I bought the bike 15 months ago. It's been offline for 2 months to send it back to Zero for glitch service, and 1 month after I laid it down @ 20 mph (replace plastics and kickstand). I figured 10k miles every year, so about on target.
There's very little mechanical wear on the bike. The drive belt is like-new - Zero says replace every 12.5k miles, but they updated their replacement intervals to 25k miles on the 2013 bikes. I installed the $100 windscreen - huge improvement - but at full steering lock the handlebar mounts scuff the upper plastics a bit.
In a couple of weeks I plan to drive to El Paso, TX to visit friends. En route I'm going to stop at Lone Star in Austin and check out the Empulse there. I'm going to leave my credit card in the car, possibly in a double lock box and forget the combination..
Selling the Zero and upgrading to a 2013 Zero S ZF11.4 or Empulse E1 would likely cost around $7k, including the tax credit. I can't justify that right now, but I'll be tracking used prices for both bikes. Otherwise I may be ready to buy new in a couple of years.
A less expensive but more labor-intensive alternative to buying a new bike would be to do half the upgrades Terry has done. Retain the stock battery pack on the bike, but add 6 kW of J1772 chargers and Terry's aero fairing. Probable cost around $3k, and it would make 200 mile trips to Atlanta reasonable to do on the bike: each way would require 4 hours of riding and 2 hours of mid-trip charging.
@Shinysideup: the windshield is great. I installed it toward the end of the cold season here and immediately wished I'd had it on at the start. It also slightly improves - perhaps by 5% - both range and top speed.
