Last week I took a 140-mile ride (without needing to recharge) from my home in Pacifica, down to Cupertino, and up into the Santa Cruz Mountains, on my power tank-equipped Zero, stopping at Big Basin State Park and then riding down to Highway 1, just north of Santa Cruz and back to my home in Pacifica. This ride included lots of climbing up and down hills and riding against a stiff headwind along the Pacific coast. Fortunately, the ride was very scenic and I was able to keep my speeds down to an average of about 45 mph. I did note however that using lots of closed throttle regeneration while going downhill seem to be little help in recharging the battery pack, at least according to the instrument display.
Talk about range anxiety! I had to slow down to 40 mph for the last 30 miles as I watched the very accurate power gauge drop one percent at a time, falling to "0%" just as the bike died just 100 yards from my home.
The last 200 yards of my trip were uphill and taken in 20-foot segments, as the battery would die, then recover, then die again. But I made it home without needing to push. Upon returning my pack voltage was 94 volts and balancing showed 160 mV for four of the modules and 48 mV for one module (likely the newer "power tank" battery).
The following day I checked my bike, which required 15 hours to fully recharge (the manufacturer claims 10 hours). It took 13.75 kWh of power, as measured by a Kill-A-Watt meter at my 122 V wall outlet, and the battery pack now has 13.22 kWh of capacity as shown on the Zero cell phone app. Voltage is now 115 Volts and the five battery modules are balanced within 2 mV of each other (between 1 mV and 3 mV). So it looks like running the battery pack down to empty and beyond didn't result in any battery issues.
I might add that half way up Highway One I stopped at a convenience store and gas station that was well equipped with exterior wall outlets and asked the clerk if I could charge my bike for 30 minutes while I ate lunch at the nearby restaurant. I told him that charging would only use about 20 cents worth of power and offered to buy something in the store while my bike was charging. He thought about it for a while and then said it would cost me $5 to use their power to charge my bike. So I told him no thanks, keep your power, and I rode off toward home. Apparently, gas station attendants are not feeling the love toward electric vehicles right now.
Photo attached proving that I made it to Big Basin State Park.
