Once the battery have been drained below the safety cutoff point, the charger will
not charge the bike again. A special charging procedure must then be used on
each battery cell group of 4 which means taking the bike apart. DO NOT IGNORE
THE WARNING SIGNS. WHEN THE BIKE CANNOT RUN IN 3
RD
GEAR AT SPEED
AND SHIFTS TO 2
ND
, FIND A CHARGING POINT.
POWER LEVEL GUAGE
On the right side of your instrument panel is a power level gauge to give you some idea
of the amount of battery capacity left in the battery.
On your car, the amount of fuel left in the tank is not a direct mileage obtainable
indication due to the fact that different driving conditions consumes the fuel left and
radically different rates.
Equally, on your car, you cannot trust the computer that tells you how many miles you
can go on the gasoline left in the car. The reason is that it has an averaging factor in it.
If you drove 10 miles in stop and go traffic before you pulled onto the Interstate and
looked at your range, the calculation would be radically less than the car can really go
as the computer has only seen very bad fuel consumption. Conversely, range
calculated at steady highway speeds will be wrong if entering a city. Far greater
distortions occur if the vehicle has been coming down a long grade. The computer will
see you are using virtually no fuel and will calculate you can “drive around the world” on
the gas left.
In the same manner, the battery capacity gauge will read very optimistically if read when
sitting still or driving at a steady less than maximum speed. It is the equivalent of
drifting down hill. To read the gauge, roll the throttle on to the maximum briefly (2-3
seconds) and look at the needle position. At this point, while under acceleration, the
gauge will be more correct.
VARIABLE POWER MODEL CONTROL
Those models of ZEV which have the three power settings button can be operated to
maximize range and extend it about 25% compared to letting the bike in one power
setting. The button on your right hand grip gives the bike 100% power, 80% power, and
45% power. This is done by limiting the amperage to the motor.
If you are either on flat land or not driving at maximum speed there is no reason to have
the bike consuming high power. Use the button and shift the bike to the lowest power
consumption that will still maintain the speed that you need. You can feel the power
difference on hard acceleration to get a feel for what gear you are in. The bike will slow
its acceleration as you shift down in power.
