The Yellow Key

My Zero SR/S came with three keys, two black and one yellow. If you're someone who reads the manual in advance, you'll have spotted on page 83 (section 4.7) that there's a warning about the yellow key: "DO NOT attempt to use this key to start your motorcycle". The reason for this is that the yellow key is used to pair the black keys with the motorbike. It is also used to clear that pairing, so if you haven't read the manual and try and turn on the bike using the yellow key, you'll find yourself stranded as you'll have unpaired the black keys, and the yellow key can't be used to ride the bike. This is the sort of information you should be told by your dealer when you collect your new bike.

The key and ignition barrel are made by Zadi, and are used on a number of different makes and models of bikes, including Energica. The process of pairing keys with the bike isn't described in the Zero owner's manual, but isn't that complicated. Essentially, if you insert the yellow key and turn the bike on and wait for it to boot up, you'll clear the current key pairings. Turn the bike off, remove the yellow key and insert a black key. Turn the bike on and off using the black key, and you'll have registered that key with the bike. There'll be a message on the dash to confirm this. Once you've paired all the black keys you have, insert the yellow key again and turn the bike on and off to complete the pairing process. Your black keys will now be paired and you can use them to ride the bike.

Headlight alignment

I finally got around to dealing with the misalignment of the headlights on the SR/S today. I went across town to see Jason at Road and Race and we put the bike in front of the alignment tool. The SR/S has twin headlights, so Jason adjusted the height of the alignment tool to the offside bulb, while I was sat on the bike. The beam was above the 0% line, so he broke out a flat blade screwdriver and adjusted the headlights to below the 0.5% line. (It is pretty fiddly to get to the adjuster, marked by the green arrow below, but doable with a stubby screwdriver.) The SR/S has twin bulbs, but the headlight unit adjusts as a single item, so that's job done. I'm not sure how this managed to escape the PDI at EEMC, but maybe their technician is significantly heavier than I am, hence the high alignment.

In the UK vehicles don't need to undertake a formal road worthiness test (the "MoT test") until they are 3 years old. However an MoT test pass doesn't automatically mean that the vehicle is roadworthy, and roadworthiness is what is important (Highway Code rule 97). Blinding other vehicle drivers with a misaligned headlights is an easy spot for the police, so worth sorting out. Section 4.1.2 of the MoT Inspection Manual for Motorbikes lays out the testing process and pass/fail criteria. Essentially if the headlights are lower than 85cm from the ground, the alignment should be between 0.5% and 2.0% below the horizontal, with the rider on the bike.

Osprey

I stopped in at The Crown in Brownhills, on the A5, to use the Osprey charger in the car park. The charger is easy to find, and the simplicity of contactless payment is a joy compared to app/RFID card systems. I've yet to encounter an Osprey charger out of order, or delivering less than advertised power, so paying £0.40 per kWh for a splash and dash to get home is well worth it.

But... this charger has been installed at 90 degrees to the parking spots, and if you're not paying attention you'd think it was a DC-only charger. The AC socket (no tethered connector) is on the back side of the charger, requiring a bit of fighting with the hedge to get a cable inserted. The little 'AC' marking on the top of the charger is easy to miss as well.

Fully Charged Outside

I attended the Fully Charged Outside event at the Farnborough International exhibition centre this weekend. I was there for work, but probably the most eye catching stand was Verge with the TS, their hubless, rim motor, electric motorbike. Available for pre-order for €25,000, some of this bike's specs are similar to my Zero SR/S, with a peak power output of 80kW and a top speed over 110mph. But the figure that really stands out (so much so I'm slightly cynical) is the claimed torque of 1000Nm, which is over 5 times more than the 190Nm of the SR/S. Strangely Verge are only claiming a 0-60mph sprint in 4 seconds, which seems at odds with the outrageous torque on tap. Still, if you want to get noticed at your local biker cafe on a Sunday, look no further.

I also took the opportunity to drop by the EEMC stand and meet Alec and Oli for the first time. They were there with a range of Zero motorbikes, and a couple of Energica motorbikes. Unfortunately the Energica bikes were already sold to customers, so no opportunity to sit on an Eva Ribelle and try out the ergonomics.

The economics of electric

What I hear time and again is that electric cars and bikes are too expensive. And they are, to buy. But not to run. So I've been wondering where the crossover point is when an electric bike is cheaper to own than a petrol bike. Here's my working out:

First we need to pick a petrol bike and an electric bike to do the comparison between. We'll use the Zero SR/S and a petrol sports tourer in the 750cc to 1000cc range. The candidates could be something like the Honda VFR800 VTEC, the Ducati SuperSports 950, or the Kawasaki Ninja 1000SX. All these bikes are faired, make around 80kW peak power, and are good for 0-60mph in around 3 seconds, which is similar to the SR/S. The Honda is the cheapest, starting at £10'000, then the Kawasaki at £11'500, and the Ducati at £12,400. Compared with the SR/S which starts at £18'000, which is about £6'500 more than the average of these petrol bikes.

So, essentially the question is: how long does it take the lower running costs of the SR/S to pay off the £6'500 premium of buying it. The savings of running the SR/S come from the following areas: vehicle excise duty (road tax), scheduled servicing, routine maintenance, and fuel costs. If you commute into a low emissions zone, there might be a saving in going electric, but I'm ignoring that for now.

Road tax for the SR/S is free, whereas the petrol bikes are all over 600cc so are paying the maximum £96 per year. 

Scheduled servicing is in the region of £250 per year for the petrol bikes, varying on whether it is the big or small service. Any work by Ducati is expensive, and adjusting the Honda's VTEC system is just labour intensive, so £250 seems like a reasonable average. The SR/S literally has nothing to service with the exception of the brake fluid, which for some reason the manual states should be changed annually. So lets put £50 of scheduled servicing against the SR/S.

When it comes to routine maintenance I include replacing consumables, such as brake pads, in this part of the equation. The SR/S has almost the same consumables as a petrol bike, essentially tyres and brake pads, so those costs cancel each other out. (I'm not going to argue that electric bikes consume brake pads slower than petrol bikes due to regen, but they do.) The one consumable the petrol bikes do have to maintain and replace periodically is the chain, whereas the SR/S has a low maintenance belt. A good chain and sprocket kit is about £100 to buy and £50 to fit, but isn't replaced annually so lets put £50 per year for that and chain lube.

So far the petrol bikes are costing about £400 a year to keep on the road, against £50 for the SR/S. On just that basis the SR/S is going to take 18 years to be the cheaper option. So let's consider the fuel costs.

The petrol bikes above go between 40mpg and 45mpg, with a litre of petrol currently costing about £1.35 in the UK. That means they're costing about £0.15 per mile to ride. If they're ridden for 4000 miles each year, that's a cost of £600. In comparison the SR/S goes about 8 miles per kWh, with a kWh of electricity costing as little as £0.05 at home. That equates to a cost of 0.6p per mile, or £25 per year for 4000 miles of riding.

That moves the crossover point in favour of the SR/S to 7 years, which is still a pretty long time, and potentially longer than some riders keep their bike for. If you're using your bike for commuting 20 miles each way to work, then you're doing 8000 miles per year, and the crossover point is now 4 years. That's about the average mileage for routine vehicle use prior to the 2020 pandemic, so isn't an unreasonable amount of use for a commuter bike.

Of course, if you bought a Kawasaki Ninja H2 SX instead of the Ninja 1000SX, then the cost of the bike is roughly the same as the SR/S, and on the electric bike you'd be saving money from the first mile that you ride it. You might argue that the H2 SX isn't the same type of bike as the SR/S, as it produces about twice the power of the SR/S. But you would counter that argument with the fact that the SR/S has over 30% more torque across the whole rev range, than the H2 SX has at peak torque. Either way both bikes are around 3 seconds to 60mph, so we can save the power versus torque argument for the pub.

If you're in the position to spend the best part of £20'000 on a motorbike then the economics might not matter too much to you. But I think it is fair to say that the blanket statement that electric bikes are too expensive isn't true, especially if you rack up the miles. But you do have to consider all of the costs of owning a motorbike, not just the cost of buying it, if you're going to have a debate around economics.

However buying a motorbike is usually an emotional choice, not an economic one. For some folks the vibration, noise, manual operation, and history of the marque are all that matters. For others silence, local air quality, adopting new technology, and decarbonisation of transportation (especially travel for leisure) matter more. It'll be a while until the former go electric, and join the latter.