I've been looking at a Zero for some months now. Mostly looking at a used DSR. I was wondering if anyone here actually rides one on a daily basis and could share their opinion about it. Theres lots of review online but most people own it for a short period or they are not commuters and have better things to do than talk about the nuances of owning one.

So does anyone own one and ride it daily?

The three main draws for me is

1) The range on the ZF14.4 is within what I need for daily needs.
2) The charge time is reasonable for my application
3) It's fun as make the beast with two backs (though i haven't ridden one yet).

I know theres a bunch of discussions comparing it to a gas bike but its sort of moot point to me. It fits my needs as far as usage goes. Other thoughts about it are resell value, real life durability and if the tech is ready to be adopted as a daily vehicle.

What are ya'll thoughts?

A friend has a Zero FX and loves it. The only bad thing he's encountered was self-induced, he'd been making accessories for it and had left the key on for several days and completely killed the battery pack. And that's expensive.....

I've ridden it, and it's an absolute blast. I want one (the FXS, specifically) but my want list far exceeds my bank account and garage space.

No FHE, but I think they won't respond well to high volumes of cooking fat.

Quote from: ungeheuer on October 29, 2020, 10:10:13 AM
No FHE, but I think they won't respond well to high volumes of cooking fat.

    was it a chicken restaurant?

 

oh god. You remember that story!

lol. That happened on a date with my exgf.  That smell.....it took months for that smell to truly go away. It was more than chicken fat. It was whatever grease was in that bag of trash at that Chinese restaurant in Manhattan. I think I uploaded that photo somewhere here. Lets not dig that one up!



I have left my key in my bike before and killed my battery. Ofcourse its a $100 battery not a $10,000 one. Id imagine there is a low voltage circuit that could have been installed from the factory to prevent draining the battery to -11.

The bike im looing at is the DSR. The FX Doenst have the range i need. Thanks for that input!

http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=29011.msg503345#msg503345

Aerostitch did a write up on riding on through the winter.  

https://www.aerostich.com/zero-below-zero-book.html 

I might have a copy around here somewhere. I'll check tomorrow.

I’ve been driving an electric car for 4 years now.  My personal question would be: Does the ‘advertised range’ match the real world range?

Also: hills are a severe detriment to range.  Keep that in mind.

Quote from: stopintime on October 29, 2020, 05:10:24 PM
http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?topic=29011.msg503345#msg503345

I thought i posted a photo in that thread but I guess its been lost to the internet!!! Im pretty sure i have it tucked away on one of my many hard drives.  Ill dig it up one day!

The zero should be more grease proof than the ducati was now that I think about it! its a sealed unit all around.

Quote from: Duck-Stew on October 29, 2020, 08:00:55 PM
I’ve been driving an electric car for 4 years now.  My personal question would be: Does the ‘advertised range’ match the real world range?

Also: hills are a severe detriment to range.  Keep that in mind.

I dont think it ever does. The advertised range of the zero is about 165 miles, but everywhere i've read is that its real world numbers are about 100. But I will say that most people ride in true mixed conditions. Living in NYC, its a true city environment where going past 30mph is reserved only for those waking up before the sun goes up or well past bed time. We also dont have hills so I guess thats not a worry.

One of the biggest thing in my head is that when/if i ever decided to move out of the city to a nearby suburb, then the bike can still get me to work and back on a single charge. Which means i cant move more than 50 miles from where I work. Generally speaking I wouldn't want to commute 50 urban miles anyway so I'm thinking it works out.

Quote from: LMT on October 29, 2020, 05:40:00 PM
Aerostitch did a write up on riding on through the winter.  

https://www.aerostich.com/zero-below-zero-book.html ;

I might have a copy around here somewhere. I'll check tomorrow.

that book is pretty old in electric terms. 2016? I cant believe it made it to print when it could have been published online.

Also keep in mind you could charge while at work...  Done that a number of times in the electric car.

NYC here. I work on the 18th floor of a highrise building. I think that 14.4kw battery weighs 200lbs if not more!!

On the FX model, you could take the battery out, but all i hear in my head is "thats $100 of scrap metal, lets steal it".

I called the dealer in NH who has that DSR for sale at a good price. Apparently the bike was traded in  at a local NYC harley dealership and then retraded into NH. The irony of it all!!!

One thing i thought about today was the resell value of this bike. I dont think electric motorcycles have much resell value right now because people are concerned about battery longetvity. Its sort of like range anxiety. We know that the bike wont even make it to the level where the battery begins to deteriorated.

That means that if you buy an e-bike it probably wont sell again unless you let it go for dirt cheap. With the pace of technology right now, were likely to see a boom in e bikes in the next 10 years and while I could wait, all id be doing is getting older and not having 115ft-lbs of torque.

Atleast thats what im telling myself to justify buying a lower tier e bike vs a higher tier gaser. I mean come on can I atleast get radial brakes on the eletric!!!

what if I ride the E bike for 4 years and then drop its guts into my monster then??

Quote from: He Man on October 30, 2020, 02:31:35 PM
...............

what if I ride the E bike for 4 years and then drop its guts into my monster then??

That's what Stu is for 

He Man:  The battery deterioration and resale comments you made are valid, but getting less and less of a concern.  The real early E moto’s were horrible for purchase price and resale.  Better now, but not as good as you might expect.

For homework: look at pricing of year/make/models and then see how they have fared for purchase price now as used.

An E-Monster?!?  Hmmm...  Nope. I’m not going to do that. The converted cars are ok due to the size of them.  Converted E-moto’s are tough due to battery size & current energy output.

Hey Duck-Stew,

for that particular year it looks like 16K MSRP in 2018 and now appears to be about 10K on average. So say 40% over 2 years. 2014 models are showuping up at 4K range but not enough examples of them. I'm not sure who were buyers back then and I'm guessing that most of them are sitting in a garage somewhere doing nothing.....or as a police vehicle somewhere.


I was joking more along the lines of  moving the whole frame of the monster into the Zero. That would be one dedicated project yielding a pretty awesome machine!

Put street tires on it, and get after it.

https://youtu.be/50WK8aAB2Do