It's a 2016
Zero Motorcycles DSR ZF13.0 electric motorcycle, with a nominal 13 kWh battery but an actual 11.4 kWh useable capacity.
Yes. I have owned an electric motorcycle since June, 2016, along with my 2007 Honda CBF 1000 petrol bike.
The short answer is around 100 miles. The correct answer, however, is that it depends on how power is used. Manage the power carefully and you can keep the attainable distance between charges quite high. Thrash the bike and the range drops significantly. For the purpose of this trip, I planned to cover an average distance of 85 miles between charges, because I was carrying extra load and wanted to allow myself a safety margin.
Using the integrated 1.3 kW charger alone, the charge time is approximately 9 hours. For the purposes of this trip, I needed a quicker means of charging. Fortunately, my Zero dealership,
Streetbike in Halesowen, managed to obtain from Zero in the Netherlands the loan of couple of additional external fast chargers, which added an additional 2 kW combined power, meaning I was able to charge at a total 3.3 kW and reduce charging time to around three hours.
98 mph (158 km/h), 3.9 seconds, 67 hp (50kW) @ 4000rpm, 144 Nm (106 ft-lb), and 190kg (490 lb) respectively.
In many ways it's very similar. The key differences are the instant torque of an electric motor and the lack of gears. Having no gears means that slow riding is more a combination of solely rear brake and throttle control, rather than a combination of clutch and rear brake control on a normal petrol bike. Otherwise, the bike feels the same to ride. There is no particular difference in characteristic in terms of weight distribution. The bike does indeed gain the weight of a battery, but loses the weight of a traditional engine.
With great pleasure. I ride motorbikes because I enjoy the experience of riding. The noise a motorbike makes has never been of much interest to me and I don't subscribe to the loud pipes save lives school of thought. What saves lives is a combination of rider skills and luck. In fact, I would argue that the benefit of hearing vehicles when approaching junctions is far more benefical than loud exhausts warning other road users of your presence.
Make rapid charging a huge priority in development. This will remain the biggest obstacle to mass adoption. Motorbikes are expensive and many people can only own one. If they have to make a choice of being able to do longer journeys on a bike or not do longer journeys without a great deal of effort or expense, they'll of course go for the former. While a key purpose of my trip was to demonstrate what electric motorcycles are capable of, there is no technical reason why the bike I rode shouldn't be able to be charged in around 15 minutes using DC charging. Once that's in place, sales will rocket.
I rode 1646 km (1022.78 miles) from Land's End to Skaw Beach. The journey from Land's End to John o'Groats was 1409 km (875.51 miles)
According to the GPS logs, it took 23 hours and 47 minutes of riding time from Land's End to John o'Groats. That was split over four days. I then spent a day on Orkney, where I spent 1 hour 52 minutes riding the bike (visiting sights and people), before catching the overnight ferry to Shetland. On Shetland, I rode from Lerwick to Skaw at the top of Shetland, which took an additional 2 hours 6 minutes of time on the move. That was the target reached as far as the goal of the journey went. On that basis, it took a total moving time of 27 hours and 45 minutes.
The journey from Land's End to John o'Groats used 137 kWh of energy.
The journey from Land's End to Skaw Beach used 153 kWh of energy.
On the basis of my own electricity bill, assuming all of this was paid for by me (at 11.77p per kWh), the journey from Land's End to John o'Groats would have cost £16.12 and the journey from Land's End to Skaw Beach would have cost £18.00 exactly.
I rode from the bottom of the UK to the top for under £20 in fuel.
By contrast, the diesel cost for James to transport the bike down to Land's End for journey's start and to collect me from Forfar was over £200.
No. Sorry.
During the stops I made during the day, around three hours. For the overnight stops, I was able to use just the bike's one built-in charger and let it charge overnight.
No. However, one section of the journey, from Kendal to Crawford required a 100 mile stint, which I knew was almost certainly going to be too much, given that the roads on that leg (the M6 and A74(M) motorways) comprised motorway sections on a constant climb and were higher speed roads. As such, I made contingency plans to stop at an ASDA supermarket in Carlisle and charge for a time using one of the Polar charge points. In the event, I did stop there for an hour or so in order to ensure I had enough charge to complete that section of the trip.
Yes. See the
Route section.
As yet, I haven't taken any action in terms of recording the journey as a record. Guinness tends to deal in superlatives: fastest, biggest, etc. That was not the nature of my desire to undertake the journey. At the outset, I decided to enjoy the experience over a number of days rather than attempt to set a speed record. Any record registered with Guinness could easily be broken, especially as electric motorcycles improve in terms of range and charging times. I was far more interested in proving the technology capable and, yes, of being the first to do it.
Several reasons.
- I support the wider adoption of electric vehicles and wanted to prove that such a journey could be done.
- Nobody else had done it.
- I enjoy motorcycle touring.
- It seemed like a good way to do some fundraising.
I learnt that in all the cases I encountered, people are very encouraging towards someone undertaking a challenge. Everyone I met was friendly and keen to support me. Nobody asked for any money in return for using their electricity. Sure, it wouldn't have amounted to much financially, but it was still a nice gesture on their part. Meeting friendly people was by far the most positive experience of the trip, outside the sheer enjoyment of riding itself.
