Last month I got a call from the editor of the Bay Area's monthly free motorcycle magazine,
City Bike, Gabe Ets-Hokin, who I had previously met at a BMW rally. He had discovered that I had recently bought a 2012 ZF9 Zero S. Gabe told me that they were planning on writing a feature article in their April issue on electric motorcycles, reviewing both the 2009 Brammo Enertia (sourced from Brammo's SF dealer, Scuderia West) and the 2012 Zero S (sourced from Monroe Motors, a few blocks from Scuderia). I was asked if I would like to join them as they were doing their photo shoot near Golden Gate Park, about 12 miles north of my home. Naturally I said sure, that sounds like fun and headed over there.
The next thing I know, my red Zero and I are being photographed for the cover of the magazine. Then I was asked to write a sidebar to their 4-page article about living with the Zero from an owner's perspective. The magazine just came out and (as their web site hasn't been updated with the new cover yet) I took a photo of the magazine cover which is attached.
Here is what I wrote for my sidebar. I might add that my services as a writer and as a model were just as expensive as the magazine.
Living with a Zero
by Richard Harmon
So what is it like living with a 2012 ZF9 Zero S? Two words, cheap and easy - if you can get past the initial purchase price, of course. The Zero requires very little maintenance. You don't need to change oil or filters, maintain and clean a chain, replace sparkplugs, replace batteries, adjust valves, balance throttle bodies, adjust the clutch, or spend an hour removing bodywork to get to all that stuff. That really cuts down on maintenance costs.
How about running expenses? The other day I rode the Zero from my home in Pacifica to the town of Fairfax to visit my daughter, a round trip of 76.8 miles. I adhered to the speed limit during my ride. About 10 miles of my travel was on the freeway and the rest was on surface streets. Using a Kill A Watt meter to measure the power consumption needed to recharge the battery pack, I used a total of 7.6 kWh of electricity for the trip. PG&E charges me 13.7 cents per kWh, so the round trip only cost $1.04, or about 1.35 cents per mile. If I had ridden my Triumph, which gets 42 mpg, my fuel cost would have been $8.21, based upon the $4.49 a gallon price for gas at my local station that day. A savings of $7.17 on just that one trip. When you add the lack of any substantial reoccurring maintenance costs and the likelihood that the motor and battery pack will outlast the chassis, it shouldn't take too long to recoup the greater purchase price of the Zero if you ride it a lot.
That is the cheap part. But the bike is really easy to use. You just turn on the ignition key and then ride off. You no longer have to play with the choke and/or wait for the motor to warm up. What the Zero lacks in its ability to go long distances, it makes up with its ability to do all of those daily short trips (within a 40-mile radius) quickly and easily. And of course, commuting to work is where it excels. Plus, since the bike has no transmission or clutch, getting stuck in a traffic jam is a breeze. You can do the beep and creep very easily by just turning the throttle slightly to move at a walking pace, or you can ride between stopped cars as the bike is very narrow. No smoking clutch, overheating engine, or cramping left hand. And if the bike gets dirty it is very easy to clean since it has no exhaust system or chrome to polish.
You might ask if the lack of noise is a safety issue. So far it has not been for me. No one has moved into my lane any more than usual and my only real concern is when riding around pedestrians or bicyclists. I tend to be very careful riding in an urban environment since the bike is so quiet.
Finally, there is the issue of reliability of a new product and customer service from a small start-up manufacturer. I had a minor issue with my bike twice stalling at stoplights. The staff at Zero heard about my complaint on the internet and called me to say that they would pick my bike up at my home, take it to the factory in Scotts Valley and return it to me with their latest programming and a new throttle assembly. They did as they promised and the bike has been running great ever since.
While an electric motorcycle may not be for everyone, it works for me.
The feature article itself is reasonably positive They pointed out that the 2009 Brammo Enertia and the 2012 Zero were not being compared against each other, but that is the way it came out. In a nutshell, the Brammo has the better chassis accessories, such as brakes, suspension and build quality, while the Zero has much better performance and range due to its three-year technology gap. Mention was made about the Zero's "no-name" suspension and brakes - which is not exactly true, as the suspension is made by Fast Ace and the brakes are made by Hayes, and that many of the components are sourced from Taiwan, in order to reduce costs. There were also comments about the inability of electric motorcycles to perform wheelies - which is something that I personally have no interest in doing. The article may not result in a stampede to purchase electric motorcycles, but it gets the idea across that they have arrived and are here to stay.
