2015 Empulse Whishes

[RolfC]

I'm new to this forum and don't own an Empulse yet. But that has several reasons. One of them is that I first have to save up enough money to buy one. But there are also some other reasons why I'm waiting for an update on the Empulse.

1) I would like to see a bigger range. Preferably double the current range. I use my bike for fun-riding and don't like the idea that I can ride for 1 hour and have to charge for 3,5 hours before I can continue riding. The are a couple of options to get a better range for the next generation of Empulse. The first is of course better battery's. But that gives us also longer charging times. But I will get back to charging further on. An other option will be a more efficient motor. I hope that the people of Brammo are working hard on this. Because a better motor will probably not increase the weight of the bike by much and give us the desired range.

2) I mentioned it before, I would like to see faster charging. The current bike take 3,5 hours to charge. This is no problem when you reached your destination and don't want to ride it again till the next day. But when you want to make a trip with friends you would probably want to ride it further than 75 miles on one day.  If you can charge it during lunch or coffee break it would be nice if it would charge in about an hour. Now it will take roughly 2 hours to charge up till 80%. Here are also a couple of options. First there is the option for a better onboard charger. The current one is 3kW. So 6kW would logically do the trick. But that would make the bike heavy and the charger unnecessary big. I've read that some of you want two chargers onboard. That can be an option. But only if the people at Brammo find a way to house them both without needing to use bigger (read noisier) cooling fans. A third option is to support DC charging. Then the charger will be bypassed and we don't have to install a heavier onboard charger. But then ther is the question which protocol will Brammo choose. Will it be the J1772 combo plug or CHAdeMo (which is supported by most Japanese company's). And then what protocal will be used in Europe.

I hope Brammo give us some solutions for the 2015 Empulse

[protomech]

Hi Rolf,

You're certainly not alone in wanting more range and charging speed. I think charging speed is the larger problem of the two.

Imagine for a moment that you could give the bike a 100% charge in 10 minutes at common outlets.

In this case the range would be almost a non-issue. Especially at lower speeds, the Brammo and the Zero bikes have roughly as much as some smaller-tank gas bikes, and the larger battery Brutus V9 (280 miles city / 210 miles highway) has more single-tank range than most gas bikes on the market.

The 2013-2014 Empulse 3 kW charger is a good first step towards faster charging; it improves long-distance touring from virtually impossible (Zero / Enertia) to merely very difficult - see Shinysideup's well-documented 1000 mile trip on the Empulse. Brammo could add a second Powercharger 3000 to the bike, giving it a 6 kW charge rate and allowing it to charge from 20% to 80% in 1 hour - roughly 50 miles of mixed riding in an hour of charging. This is still not "great" but it would allow an adventurous rider to complete a 200 or 300 mile trip in a single day. Still nowhere near the convenience of liquid fueling, and the 32 amp limitation on most public J1772 EVSE makes a further doubling less useful.

For faster charging we need both a well-distributed, single-standard DC charging network and batteries that can accept high charge rates. The Mission R is a preview of the latter; 110 miles of mixed range riding can be charged in 30 minutes, approximately 8x the rate of the current Empulse. Further, it should be possible to double this effective charge rate as future batteries accept power more quickly. This turns charge time into a non-issue for pleasure riding, and makes touring 500 to 600 miles in a day possible.

I don't think we will see this in 2015 from Brammo. Probably closer to 2017, along with the Empulse RS.