An Electric Motorcycle That Charges in an Hour Would Not Suck

Did Zero Motorcycles just open Pandora's battery box?

October 19, 2017 9:00 am

When a vehicle maker announces a new lineup, conventional wisdom says that means a new make.

Not so with the latest announcement from Zero Motorcycles. But it was an exciting one nonetheless. Because the California motorcycle maker’s 2018 lineup will contain something that’s potentially even more exciting in the world of electric vehicles: new batteries.

Zero’s new collection of batteries provide at least 10% more range. When paired with the range-extending Power Tank, the largest ZF14.4 battery offers 223 miles of e-biking.

To give their bikes and batteries even more power, Zero developed a new high-speed on-board charger called the Charge Tank that offers up to six times faster charging and, when combined with the standard charger, can reduce the full recharge time for models with a ZF7.2 battery to one hour and those with a ZF14.4 to just two.

Zero (3 images)

The combination of the batteries with the tanks also offer improvements in power and torque and, since its 2017, Zero even revealed an app that can update the firmware in their e-bikes.

“Zero continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the electric motorcycle space,” said Zero Motorcycles’ VP of marketing Todd Andersen. “Riders who’ve been waiting for more range and faster charging don’t have to wait any longer to go electric.”

Not a bad day at the old office for a company that didn’t even bother to design a new bike.

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