motoproponent
Demon of the Glass Vagina
I don't think you can extract single cells from big packs like on Zero, Livewire, and Energica. A lot of them are potted or some equivalent to satisfy road going safety requirements.
Honestly, (big 200+ volt) battery packs aren't as disposable as the first generation Leaf made everyone think they are. Anything built in the last 5 years (Car or Bike) with a bad cell will be known in the first few months of ownership. The common theme is for manufacturers to have the actual capacity of the pack and the "available capacity" be two different numbers to prolong the pack life. So cells rarely just go bad.
The idea that you'll need to replace your battery every 5-10 years is out of date info and an anti-EV talking point.
At my last service, a few weeks ago, they pulled the data logs. My bike has charged and discharged 87,000 amp hours over the last two years. When my bike is 100% charged it still has more than 19KWH (no loss in capacity) and the delta between high and low cell voltages is 13 millivolts. If those numbers mean nothing to you, just know that it demonstrates I have a very healthy pack.
That said, all the things that are EV Moto specific (firmware, BMS, etc) are proprietary. If those brick, you're SOL without dealer software support. Zero has a pretty good resource in that they have been around the longest so replacement parts are available in the used market if you cant stomach a manufacturer price. (although you may have to buy a whole bike for a song and then part it yourself) There is also the Unofficial Zero Manual and a community of tinkerers and hackers you can tap into. In the case of Energica, those of us in the bay area have the benefit of proximity to the service center in South SF. the employees there are still employed and have vowed to become Shogun Traveling Mercenary Hired Gun technicians if the company folds as they have exclusive and valuable knowledge and software.
If you want something with more off-the-shelf, plug-and-play components stick with large volume, lower cost, not-street-legal, Asian imports. Surron, Admit Jet, Talaria, and all the clones there of.
Honestly, (big 200+ volt) battery packs aren't as disposable as the first generation Leaf made everyone think they are. Anything built in the last 5 years (Car or Bike) with a bad cell will be known in the first few months of ownership. The common theme is for manufacturers to have the actual capacity of the pack and the "available capacity" be two different numbers to prolong the pack life. So cells rarely just go bad.
The idea that you'll need to replace your battery every 5-10 years is out of date info and an anti-EV talking point.
At my last service, a few weeks ago, they pulled the data logs. My bike has charged and discharged 87,000 amp hours over the last two years. When my bike is 100% charged it still has more than 19KWH (no loss in capacity) and the delta between high and low cell voltages is 13 millivolts. If those numbers mean nothing to you, just know that it demonstrates I have a very healthy pack.
That said, all the things that are EV Moto specific (firmware, BMS, etc) are proprietary. If those brick, you're SOL without dealer software support. Zero has a pretty good resource in that they have been around the longest so replacement parts are available in the used market if you cant stomach a manufacturer price. (although you may have to buy a whole bike for a song and then part it yourself) There is also the Unofficial Zero Manual and a community of tinkerers and hackers you can tap into. In the case of Energica, those of us in the bay area have the benefit of proximity to the service center in South SF. the employees there are still employed and have vowed to become Shogun Traveling Mercenary Hired Gun technicians if the company folds as they have exclusive and valuable knowledge and software.
If you want something with more off-the-shelf, plug-and-play components stick with large volume, lower cost, not-street-legal, Asian imports. Surron, Admit Jet, Talaria, and all the clones there of.
