Almost One in Chicago

[Brammofan]

Back when Craig and Brian were building Ariel Atom cars, they were among the first folks to let you log in and watch real-time streaming video of your car being built. Kind of wish they would do that now.

[skadamo]

Man, bummer. Nice day today.

I have a 3 rail shore lander motorcycle trailer if you want to borrow it. 20 is pretty cold...

[00049 (AKA SopFu)]

The dealer has mentioned delivery before, and since travel and I are so close to each other, we may be able to talk them into making a trip down. On the bright side, I wouldn't have been able to ride it again for a while because of the weather, so i'm not missing out on much.

[00049 (AKA SopFu)]

Took delivery today, and my Ducati sold! A very good day for me. Unfortunately it snowed 5" here last night and the roads are still a mix of slush and ice, so other than 6" inches in my garage, I haven't ridden it (or any Empulse, for that matter) yet. I'm out for a funeral for the next five days, but when I get back going for a ride will be the first thing I do!

Also, a big thanks to Suburban Motors for delivering the bike down. If they wouldn't have done that, it would have easily been a few more weeks before I could have made the trip to pick it up.

[Gavin]

Congrats!!!

Great service having them deliver...nice

Gavin

[travel4nutin]

Yes Congrats Sopfu!  They delivered mine today too.  I got to see yours on the Sprinter.  Red seems to be a popular color.  I chose that too.  Next step, get it registered and wait for better weather.

I noticed you have yours inside, are you concerned with cold weather storage?  The dealer charged mine fully and I'm going to have to drive it down to 70% but the owner's manual doesn't directly mention optimal storage temps.   

[00049 (AKA SopFu)]

I'm storying inside because I don't have room in the garage.

Cold storage is actually better for the batteries, as long as they don't go dead. Colder temps = slower chemical reactions = longer shelf life. I'm actually suspecting EVs sold in colder climates to age better. In my experience, battery manufacturers that use air conditioning in the facilities consistently get better capacity and reliability out of their batteries, too. And that hallway doesn't get warmer than about 55F in the winter

[BrammoBrian]

Congrats to both of you on receiving your bikes and as I've said to others - thank you for your patience!  I'm anxious to hear how the Empulse R does in and around the windy city.  Please post some photos of you with your bike so that we can put a face to an avatar! 

Pretty cool that SopFu has sold a Ducati 1098 to make room for the Empulse R.  Makes me feel better about putting my BMW S1000RR up for sale...
http://medford.craigslist.org/mcy/3606403124.html
I've still got a bit of a wait before my bike comes up in the queue, unfortunately.   

[00049 (AKA SopFu)]

I did about 60 miles today with temps in the mid 30s. Most of that was running around trying to get all the pieces to install my heated gear. I followed Ain's install instructions, but used a CTek female plug instead of a Powerlet. Since my ICE already has a CTek leads on it I'll be able to swap the heated gear between bikes.

I did charge it for about an hour at home with the level 1, and for about 30 minutes on a public level 2, and ended the day with about 40% left. The entire day I was getting "Power Cutback, Battery Cold" warnings, except for after one short blast at 60mph. I was a little surprised at that since I was thrashing her from stoplight to stoplight, but did my best to keep the motor between 3k and 3.5k. I hit neutral about a dozen times throughout the day, I hope that gets better once the transmission is more broken in more. I noticed the clunk, but it didn't bother me at all.

I'll be riding it to my indoor go karting league tomorrow, which is about 35 miles away -  20 of that is interstate. There's a Level II near by, but I'm hoping the race track will let me charge there. Most of the guys are amateur racers, and they've been ribbing me over my wait more than anyone else. I can't wait to show them the bike is real!

[frodus]

Awesome! I got the power cutback, it goes away once you ride it a bit and the battery heaters warm the batteries a bit.

[BrammoBrian]

Glad you're out enjoying the bike, even in the cold weather.  Regarding the battery cutback message - this will be aided by a software update that removes the message when there's no actual cutback occurring AND sets a higher target temperature for the internal heaters.  The release just got issued to production, so service should get their hands on it next week.  I'll get with Adam and put together a list of bug fixes and improvements that this release will address and post it to the forum.

[travel4nutin]

SopFu, let us know how that ride goes tomorrow.  My commute happens to be just under 35 miles.  I was only going to consider getting cold weather gear at the end of the upcoming season.  However, with gas prices on the rise I might be able to justify an early purchase if your experience is good. 

[00049 (AKA SopFu)]

Awesome! I got the power cutback, it goes away once you ride it a bit and the battery heaters warm the batteries a bit.

That's what surprised me - even riding for 20 minutes strait, the message never went off. Only when I was moving 11+KW for several minutes did the message go away, only to reappear once I was back on surface streets. I still don't know what full power feels like, but it definitely felt fast enough even with the cutback message displayed.

Brian - how will the software update be delivered? Is this something I'll be able to install myself? My dealer is still 120 miles away, and making a trip there for a non-essential update probably isn't going to happen.

Travel- I'll let you know how it goes. The windchill isn't bad enough of surface streets to need heat, so if you're not on interstates I would just get some heavily insulated stuff. The temp will probably be in the teens when I'm riding back from the karting, so I'll be able to test the gear out then.

[BrammoBrian]

That's what surprised me - even riding for 20 minutes strait, the message never went off. Only when I was moving 11+KW for several minutes did the message go away, only to reappear once I was back on surface streets. I still don't know what full power feels like, but it definitely felt fast enough even with the cutback message displayed.

Brian - how will the software update be delivered? Is this something I'll be able to install myself? My dealer is still 120 miles away, and making a trip there for a non-essential update probably isn't going to happen.

Again - most of this is likely just the message being displayed when the batteries are cool, but no cutback is occuring.  This is also the unfortunate side-effect of a very good thermal path from the cells to the aluminum battery enclosure - it works both ways.  The cell heat can be dissipated very effectively when they get hot, BUT - they are also more easily influenced by ambient air temperature when it's cold.  Because the pack is so large, you do need freeway speeds and around 10kW discharge (1C - not very aggressive) or repeated accelerations to warm the cells.  The new software will make better use of the internal heaters, so it will not require riding as hard or as long. 

Understood on the difficulties getting the software update for you and others that are far away from the dealer.  It won't be perfect, but we'll work with you to get something figured out.  Please be patient as our little company deals with these kinds of "gotchas".  We want nothing more than to make your ownership as enjoyable as possible. 

[00049 (AKA SopFu)]

Thanks, Brian. Even with the message displayed the bike felt plenty fast. My only other complaint so far is the 3500RPM limit for the first 150 miles. Why limit the fun right away?

But I should be hitting that mile marker tomorrow. Just in time to be going on travel again for work, and be without the bike for full week