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Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

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Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#201

Post by johnjameson99 »

zer8k wrote: post #100
koolba wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the rationale for not releasing a manual? To force you to take into a dealer for service? It’s not like they have to make a separate manual. It has to exist for the dealer anyway right?

The $200/hr service charge most european motorcycle dealers charge. There are two things I can't do myself. Particularly, bleeding the ABS (which requires the dealer tool) and re-shimming the engine (which also requires a dealer tool). My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It…

Not condoning the prices your stealership charges, but consider: Have you spent thousands of dollars out of your own pocket for the tools you use at your job? Do you have to maintain a commercial brick and mortar location? How much are your services worth?

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#203

Post by jameson71 »

serf wrote: post #13
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are going nowhere. Electric motorcycles are a terrible idea because they are not the problem as far as emission go. Given the ratio between the weight of the motorcycle and the weight of the passenger/s they are extemely efficient, having the whole passenger vehicles switch to motorcycles would be even better than have them switch to 3000 pounds EVs. The vast majority of people are too coward to drive them unfor…

>The vast majority of people are too coward to drive them unfortunately you could frame regular motorcycles the same way. i'm not sure 'coward' is the right word either given the statistics. >Electric motorcycles are a terrible idea because they are not the problem as far as emission go. people aren't only into EVs for the environmental aspects; they're unique and offer a unique experience.

The statistics show that most people can’t handle a motor vehicle safely.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#204

Post by jameson71 »

0wis wrote: post #127
JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are going nowhere. Electric motorcycles are a terrible idea because they are not the problem as far as emission go. Given the ratio between the weight of the motorcycle and the weight of the passenger/s they are extemely efficient, having the whole passenger vehicles switch to motorcycles would be even better than have them switch to 3000 pounds EVs. The vast majority of people are too coward to drive them unfor…

Following your thought process, even better is everyone on bikes. That’s what is happening slowly in many developed cities. Everyone on a motorcycle (mostly scooters) is what you have in southeast Asia. And true, it allows much higher densities than US highways packed with cars, but the price is reduced confort and security… Hard to make people accept that nowadays. To give a contrarian view, I would happily become a…

Are the “heavy” ice engines heavier than the li-ion battery packs for electrics?

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#205

Post by igetspam »

bombcar wrote: post #169
Lucasoato wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh my god, this should be illegal. What an environmental waste to block what hardware can do for business reasons, is there any global lobby fighting bullshit like this?

This kind of thing has existed forever. Cars are starting to do it, too, as it gets cheaper to make them all the same and disable some features in software. HEVs also use only about 50% of the battery to reduce wear on it (go from 30 to 80 charge, no more).

If all your friends jumped off a bridge...

No mom! I'm afraid of heights!

But anyway, I won't buy a vehicle with a subscription based feature list that isn't something like a concierge service. If it's in the vehicle, I've already paid for the gear. (This changes once there's a community of moto hackers that can disable the lockouts... ish)

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#206

Post by zer8k »

johnjameson99 wrote: post #201
zer8k wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $200/hr service charge most european motorcycle dealers charge. There are two things I can't do myself. Particularly, bleeding the ABS (which requires the dealer tool) and re-shimming the engine (which also requires a dealer tool). My local stealership wants exactly $200/hr for every service. An oil change for my motorcycle is $300, a brake job is $650. Mind you parts for these jobs are in the mid-to-low XX's. It…

Not condoning the prices your stealership charges, but consider: Have you spent thousands of dollars out of your own pocket for the tools you use at your job? Do you have to maintain a commercial brick and mortar location? How much are your services worth?

> have you spent thousands of dollars out of your own pocket for the tools

Yes, but it is not my job. I would estimate my tool's at around $5000 or so. Collected over a little under 2 decades of riding.

> Do you have to maintain a commercial brick and mortar

No. But a Japanese bike shop has the same tools and brains as the stealership and charges half as much.

It's well known dealers upcharge for everything. If you don't believe me, find the best 3rd party shop in town and simply compare hourly rates. You may even ask them to itemize a modestly challenging job (CV boots for a car, maybe) that would need a skyjack. I would bet dollars to donuts the dealer price is 1.5x-2x more.

"Special" motorcycles (e.g. euro motorcycles in America) are NOTORIOUS for absurd dealer upcharges. It wasn't until ECUs started becoming smart that this was a problem. I could service a 90s-0x's BMW, for example, for pennies on the dollar to BMW's specification in my own garage. This is why Right To Repair is so important. Car dealers are the tip of the spear in the fight against it because they lose quite literally millions because of people like me. It's one of the reasons I will never own an EV as long as I live. They are (especially Tesla's) money printers on 4 wheels for the dealer.

My Triumph, for example, has no fundamental reason I need to plug in and tell the ECU I bled my ABS. No reason AT ALL. They do this because if you do the work yourself they can still charge you an hour (~200 dollars) to plug their tool in, re-enable your ABS, and give you a finger wag about doing work yourself. This is the John Deere-ization of consumer vehicles. This isn't unique to Triumph. Many consumer brand cars have the same problems. They even build in anti-tampers (such as the oil filter I had to literally break into pieces to remove). Modern vehicles are hostile to the consumer. The auto lobbies would tell you this is because the "advanced technology" but in reality it's used exactly like John Deere does. That is, to screw the consumer out of every single penny for even the most modest of trivialities.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#207

Post by subhro »

mmh0000 wrote: post #59
subhro wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1250RS is not top of the line for sure in any of the segments it is marketed at. I would say a K16 would be more towards the top.

I disagree, the 1250RS is basically a redesign of the K1200S (my current bike). Just swapping out the inline-v for the BMW boxer motor. Top of the line, in it's class. A sports bike, with shaft drive, linked brakes, traction control, and heated grips. Find me an electric bike with those features for anywhere near a comparable price. Specifically, I will not even consider a bike without a shaft drive (or in the case o…

Sorry, but R1250RT is NOT a sports bike. It redlines at 8K rpm, compared to S1000RR that redlines at 14600 rpm, delivers 136 horses at 7750 rpm compared to 205 horses at 13000 rpm, does 105 lbs-ft. at 6,250 rpm compared to 83 lb-ft at 11,000 rpm.

Now if you look at K16 specs, 160 horses at 6750 rpm with 123.7 lbs-ft at 5250 rpm. And it DOES have linked brakes, traction control, ABS and heated grips.

Both R1250RT and K16 are marketed in the sports tourer segment.

So NO, R1250RT is no where near top of line sports tourer and definitely not a sports bike.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#208

Post by fatfingerd »

swifthesitation wrote: post #198
roland35 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked in hardware, I can imagine most customers would 1) push the button, then 2) complain that their battery performance is reduced.

> most customers would 1) push the button, then 2) complain that their battery performance is reduced. In this scenario, have them do step 3.. 3) push the button a second time.

How will you un-wear a battery with a press of a button?

I don't see anything inconsistent with a subscription if the manufacturer is responsible for replacing the battery during a warranty time. I prefer large ecosystems with 3rd party parts to dealing with proprietary manufacturing and warranties though.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#209

Post by sheepshear »

ajkjk wrote: post #174
stevenhuang wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it does, generally the deeper lithium ion batteries are discharged, the higher the likelihood of dendrites forming on the anode. basically the more time that is spent not in the fully discharged state, the longer li-ion will last. (this doesn't mean you want to leave it 100% charged either, that can also damage the pack; if leaving for extended non-use, leaving it at ~50% state of discharge is the generally recommend…

The disagreement is not with the science but with the idea that "because the company will have to honor more warranties, it is okay for them to charge more for features of the things they have already sold consumers". Maybe they should make less money, instead. Perhaps they can split the difference by amending the warranty to take into account the health of the battery. I don't really care! I (we. everyone.) hate a w…

What if they did it the old way and simply never implemented deep discharge in the first place? The product would never tap into the extra battery performance, you'd retain control over what you bought, and they wouldn't extract more profit.

Industrial battery packs extract a fair bit more value from their cells than consumer packs because those customers pay for the extra expense to the manufacturer and they're willing and legally able to accept more complex warranty terms. It's tough to bring something like that to consumers. The fact that this is an option at all shows that competition is increasing along this axis.

Re: Zero Motorcycles makes its service manuals free

#210

Post by anomaloustho »

turdprincess wrote: post #99

Good move, but another thing this brand does is charge you a monthly subscription to unlock the full battery range on your bike. If you don’t pay, you lug around a dead weight extra battery you cannot access. Overall this brand is notoriously unfriendly to consumers.

Zero SR/F owner here. I was also put off by this before buying a Zero. They did back off of this a bit, but most of the stuff floating around online is from when they initially did it.

Now, if you purchase any premium Zero like the SRF and SRS, every software upgrade comes unlocked and is apart of your purchase as you’d expect.

If you purchase their cheaper tier models like the DS and SR, then the “upgrades” can be software unlocked. I’m not a fan, but it is a one time fee from what I understand. It’s not a subscription. (correct me if you have conflicting data)

That in mind, my SR/F came off the lot with everything already enabled. I checked the app and there are no “upgrades” that can be purchased.

Zero also had a reputation of being one of the less repairable bikes, but they’ve been slowly going in the other direction.

I walked into a dealer being dead set on buying an Energica bike and not buying a Zero. They had no problem selling it to me, but after updating me on where the current state of Zero was vs Energica, I decided to buy the Zero and didn’t regret it in the least.

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