you convinced them?

if so.. i understand that it might have cost $$$$$$$$$$$$$ for testing and safety !

otherwise, it it liFePo4 ? LiMn ?

Does the voltage have changed compare to the pasy years model of around 50-60VDC ?

Doc

[liveforphysics]

Thanks Doc.

Yes, we are using a large format Tier1 pouch cell developed specifically for EV use (along with other huge automotive OEM's running this exact cell). It's NMC chemistry, the very chemistry that tested to be safer than all the LiFePO4 offerings available.

The voltage is up. If the website doesn't have specs up on it yet, then I don't think we're supposed to be giving them out exactly, but yes, it's higher now.

Great Work for your contribution luke

So should i understand that the Zero are using LIPO now?

I mean.. did you convinced them?

if so.. i understand that it might have cost $$$$$$$$$$$$$ for testing and safety !

otherwise, it it liFePo4 ? LiMn ?

Does the voltage have changed compare to the pasy years model of around 50-60VDC ?

Doc

[Doctorbass]

I searched info on the new Dual Stator axial flux permanent magnet brushless motor they use.

I found this picture that reveal something really similar to the mars brushless motor ME0913:

Price: $825.00

Similar to teh one in the TTXGP RIPPERTON Electric track bike


The new Dual-stator motor from Motenergy, Inc (formerly Mars Electric) has an output power of 10.5 KW Continuous (at 48 volts), and 30 KW Peak (at 96 volts).

Designed for long life. No brush maintenance. The motor is 92% efficient at voltages between 24 to 96 VDC. Continuous current of 125 amps AC (180 Amps DC into the motor control). This is a 3-phase, Y-connected Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor with an axial air gap and 3 Hall sensors at 120 degrees electrical timing. It has two stators with a rotor in the center.

1) This is a 4 pole motor (8 magnets). 2) The Phase to Phase winding resistance is 0.013 Ohms. 3) The maximum recommended rotor speed is 5000 RPM. 4) Voltages from 0 to 96 VDC input to the control. 5) Torque constant of 0.15 Nm per Amp 6) The Inductance Phase to Phase is 0.20 Milli-Henry. 7) Armature Inertia is 45 Kg Cm Squared. Continuous current of 125 Amps AC (180 Amps DC into the motor control). 9) Peak current of 420 Amps AC for 1 minute (600 Amps DC into the motor control). 10) Weight of 35 pounds. 11) Peak Stall Torque if 90 Nm. 12) This is an Open Frame, Fan Cooled motor.



We can calculate( or have an idea) the max torque it have with these numbers:

Motor spec: 0.15 Nm per Amp

Max amp 420A

Max Nm: 63Nm at the motor shaft

Final drive 132T / 28T, Poly Chain® GT® Carbon™ belt

Nm at the wheel: 63 * ( 132/28) = 297Nm at the wheel

Rear wheel 3.50x17 = around 24" diameter (12" radius)

that give 974 Newton force at the wheel

= around 100kg of thrust


Not bad!


Doc



Also joined a picture of the mars brushless motor:

[liveforphysics]

Quite a bit different from that Mars motor it was based on my friend.

Made by the same factory, very similar outer casting on the motor (our's isn't as wide), still axial flux dual-stator single rotor design, drastically improved magnetic slot/tooth design, much more copper fill, better magnet quality, and a cooling path and fan that actually works.

[flathill]

Awesome work Luke and team! Now I have to decide between the S and DS for my commute from SF to Berkeley. You don't have any spare test mules for sale do you?

[gogo]

Finally, the existence of a single-geared motor/controller/battery combo that could be used on a bicycle to reliably give maximum legal levels of power at any speed and with any load. And it probably does it very quietly, too!