Tag: Electric motorcycle

An Electrifying Development: CSC’s RX1E Motorcycle

Imagine an electric motorcycle that doesn’t look dorky, one that looks like a an ADV bike, with a fit and finish rivaling anything in the world.  Before you go all “Ahm a real ‘Murican and yer not” on me, I’m here to tell you this:  You don’t have to imagine this motorcycle.  It’s real and I rode it.  It’s quick and it feels light, and the thing handles.  And yes, it’s from China.  If that gets your shorts in a knot, move along…there’s nothing for you here.

The bike is the new RX1E from CSC Motorcycles in Azusa, and it’s manufactured by Zongshen.  That’s Zongshen, as in million-motorcycles-annually Zongshen.  I’ve ridden Zongshen motorcycles all over Colombia, all over China, all over Baja, and all over America, and I’ve been in their factories many times.  You may know a guy who’s cousin worked for a guy who thinks Chinese bikes are no good; my knowledge is more of a first-hand-actual-experience sort of thing.

The RX1E looks a lot like an RX3.  It’s got the ADV style.  I think it is an exceptionally attractive motorcycle.  Some folks may wonder why the bike is styled like an ADV bike.  Hey, it has to be styled like something.  The ADV style has good ergos and good carrying capacity, so why not use that as the styling theme?   Just to check, I parked it in front of Starbuck’s, you know, like the big kids do with their BMWs, and it worked just fine.

The motorcycle has an 8 kilowatt motor (with 18.5 kilowatt at peak power), but the kilowatt thing for an electric motorcycle is misleading.  This motorcycle is quick.  I opened it up getting on the freeway and the bike blew through 70 mph before I realized it.  It had more left, but I ran out of space.  It’s silent, and you hit speeds you don’t mean to because there’s no noise to go with the acceleration.  Think of it as the opposite of a Harley:   No noise at all, and lots of acceleration.

It’s not going to be inexpensive, but it’s inexpensive compared to other electric motorcycles.  CSC is going to sell a lot of these.

The time for a full recharge, per the CSC folks, is 6 hours.  CSC opted for a more powerful charger to get the recharge time down.

It comes with a full set of luggage, crashbars, a windshield, and a cool dash.  You can fit a full face helmet in the tail pack.

The RX1E is water cooled.   Yep, you read that right.   The Zongshen wizards use water cooling with a radiator to keep motor temps down.

The dash is cool, and you can change the color theme.  I liked it.  It was a little difficult to read in sunlight, but CSC tells me that will be corrected by the time the bikes are released for sale in a few months (I rode the first one to arrive in America).

The bike has three modes:  Eco, Comfort, and Sport.  Eco saves energy, Comfort is kind of in the middle, and Sport gives snappier acceleration.  Think of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Switchology is superior, in my opinion.  Here’s a peek at the left and right sides.  Yep, there’s cruise control, reverse, mode setting, high beam and low beam, the horn, turn signals, a park position, and a kill switch.  It’s a logical, well thought out, and quality presentation.

The bike doesn’t have that squirt out from under you feeling that other electric bikes have off a dead stop.  CSC’s City Slicker had a little bit of that.  The Zero I rode a couple years ago had way too much of it…so much so I found the Zero difficult to ride.  The RX1E is much more rider friendly.

The bike has disk brakes front and back and ABS.  There are cast aluminum wheels.  The final drive is via belt.  There’s no messy chain, nothing to oil, and it’s quiet.  I like it.

The fit and finish are awesome.  It’s as good as anything I’ve seen on any motorcycle anwhere in the world.  The one I rode was red (it’s the one you see in the pictures here).  I saw a Harley chopper and stopped to ask the owner if I could shoot a photo of the the RX1E next to it.  He was good to go, and I grabbed the shot you see below.

The RX1E ergonomics felt perfect to me.   The seat is comfortable, the reach to the bars was perfect, and I could put both feet flat on the ground.

CSC shows the bike’s weight to be 469 pounds, but it felt way lighter to me.  That might be because the weight is down low on this bike.  Or maybe I’m just used to my Enfield, which feels way heavier.  Whatever it is, the bike feels light.  The RX1E has high flickability.

The lack of any noise takes some getting used to.   It was unnerving at intersections.  On an internal combustion engine motorcycle, the noise makes you at least think other people can hear you.   The silence of an electric motorcycle makes you wonder if they see you.  Maybe that’s a good thing; it made me even more of a defensive rider than I normally am.

There’s no shifting, and because of that there’s no clutch and no shift lever.  Oddly, the lack of any need to shift felt perfectly natural.  Not having a clutch lever on the left handlebar when coming to a stop takes a little getting used to.

The bike has a reverse.  It doesn’t need one.  It felt so light and the seat is so low that backing up the old-fashioned way is easy…you know, sitting on the bike and using your legs to back it up a hill.  Yep, I did it.

The turning radius is delightfully tight.  I don’t have a spec for this, but I can tell you that u-turns in one-lane alleys are easy.  I know because I did it.

CSC tells me the range is about 80 miles, although the spec below says 112 miles.  I haven’t tested the bike for range like I did on the City Slicker because I only played around in town for an hour or so.  Good Buddy TK, the sales dude at CSC (who may be the world’s only sales guy who never stretches the truth), has been commuting back and forth to work on the bike and he tells me the 80-mile range is real.

The RX1E impressed me greatly.  If reading this blog gives you the impresssion that I really like the RX1E, I’ve done my job as a writer.  CSC and Zongshen have hit a home run here.  Zongshen’s engineering talent and CSC’s ability to see what the US market wants is impressive.

Spoiler alert:  Knowing people in high places has its advantages. I used to be a consultant for CSC, and CSC advertises on the ExNotes site.  But that hasn’t influenced what you’re reading here.   My friendship with the CSC owners got me an early ride on the RX1E (a scoop, so to speak) and a chance to see the specs before anyone else, which we’re sharing here.  They’ll be on the CSC website today or tomorrow.

CSC RX1E Specifications

Motor:  Liquid-cooled permanent-magnet
Peak Power:  24 hp (18.5kW)
Torque:  61.2 lb-ft (83Nm)
Battery:  Lithium-ion 96-volt, 64Ah
Battery Capacity: 6.16kWh
Charger: 110-volt
Input Current: 15A
Range: 112 miles based on New European Driving Cycle (NEDC)
Frame: Tubular steel
Rake & Trail: 27°, 74mm
Wheelbase: 55.5 inches (1400mm)
Front Suspension: 37mm inverted telescopic fork, 4.7 inches travel, adjustable for rebound damping
Rear Suspension: Monoshock, 4.3 inches travel, adjustable spring preload and rebound damping
Front Brake: Two-piston caliper, 265mm disc
Rear Brake: Single-piston caliper, 240mm disc
Wheels: 17-inch aluminum
Tires: 100/80-17 front; 120/80-17 rear
Length: 82.2 inches (2090mm)
Width: 34.0 inches (865mm)
Height: 47.4 inches (1205mm)
Seat Height: 30.9 inches (780mm)
Ground Clearance: 6.0 inches (150mm)
Curb Weight: 436.5 pounds (198kg); 469 lb with luggage and crash bars
Max Load: 331 lb (150kg)
Top Speed: 75+ mph
Colors: Crimson Red Metallic, Honolulu Blue Metallic and Silver Moon Metallic
Price: $8,495 (plus $410 dealer prep, documentation, and road testing fees) and if you order the bike now, CSC is offering $500 off with delivery in Spring 2023

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China’s EV subsidies sharply reduced

An electric scooter in China.

I read an article a couple of days ago in the Wall Street Journal about electric vehicle subsidies being sharply cut back in China.   It seems there are an incredible number of EV manufacturers in China.  487 electric vehicle manufacturers, to be exact.  And if you build EVs over there, there are rich Chinese government subsidies (from both the local and central Chinese governments).  China is scaling these back significantly.  All of the local subsidies are being eliminated, and the central (what we would call federal) government subsidies are only being provided for vehicles with a range of 155 miles or more on a single charge.

You may remember my observations in Riding China about the preponderance of electric motorcycles and scooters over there.  It turns out that the subsidies are not provided on motorcycles and scooters, so they are not affected.  Interesting times.

The Ideal Electric Motorcycle

I like to read the ExhaustNotes blog. In the aerospace industry, if you liked what your team created too much, we called it drinking your own bath water. The risk in drinking your own bath water was that you lost sight of what was important to the customer and you stopped reviewing your work objectively.  Anyway, every once in a while I’ll read through the blog to see what looks good and what we could maybe do better. And in doing that I realized that old Arjiu and I hadn’t done a dream bike piece recently.

That brings us to today and the dream bike bit du jour:  The Ideal Electric Motorcycle. I’m going to define the specs for what I think would be a riotously successful electric motorcycle.  Bear with me…I think this is going to be good, which can sometimes happen even with bath water.

I guess the first order of business is to consider the current crop of ebikes’ weaknesses.  That’s easy.  Limited range, limited top speed, long recharge times, clunky and bulky external chargers (for some bikes), and the biggest one of all (at least to me):  A near complete lack of cool. Yeah, I’m defining the specs for an ebike that would do well in the US, and the lack of cool is a very big deal.  We have to address that. It’s a serious shortfall in all the ebikes I’ve seen.  I mean, nobody visualizes themselves as Steve McQueen jumping a fence in Nazi Germany on an ebike.  Nobody thinks of themselves as Peter Fonda kickstarting a silent ebike to take Nancy Sinatra for a ride.

Remember that old Harley ad? The one that showed a toddler in a Harley T-shirt with the this question at the bottom: When did it start for you? That ad says it all. I know for me, and I suspect for nearly all of you, our fascination with motorcycles originated when we were wee ones and we saw a motorcycle that stopped us in our Buster Brown tracks. You know what I’m talking about. A bike that made us just stop and stare, usually for a long period of time. I have two such recollections: One was a 1950’s era Harley Duo-Glide dresser (with a monstrous V-twin engine, corrugated exhaust headers, and drop-dead-deep-gorgeous paint); the other was a ’64 500cc Triumph twin (white with gold accents, pea-shooter mufflers, Triumph’s “parcel grid” on the gas tank, a matching tach and speedo, and those magnificent, sweeping exhaust headers). Yeah, those bikes defined cool. They were visually arresting things. None of the ebikes currently on the market do that for me. Like my old platoon sergeant used to say, this is something we need to talk about.

Serious cool. Visually arresting. I’m not saying an ebike should look like a Panhead, but a Panhead has a cool factor that no current ebike possesses. We need to address that.  We need to find a way to have an ebike elicit the same kind of irrational, emotional, I-need-this-in-my-life response.

Okay, enough reminiscing. Let’s get to the specs. The way I see it, we need to address weight, size, top end, range, recharging, cost, comfort, and the cool factor. Here we go, boys and girls…

Let’s hit the elephant in the room first, and that’s the range issue. We need more. Nobody has a motorcycle with decent range. The City Slicker, under best case conditions (I’m talking low speeds and summer temperatures) can do about 60 miles, maybe a scosh more, and obtaining the last few miles involves really low speeds and lots of prayer. Zero claims much greater range, but every magazine that’s tested the Zero shoots those claims down with a heartfelt dismissal that goes along the lines of “in your dreams, Zero.” Nope, the range on the current crop of ebikes just isn’t where it needs to be yet. Where is that? Hey, I’m writing the spec. I’d say 250 miles. Put an ebike out there that can go an honest 250 miles at normal speeds, and I’m in. I think that should be doable at a reasonable price (I’ll say more on that in a bit). Yeah, a 250-mile range would make an ebike viable for me.

We want range, and lots of it. If an ebike had a range of 250 miles and a recharge time of 30 minutes, I could ride to Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario, charge the bike while I was enjoying one of the old gal’s lobster burritos, and make it all the way to Guerrero Negro in a day. Where do I sign?

Next up: Recharging. Look, the bottom line is I don’t want to wait 8 hours to recharge a bike. As long as I’m writing the spec and dreaming out loud, I’d like to see a sub-30-minute recharge time. When I stop at a gas station, it’s about 10 minutes to pull up to the pump, put the bike on the sidestand, get off, take off my gloves, unlock the fuel cap, get out my wallet, put the credit card in the gas pump, enter my zip code, pick the octane level I want, take the nozzle out of the pump, peel back the nozzle’s foreskin so the fuel will flow (hey, we live in Kalifornia), put fuel in the tank, and then reverse the process. Add another rider or maybe another ten riders (if I’m on one of my Baja tours and I’m being my usual hardass self about not wasting time), and a fuel stop grows to maybe 30 minutes. I’m used to that, and that’s what I want in an ebike: Quick replenishment. That’s beyond the current state of the art, but don’t tell me we can’t do it.  The solution is obvious: We need to change the state of the art.

On the recharger, I want it built into the bike, with a simple cord that pulls out of the bike to plug in someplace (kind of like you get on a vacuum cleaner). Give me a 15-foot cord and I’m good to go. I don’t want to screw around with an external power converter, because then I’d have to find a place to carry it on the bike.  Build that thing into the motorcycle.  Zero has the right idea on this one.

I think an 85-mph top speed is good. I know, I know…maybe you’re one of those guys:  Ah need at least a 1000cc and Ah need to go at least a hunnert else they’ll run me down on the freeway.  If that’s you, don’t waste any more time here; go back to posting stupid stuff on Facebook and the other forums. Here’s the deal: I’ve been riding for a few years, and the times I’ve needed to go above 85 mph are few and far between. In fact, I’ve never actually “needed” to go over 85.  Adding top end takes a big bite out of an ebike. I’m willing to give up stupid top end to get more range, shorter recharge times, and less weight. So, 85 mph it is. Give me that in an ebike and I’m a happy camper.

I want a reasonable amount of stowage space so I can do Baja without bungee cords. Some folks look like they’re moving when they go on an overnight motorcycle trip.   I’ve ridden with those guys.  They and their bikes are like the opening Beverly Hillbillies scene with Granny on top of the pickup truck (not that’s there’s anything wrong with being a hillbilly, or a Granny, for that matter). The City Slicker has a cool stowage compartment where the fuel tank would be on a gas bike. Something like that would work just fine for me. I don’t need to change my underwear every day on a motorcycle trip.

The ideal motorcycle (not just an ebike, but any motorcycle, in my opinion) should have a seat height no higher than 30 inches, a weight of 400 lbs or less, and physical dimensions that allow for easy u-turns on two-lane roads. None of this 36-inch seat height, 800-lb silliness.  The ergonomics should be straight standard motorcycle, too. No Ricky Racer, stupidly-low-clip-on, first-two-years-of-chiropractor-visits-are-free seating positions.  And while I’m on doctor references, no gynecological-exam, silly-ass cruiser seating positions, either.  If the designers of my ideal ebike could just get a 2006 KLR 650 and duplicate its handlebar/seat/footpeg relationship, that would be fine.  My KLR had the best seating position of any motorcycle I’ve ever owned.

I’d vote for 17-inch rear and 19-inch front wheels because that combo just flat seems to work for damn near everything. I won’t be jumping any logs with my ideal ebike or trying to fly across soft sand, and that eliminates the need for a 21-inch front wheel. And everybody has all kinds of tire combos for the 17/19 setup. To borrow a phrase, why re-invent the wheel?

I want a plug-and-play bike with BITE. Not as in “bite me,” but as in built-in-test-equipment (like the aerospace industry uses). That would completely eliminate the need for a dealer (come to think of it, it would also eliminate the need for a shop manual). No obscene, inflated dealer freight and setup fees. Nope, I want factory direct. And if anything goes wrong with the bike, it shows me which module I need to remove and replace. Plug and play. I don’t feel the need to fund an on-the-job-training program for a dealer-based, wannabe motorcycle mechanic. BITE me, baby.

I think the cost of such a bike should be about $7,500. That feels about right for what a motorcycle should cost.  Yeah, I know, you probably couldn’t build it for that in America.   Maybe India?  Or China?  Or maybe you could make it in America.  Source the subassemblies wherever you need to, keep the UAW and IAM snouts out of the trough, and assemble the bikes here.  Create 30 to 50 US jobs at an assembly plant, preferably in Texas or New Mexico.  This is doable, folks.  Trust me on this.  I used to run manufacturing facilities before I moved up to blogging.  We can do this.

So there you have it. Do all of the above, and folks would beat a digital path to your online direct sales website. Yep, all of the above, at $7,500. That’s the ticket.

Oh, and one last must have: Electric start.  Peter and Nancy (and the rest of the Wild Angels cast), my apologies in advance, but no kickers on my ideal electric bike.  I know they’re cool, but this is the 21st Century.

Want to read more of our ebike stuff?  Hey, just click here!  It’s our new index page with all the good ebike articles we’ve done here on the blog.

More good stuff.  It seems the Chairman of the Southern California Motorcycle Association, my new good buddy Gonzo, is a big fan of the ExhaustNotes.us site.   We had a nice conversation yesterday, and Gonzo told me he particularly liked our story on the Jack Daniel’s visit (so much so they are running it in their newsletter this month) and our first intro piece on the 2005 Three Flags Classic.

One thing led to another…I’ve been invited to the 2019 Three Flags Classic (boy oh boy, I’m really thinking about that one), and I became an SCMA member.  You should be, too, even if you’re not living here in the Southland because SCMA’s events are international in reach.   You can join right here.

And one last thing:   Want to win a free copy of one of our moto adventure books?  You can get in on the drawing if you sign up for automatic email blog updates (the widget is in the upper right corner if you’re on a laptop, and below this article if you read the blog on a phone).  We’ll never share your email with anyone else!

Managing Expectations

Alta, a manufacturer of electric dirt bikes, very recently announced they are closing their doors.   Here’s the article I read on it:  Alta Motors Ceases Operations.  This is interesting on several levels.  Alta previously announced a strategic partnership with Harley-Davidson.  I thought this would figure into Harley’s Livewire project and help both companies enormously, but I guess that isn’t the case.  Last year, Alta lowered their prices substantially.  I thought this would  increase their sales, even though their prices were still high.  Alta had the electric dirt bike niche all to themselves, and this niche seemed to be more suited to an electric motorcycle’s range limitations.   Basically, motocross racing doesn’t require extended range, making Alta’s focus appear to be a well-thought-out strategy.   And finally, Alta had sold a large number of bikes, and they had orders for several hundred more (see the link above).

I guess, in the final analysis, it all comes down to profitability and cash reserves, and if you don’t have enough of either, you can’t keep going.  This makes Alta the second big US e-bike effort to flop (the first being the Brammo).

We are living in interesting times, and that is especially true with respect to the e-bike world.  The e-bike industry is simultaneously emerging and going through a shakeout.

I have been to the mountain. In this case, I did it on Slick. Slick isn’t the last e-bike that will emerge from Chongqing’s inner chambers; he’s only the first of many.

The CSC City Slicker, the newest player in this arena, is already playing a significant role.  The three big things Slick has going for it are its price, its quality (it’s world-class; see our earlier blog posts) and CSC’s well-earned reputation for customer service.  The biggest challenges for CSC and the City Slicker, I think, will be overcoming the US aversion to Chinese products, the ongoing uncertainties in the US/China trade relationship, and redefining customer expectations.

Overcoming US aversion to Chinese products is the least of these issues, and personally, I wouldn’t waste a single second attempting to do so. I think CSC and Zongshen put that issue to bed with the RX3 (it’s a world-class machine, with quality as good as or better than any motorcycle produced anywhere in the world).  To be blunt, anybody still singing songs about Chinese slave labor and low Chinese quality is too stupid and too ignorant to waste time listening to.  They won’t change their minds, so expending any effort attempting to convince them otherwise is an exercise in futility.  Hey, there are still people who think the earth is flat and that we faked the moon landing.  Best to forget about them, thank your lucky stars you aren’t that stupid, and move on.

I think the current uncertainties in the US/China trade relationship will sort themselves out within the next several months.   I think the tariff issue will either go away or have relatively insignificant effects, and I think much of what is going on now is posturing and positioning for a serious set of negotiations between our leaders.  Our trading relationship with China is, to borrow a phrase, too big to fail.

So we’re down to that last issue, redefining expectations, and that will be the biggest challenge for CSC and the electric motorcycle market.  There’s no question that CSC has a pricing advantage that is insurmountable, and I think when CSC announced the City Slicker it set a new reality in the US e-bike industry.  I think Alta realized that and that it might have played a role in their throwing in the towel.   I have to think that the folks at Zero are similarly eyeing the situation and ingesting huge amounts of Pepto-Bismol (and that’s using as charitable a phrase as I can think of).   You might argue that Alta and Zero have (or had) bigger motorcycles with different missions, but that would be as shortsighted and wrong as arguing that all Chinese goods are low quality or the earth is flat.  Yes, Zero motorcycles are bigger and have more capability, but that’s the world as it exists this instant.  The world does not stand still, my friends.   Do you think, even for one second, that the City Slicker is the only sensibly-priced e-bike that will emerge from Chongqing?  Do you think that future e-bikes from China will be small and have the same limitations as do today’s e-bikes?   I have been to the mountain, folks.  The answer is no.

A street scene in Beijing. You might see 50 e-bikes for every gas-powered scooter over there. It’s a tsunami, and it’s coming this way, folks.

But I digress:  Back to this expectations thing.   The City Slicker is not a bike that you can hop on and ride 2000 miles through Baja with a few stops for gas (or topping off the battery).  The range is limited to something like 40 to 60 miles today, depending on how fast you want to go.   The challenge here is to reach customers willing to use their City Slickers like their iPhones…something you plug in and top off whenever you have a chance.  That’s a different market than folks who buy internal combustion bikes.  But it’s potentially a huge market, as I saw firsthand in China where zillions of e-bikes were tethered to extension cords in front of every business on every city street.   More on this expectations thing:  CSC recently announced the price for a replacement Slick battery, and I think it’s about $1100.  Some of the keyboard commandos were choking on that number.  Hey, go price a replacement Zero battery.   You could buy three brand new City Slickers for what a Zero battery costs.   Like I said earlier, the challenge is going to be redefining expectations.  Are we up for it and will CSC market the City Slicker (and the Chinese e-bikes that will inevitably follow) in a manner that emphasizes this new reality?

Time will tell, but I know where I’d put my money.

A Slick post summary…

One of the guys on an ADVRider forum asked for more information on the City Slicker electric motorcycle, so I put together a list of Slick links on the ExhaustNotes blog.  My idea was to include a single place that listed all of the links on the City Slicker covering the testing I’ve done on this bike.

Then I thought…hey, that might be a good thing to post on the blog, too! So, here you go…

An E-bike comparo…Zero and Slick

Climbing Mt. Baldy

Getting my kicks, on Route 66…

Slick Specs

A draining experience…

Slick, two up…

You’ll get a charge out of this…

This is the most comprehensive info available on the new CSC City Slicker anywhere in the world, and there will be more coming!

Zero this, and Zero that…

I had a good look at a Zero motorcycle last week at my good buddy Art’s dealership, Douglas Motorcycles in San Bernardino, California.  There’s more info coming, folks, but check out this cool photo of yours truly on an arm-stretching Zero…

Zero gasoline, zero oil changes, zero oil filter replacements, zero air filter replacements, zero smog checks, zero valve adjustments, zero noise, zero emissions, zero chain lube…you get the idea. This is an appropriately-named bike, unless you’re referring to acceleration! It was scary fast!

My wife took that shot, and I processed it in Photoshop to convert the background to black and white.  I like it.  And I liked the Zero.  It was scary fast.   But that’s a story for a future blog.  Keep an eye on the ExhaustNotes blog, because that story is coming!

Getting my kicks, on Route 66…

Route 66 from Slick’s cockpit…

This is Phase II of our CSC City Slicker range testing.  Phase I examined how the bike performed in the Eco mode. In this phase, today I tested the bike’s range in the Power mode.

Bottom line first: The bike went further then Zongshen said it would. Zongshen claimed the bike would go 37 miles at 37 mph. I managed to go  40.7 miles when starting with a 100%-charged battery.  I attribute that to the fact that part of the course I ran today had a gradual downhill slope.

The next big thing…the newest bike in America on the grandest road in America: The CSC City Slicker on Route 66!

There’s a lot more to this test than what I did in the Eco mode testing. I should start out by telling you that this was not a test run on a perfectly flat, uninterrupted test track (I’m pretty sure if I did that I would have managed to get even a few more miles out of Slick). Nope, this was real world testing on American roads. In fact, I’d say it was real world testing on what is arguably the most famous road in America: Route 66.  (Cue in the theme music from the ‘60s TV show, Route 66).  It was that cool. Call me Todd. Arjiu can be Buzz. All we’d need is the Corvette.  But I digress…back to the main attraction.

Power mode, Amigo! It’s like kicking in the afterburners!

So, I live a little over 16 miles east of CSC at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. My home is at 1700 feet above sea level. CSC, from my home, is headed toward the ocean, and that means a gentle downhill slope all the way. CSC sits about 610 feet above sea level. You might wonder why all the topological details, and here’s the reason: I found during my Eco mode testing that Slick uses less energy going downhill than it does going uphill. The bike covered about a mile for each 1% of battery charge going downhill, and about 0.4 miles for each 1% of battery charge going uphill. One of the things I wanted to find out in today’s Power mode testing is how the bike would perform from an energy consumption perspective in the Power mode, going downhill and then uphill.

I guess I ought to point out that I had a difficult time staying at 37 mph during this test, which is the speed for which Zongshen provided the range statistic.  Every time I wasn’t really paying attention, I found myself going 42 or 43 mph (and those higher speeds use more energy). It was a challenge watching the road, watching the battery charge indicator, watching the mileage, and recording the data on my high-tech data logging system.

The ExhaustNotes.us high-tech data logger…

The bottom line here is I probably penalized the bike a little because I spent more time than I thought I would above 37 mph.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what’s magical about 37 mph, I’m only hanging on that number because that’s the data point Zongshen gave us for range and speed in the Power mode: 37 miles at 37 mph.  And in case you’re wondering why Zongshen picked the number 37, they really weren’t being cute about it.  Zongshen’s real magic number was 60.  37 miles at 37 mph is 60 km at 60 kph.  They’re on the metric system.

To cut the chase, here are the results…

Lots of good info. The top line with the yellow dots was the ride out. The bottom line with the green dots was the ride home.

I know that’s a complicated chart, but hey, I’m an engineer, and there’s a lot going on here. Let me explain it a bit.

I only recorded the data with each 5% decrease in battery charge for this test. I was moving a lot faster than I was in the Eco mode test, and I didn’t want to try to capture data points with every 1% decrease in battery charge.

The top line (the one with the yellow data points) was my ride out to CSC and beyond. It was downhill for the first 16.4 miles (from my home to the CSC plant).  Starting with a 100% battery charge, my ride to the CSC plant took me down to 65% charge remaining.  Stated differently, I used 35% of the battery charge to get from my place to CSC.  I was impressed.  If I was still a working stiff this would be a cool commuter bike.

I wanted to run the battery all the way down until the bike quit, and that meant I kept riding back and forth between Azusa, through Duarte, and into Monrovia.  Those are the yellow data points on the upper line after reaching the CSC plant. I kept doing that until the battery hit 30% charge remaining (at which point the red plug to the left of the charge indicator started flashing, just as it had in the Eco mode test).

The dashboard battery charge indicator. The red plug lights when the bike is being charged by the external charger. It will start flashing when the charge level gets down to 30% while you are riding the motorcycle. It also lights up during regenerative braking.

When I got down to 15%, the bike went into its “limp home” mode again, just as it had in the Eco mode. When this happens, it accelerates much more gradually (that’s a gentle way of saying Slick is getting tired), and the bike tops out at about 20 mph.

I kept going in the CSC parking lot, riding in circles until the bike hit 6% charge remaining. I rode for another 0.4 miles at 6% charge when Slick called it a day. I watched to see if it would indicate 5% just before giving up the ghost, but I didn’t see that on the dash. I think when the bike drops from 6% to 5%, you don’t get to see it indicate 5%, but that’s where it quits.

To my surprise, I blew right through Zongshen’s claimed 37 mile range. I made it to 40.7 miles. And, as I mentioned in the Eco mode test, the odometer is about 5% pessimistic, so the indicated 40.7 miles is actually 42.7 miles. This is good, folks.  Again, though, the fact that I went more than 37 miles is at least partly due to the fact that this leg of the test was slightly downhill.

I mentioned in the specs that the bike has regenerative braking. When that occurs, the red plug to the left of the battery charge bar illuminates. I never actually got it to cause the indicated charge percentage to increase, though. If it was at, say, 67% and it went into a regenerative braking mode, there wasn’t enough regeneration going on to bump it back up to 68%. The bike is obviously consuming less energy and it is charging, but not enough to register on the numerical percentage indicator. You do see the charge bar go up sharply (it swings to the right) while the red charging plug flickers on during deceleration. It’s cool.  You feel like you’re giving something back.

The other thing I could not discern is how the algorithm operates the regeneration function. It seemed to me that the regeneration light came on while I was decelerating as my speeds dropped below about 10 mph and I was braking. I don’t know if that’s because there’s a lag between when the regeneration actually starts and when it is displayed on the dash, or if Zongshen has programmed something into the bike to prevent too much regeneration. I’m emailing them to find out, and I’ll let you know.

My big disappointment today?   There was only one:  When I got to CSC, all the burritos were gone. Saturday is burrito day at CSC. But I’m still young, and I’ve been working on handling disappointment.

Steve had a freshly charged battery waiting for me, and I wanted to do a video of the battery removal. One of the guys following the ExhaustNotes blog asked for that, so here you go…

Guys, when you see the video, be gentle.  I’m not Cecil B. DeMille.  I know that.  You need to know that I know that.  If you want to be a video critic, start a blog or something.

With a new battery in place, it was time for my ride home. I was very curious to see how this would go, because now instead of descending from 1700 feet to 610 feet, I’d be climbing that same 16.4-mile grade.  I’ll post the graph here again so it’s easier to put the words and the music together…

The bottom line with the green dots was the ride home.

The bottom data line (the one with the green data points) shows energy consumption as a function of miles on the uphill ride home. You can see that the bike uses more energy going uphill than it does going downhill (again, duh, but the data shown in the above graph makes it clear).  Some folks are confused by x-y plots (hell, some folks are confused by, well…never mind).   Don’t look at this graph and think that the shorter lower line with the green dots means the bike will only go 16.4 miles.  I still had 50% of the battery charge left at that point.  I was home.  I parked the bike, went inside, and opened a can of Tecate (which I’m nursing as I write this blog).

So, here’s the take-away from today’s testing:

  1.  The bike goes further in the Power mode than Zongshen said it would.  This is good, but temper my results with the course I rode (part of it was slightly downhill).
  2. I used 35% of the battery’s energy going from my home to CSC (a gradual descent) and I used 50% of the battery’s energy going from CSC to my home (a gradual climb).
  3. This motorcycle is a lot of fun and it gets a ton of attention.  Every time somebody stopped alongside me at a light, the questions and compliments started.  I don’t mind admitting I enjoyed that.
  4. I think these guys (that is, CSC) aren’t charging enough for the bike, but hey, what do I know?

And there you have it.  Slick’s on the charger now.  I’m going to the rifle range tomorrow to send some lead downrange.   On Monday or maybe a little later in the week, me and Slick are going to do some climbing up in the San Gabriels to see how the steeper grades affect range.  As always, if you have questions, post them in the Comments section, and I’ll do my best to get answers for you.

Slick specs…

I’ve been helping CSC in the last few days compile specifications for the new City Slicker electric motorcycle, and the bike is looking better and better the more I learn about it.  Here’s what’s going up on the CSC site in the near future…

Any questions?  Post them in the comments section, and I’ll see if I can get answers.

A draining experience…

I wrote a City Slicker press release for CSC Motorcycles last week and it lit up the Internet (you can read it here).  The word is out and a lot of people are asking a lot of good questions.  One is: How far will this thing go on a battery charge?

I had a lot of fun this morning getting the answer to that question. I was able to play engineer again. More on that in a bit.

Zongshen quotes two figures for the City Slicker’s range: One is a claimed 62 miles in the Eco mode at 20 mph, and the other is a claimed 37 miles at 37 mph in the Power mode. In the ebike world, range drops dramatically as speed increases. Go faster, don’t go as far. Go slower, go further. Hence the two figures.

Today was Phase I of my testing, and it focused on the City Slicker’s Eco mode.

Eco vs Power mode is controlled from a right-handlebar switch.

Bottom line first: In the Eco mode, I was able to get 55 miles out of the battery, with the dashboard charge indicator showing 6% charge remaining when the bike shut itself off. I think that’s pretty damn good, even though it didn’t meet the Zongshen claim of 62 miles. I’ll explain why in a bit, but first let me tell you how I ran the test, and before I get to that, let me tell you a bit about charging this puppy.

The City Slicker charger.

The bike comes with a charger. It’s a big dude, it plugs into a standard 110 VAC outlet, and it takes about 6 to 8 hours to fully charge the battery.

You can plug the charger into the bike on the bike’s battery access cover…
Or, you can open the access cover and plug the charger directly into the battery.

I guess at this point I should tell you that 6 to 8 hours is the right number for a full battery charge.  There are folks quoting some clown who said it only took 4 hours to charge the battery (uh, that clown would be me, when I stupidly accepted what someone told me without verifying it myself).   My bike’s been on the charger for a little over 3 1/2 hours since I ran the battery all the way down earlier today, and it’s only up to 63%.  6 to 8 hours is the correct answer to this question, folks.

The City Slicker charger has a couple of LEDs on it. One tells you it’s charging and the other tells you the state of the battery charge. If the battery’s not fully charged, that second LED stays red. When it’s fully charged, it turns green.

The green LED means the bike is fully charged.

When you disconnect the charger when the full charge LED light turns green, the bike will indicate a 100% charge on the dash, and it stays that way for a day or two before it starts to drop (if you don’t use the bike). If you leave the charger connected after the LED turns green, it shuts off but it doesn’t keep the battery at 100% until the charger turns itself on again. I think the thing allows the battery to drop to something below 99% before it starts charging again.

I had planned to start my test with a 100% fully charged battery, but it was at 99% on the dash indicator this morning. It was already getting hot here in So Cal and I didn’t want to wait for the battery to get back up to 100%. I started riding with the battery at 99%. Like we used to say in the bomb business: Close enough for government work.

The dashboard battery charge indicator. The red plug is lit when the bike is being charged by the external charger. It will start flashing when the charge level gets down to 30% while you are riding the motorcycle.

On to the test: I recorded miles traveled at each 1% decrease on the battery charge dash indicator. I wanted to simulate a real world City Slicker scenario, and the course I ran was a 2.8 mile loop around my home. Part of it is slightly downhill, parts of it are steep climbs, and there are 6 stop signs. It’s uphill and downhill, with lots of stop and go in the process. I tried to stick to 20 mph the entire time. It was a good city riding simulation, I think.

My fancy data logging system, scotch-taped to the top of the City Slicker luggage compartment. I dropped my pen twice during my 3-hour ride this morning.

When I finished the run (it took a good 3 hours in 100-degree weather), I then plotted the data.  Here’s what it looks like:

City Slicker range test results.  Slick, huh?

My observations and comments follow.

Power consumption as a function of distance traveled was very repeatable. On the uphill portions of the test course, the bike got about 0.4 miles for each 1% of battery charge; on the downhill portions it got about 0.9 to 1.0 miles for each 1% of battery charge.  This was very consistent; after a few laps I could predict when the bike would drop a percent on the charge indicator by house number.

I tried to hold my speed at 20 mph, consistent with the Zongshen prediction for the City Slicker’s range in the Eco mode (62 miles at 20 mph). I had a tendency to speed, though, and I was above 20 mph more than I wanted to be.

When the battery charge indicator (on the bike’s dash) hit 30%, the charge plug indicator (on the dash) started flashing red. The concept is similar to the low fuel light on an internal combustion engine motorcycle. It’s telling you that it’s time to start thinking about topping off.

The bike felt like it had normal power levels until the battery charge indicator hit 20%. Below that point, the bike felt like it needed more “throttle” to maintain 20 mph.

At 16% battery charge, things changed. Responsiveness diminished perceptibly. It was in a “limp home” mode, and it would not go much above 15 mph.

The bike became more efficient in the limp home mode. It was going a little further with each 1% battery charge decrease than it had before.   Thinking about it now, that’s not surprising, but it surprised me when it occurred.

At 6% indicated charge, the motorcycle had traveled 52.3 miles. It then traveled another 2.7 miles to reach a total of 55.0 miles, where the bike shut down completely. The battery charge indicator was still showing a 6% charge level prior to shutdown. I was thinking maybe I’d get to use that last 6%, but somewhere in that 6% indicated charge level range, it was lights out. Zip. Nada. Nothing left.

My earlier GPS speedometer accuracy testing showed that Slick’s speedometer is about 7% to 10% optimistic (the bike’s speedometer shows the speed to be higher than the GPS showed, which is something I’ve also observed on Zongshen’s internal-combustion-engined motorcycles).

I found the opposite to be true for the odometer. I have a measured mile by my house, and when I covered that distance on the City Slicker, the odometer showed 0.9 miles. I traveled approximately another 250 feet after the end of that measured mile before the odo clicked over to 1.0 miles, so I’m estimating the odometer reading to be about 5% low.

Based on all of the above, I was impressed with the City Slicker’s performance. Zongshen claims a 62 mile range in the Eco mode; I was able to ride 55.0 miles before the battery called it a day.  There were several reasons I was slightly under the Zongshen estimated range:

I started with a 99% charge. If I had been at 100%, I would have picked up another 0.4 to 1.0 miles.

As explained above, the odometer registers less than actual mileage. Applying a 5% correction factor, I actually traveled 57.75 miles.

My course had 6 stop signs every 2.8 miles, and I stopped at every one. Accelerating to 20 mph from a dead stop uses more energy than simply riding a constant 20 mph. I stopped and accelerated from 0 to 20 mph 117 times during this test.  If the stops signs hadn’t been there, I would have gone further.

My course was uphill and downhill. I’m guessing that this adversely affected power consumption. If I was on a perfectly flat course, I would have gone further.

I’m a full-figured 198 lbs. With my motorcycle gear on, I’m probably pushing 210 to 215. I’ve been to the Mount (that’s Zongshen, in Chongqing) and I’ve seen the Zongshen test riders; they weigh maybe 130 lbs soaking wet. Fat guys soak up the go juice more quickly. With a lighter rider, Slick would have a longer range.

On the other hand, I didn’t have the bike’s lights on. When we get our US-configuration Slickers, the LED running lights on either side of the headlight will be on all the time. That will drop the range a bit. How much is TBD, but when I find out, I’ll let you know.

My next test will be in the Power mode. I guess I’ll be a Power Commander. Stay tuned.

I’m having fun and I’m learning a lot more about electric bikes.  You might think riding in circles for three hours would be kind of boring, but I enjoyed it.  Folks who saw the bike knew it was something different, which is what I’m getting a lot of every time I ride the City Slicker.  The silent riding experience is kind of cool, too.  It’s a different kind of riding, and it’s fun.  I like the bike.  A lot.

If you have questions about the City Slicker, please post them in the Comments section here on the ExhaustNotes blog.  I’ll do my best to get answers for you.

Slick, two up…

A mid-summer night’s dream, as the saying goes…

So what’s it like riding the new City Slicker?

For starters, you can’t be shy. The bike is a conversation starter. Even people who aren’t into motorcycles recognize it’s something different. Stop at a light and people crossing the street look, then they look again, and then they realize: It’s silent.

“Is that electric?” is always the next question, followed by my affirmative answer, followed by their response:

“Cool!”

Sue and I took the bike out for a ride around the neighborhood. Surprisingly, even at its welterweight 216 lbs, Slick rides well two up. I think the battery life might be marginally shortened a bit two up (the bike is hauling more weight), but I haven’t done anything quantitative yet to confirm that.

Another surprise from our after-hours ride: The headlight does a good job. In fact, I think it does a better job than my RX3. I switched it on and off, accelerating under both scenarios, to see if I could feel a difference in the bike’s response, and I couldn’t.

I’m finding the riding experience is different. The handling is considerably crisper, a natural result of the City Slicker’s light weight and its crisper 12-inch wheels (I’ll write more about the 12-inch wheels and the resulting crisper handling in a future blog). I found I had to concentrate when stopping. The brakes are great, but there’s no brake pedal for the rear wheel (the rear brake is activated by the left handlebar lever).  At more than a few stops, I found my right foot dabbing into thin air, and I chirped the rear tire twice attempting to pull in the “clutch” when rolling to a stop sign. And I found my left foot similarly dabbing up and down at stop signs, trying to find neutral, and then I would remember: There is no neutral, because there is no gearbox. You simply use the brakes to stop, and the “throttle” to go. Scooter lovers will feel right at home on a City Slicker because the controls are identical.

And then there’s this: I found myself frequently looking at the tripmeter and the battery charge indicator, thinking about how much of the charge we had used, how many miles we covered, and then doing the mental math to project the range. There’s more to follow on that, too, folks.

One more nice touch…our dinner stop even had reserved parking.

Stay tuned.

No valet necessary…