Vectrix Owners - New & Prospective

funontwowheels,
What part of Scotland?
We'll be in Seattle, WA this weekend and plan to stop by The Green Car Company.

All I have to offer is to say that I'm sure there are many of us here who are eager to hear more about the scooter. The mag looks tempting.

I thought Portland had a new dealer but now I notice that it's not on dealership site. http://eco-motion.com/ I'm still waiting to get some free time to pay them a visit anyway.

borgbike,
This is slightly off topic, but what ever happen to Lloyd Crossing, the 35-block section of Portland, Oregon, may be the first urban neighborhood in the country to get off the city grid and be self-sustaining in many ways.?

borgbike,
This is slightly off topic, but what ever happen to Lloyd Crossing, the 35-block section of Portland, Oregon, may be the first urban neighborhood in the country to get off the city grid and be self-sustaining in many ways.?

I'm not aware of anything, either in the news or on the ground. We don't live too far from the proposed area.

Inspite of how great Portland is, even here we seem to be missing the requisite critical mass of interest in these sort of things. I try to bike to work each day. It's about 6 miles each way. Portland is an amazing biking town. Perhaps one of the best in the ratio of bike to cars. Still bicycles are a drop in the bucket compared to cars.

I don't know what it is, but most of us (politicians and citizens) seem to be failing to take action on a scale that will really make a difference. I guess we need baby steps. Then again maybe oil prices and global warming will kick us in the backside. Hope it's not too late.

I have read the article earlier, so for now I'm doing a wait and see.

Oliver,
Will you all be in Frisco the 3rd weekend of November?

Looking at the videos on youtube it seems quite impressive.. I was tempted to buy one at one stage... but then I decided it would be much more fun to tinker and build my own evs.

what I would like to know however is the battery capacity of this unit..

Nominal capacity is 125V, 30 Ah.

Hi George,
I registered the first Vectrix Maxi in Queensland, Australia yesterday.
So far, so good!
There were a few minor problems so far, and the experience gained might help other Vectrix riders.
So here is the start of a hopefully short list of problems:

1)The "throttle" was sticky, it did not return to the neutral position after being turned backwards to accelerate. This was easily fixed by unscrewing the metal knob at the end of the throttle and then loosening the calibration screw anti-clockwise by 360 degrees.
After that the throttle needs to be calibrated like this:
A) turn Vectrix on.
B) turn kill switch on right handlebar to off.
C) pull left brake lever - speedo will show 43kmh if calibration is correct; pulling the right brake lever whilst the L brake lever is already pulled will make the speedo show the correct calibration of 43kmh irrespective of the actual calibration.
D) adjust calibration by turning the calibration screw in or out in small increments until speedo shows 43; it will then continue to show 43 when the right brake lever is also pressed.
E) replace the silver knob.
This should usually be done by a Vectrix service agent, if you have one handy....

2) The range indicator is initially unreliable - buyers are usually advised off this. I got the Vectrix with 83km on the clock; with a full charge it went about 38km.
The last 5km of these were at reduced speed/power, but it still went up my fairly steep driveway OK. The range indicator still claimed 20km range and the battery meter showed 4 bars left. After an hour or so (without recharging) I decided to drive around the neighborhood to drain the battery a bit more, so it would have one of the 5 deep discharge/recharge cycles needed to develop the full battery capacity.
After about 1km the battery indicator suddenly dropped to zero and the range indicator showed 0km.
I did make it home very slowly, initially 40kmh, walking speed at the end. I had to push a fair bit and stop a few times to make it up the driveway at the end.
The lesson: If you want to use the last bit in the battery, go uphill if you can...

More later about the charging process.

Mik

Hi Mik,

Where in Qld are you?

Ben

Mik,

I'd be very skeptical of pushing the bike to those limits - it will likely severely shorten the life of your battery pack. See lots of other posts on this forum about this subject...

Hi Ben,
on the Gold Coast.
Mik

Hi John,
I'm not intending to continue discharging the battery deeply.
It does apparently need 5 deep discharge cycles to develop it's full capacity initially; after that one should just plug it in to charge whenever possible.
Now that my Vectrix has had it's five initial deep cycles the battery meter is much more accurate - it does not suddenly drop to zero any more, and full power seems to be available for longer.
Thanks for the warning though, I totally agree that total discharge cycles should be avoided in the long run.
Mik

Hi to all of the 123 current Vectrix owners worldwide!

I live in Klagenfurt, Austria (Europe). In August 2007 I have been the first to import and register in Austria. I ferried the bike myself from Bologna, Italy, some 400 km from my home.
Meanwhile (Jan 2008) I have driven approx 2900 km, mostly my daily commutes to work (20 km round trip). I'm very satisfied with the Vectrix, having driven it in all weather, even at sub zero temperatures.
Thankfully the only "problem" I had so far was a sudden drop to zero in indicated range, 5 km into a trip from full battery. Believing something serious to be amiss with the batteries I took the bike to the Italian dealership (no small feat) who upgraded charger firmware. Since that time I haven't had any trouble whatsoever.
I'm very happy about the ease of operation: No switching gears, no clutch, no hunting for neutral as on a conventional motorcycle, no hassle with abrupt accel/decl in turns. Also for that matter no trouble with chain tensioning or greasing, no wear on the brake pads as I never use them except in emergency. Acceleration is very smooth and matches all but sports cars'.
I can confirm that approx 5 kWh are consumed for charging from completely empty to full. My max range is like 65 km, when driving up to 80 km/h, as well as up and down some modest hills. For my needs and for what I expected that's quite ok, I mostly drive around town or thereabouts.
I just hope that Vectrix won't go bust or else that my bike will hold up as well as it did up 'till now.
I wish Vectrix could upgrade software to include cruise control, as well as anti-lock decel in regen mode (both should be fairly easy to implement without any add'l hardware).

Wolfgang

I can confirm that approx 5 kWh are consumed for charging from completely empty to full. My max range is like 65 km, when driving up to 80 km/h, as well as up and down some modest hills. For my needs and for what I expected that's quite ok, I mostly drive around town or thereabouts.
I just hope that Vectrix won't go bust or else that my bike will hold up as well as it did up 'till now.

Hi Wolfgang,

good to hear you are having a good experience with your Vectrix.

You are getting a much better range than I do - what is your weight and height?

I am still trying to figure out how much my 187cm/88kg + 23kg luggage have to do with the range I achieved (before my Vectrix died). My range was only about 55km maximum when driving extremely gently in speeds of up to 70km, maybe a few very short 80km/h bits in it, but mostly 60km/h or below.
And when going full bore at each traffic light and traveling at 70-80km/h for most of the time the range was about 40km.

It appears though that there might be Vectrix' with much better range than others out there:
The Tasmanian Vectrix owner who regularly achieved much better mileage than myself had his Vectrix replaced due to a charger problem, and the new one does not have the same range as the old one. Much closer to the real world specs of my Vectrix.
His new Vectrix also recently stopped running suddenly whilst driving gently, after about 1300km total; just like mine at about 1250km. All systems down...
But he had never ridden it in rain - severe drought in Tassi lately, and here on the Australian Gold Coast my Vectrix got drenched regularly. So there goes my theory that it was moisture related.
We both got some verbal comments from the salesman in Australia. He seems to believes we are driving the Vectrix too hard, and that the ones which are used for less demanding town commuting run largely trouble free, like yours.

We don't agree with that.

Well, the dealer is offering to replace my Vectrix with a new one, but due to the 2000km from Melbourne to where I live this is no easy feat, and he is busy promoting sales at two big events (Scandia sailing week and the A1Grand Prix) at the moment. Understandably, given the 123 Vectrix sold world-wide.....

He also said that my new Vectrix will be harder to break and run better, but I have not received any technical answers to my multiple questions, just increasingly polished sales talk. That includes the Australian sales team and the American headquarters.

Well, as long as they come around with a fix for the problem, the lack of engagement in any technical discussion might be acceptable, although annoying to myself.

No-one would be happier than me to see 123 positive reports from satisfied Vectrix owners popping up on the "V" forums - it would increase chances of Vectrix "pulling through" and would mean that the problems with my Vectrix are fixable to at least some extent. And I would not need to worry about potentially making things worse by telling the truth here on "V".
I have not been able to find any Vectrix owner reports anywhere else on the net.
And I do not think anyone will miss the "V" forums when using a search engine to do some research before putting down AU$16,000.- (or the equivalent in other countries) for a Vectrix.

It might be in the interest of any happy Vectrix owner to put at least a brief comment onto the "V" forums; this would likely help sales along and increase the chances of a continuation of the apparently excellent after-sales service.

I cannot see a viable alternative to the Vectrix on the market at this stage, despite the recent raving review for the new Zapino by usatracy (thanks for that and all the other interesting advice - may you find lots of rewards on your road for it!)
I'd feel like an easy target in a shooting contest on any bike with less than 27hp in the traffic around here.

We both got some verbal comments from the salesman in Australia. He seems to believes we are driving the Vectrix too hard, and that the ones which are used for less demanding town commuting run largely trouble free, like yours.

We don't agree with that.

That's just sad. What in the wide, wide, world of sports does he mean by "too hard"?! Everything is under software control. It shouldn't be possible to drive it too hard and if it is then there is a design problem.

It sounds like you have you have had pretty good service up until now. I hope it continues. Maybe you can keep a police whistle by your phone and tell the guy you're going to blow it every time he talks rubbish.

More seriously you can tell him that there are many people like me who are considering a purchase and are watching intently to see how quickly and how well Vectrix handles these early glitches.

Thanks for all your posts Vectrix owners! Please keep them coming. I for one am rooting for you.

Hi,

I post this here as well as in the Vectrix Reports because it is related to this forum and the most recent entries here.

Dave wrote:

That's just sad. What in the wide, wide, world of sports does he mean by "too hard"?! Everything is under software control. It shouldn't be possible to drive it too hard and if it is then there is a design problem.

Maybe he means this sort of mountainous terrain described here. But I whole-heartedly agree with you and I do not believe the failure has anything to do with the usage pattern.

.
.
.

Vectrix Real World Mountain Climbing Test Report

I have found the hill - or rather mountain - that took my Vectrix to the limit.

I did not publish this report earlier because I wanted to avoid further bad publicity for Vectrix and because I wanted to get Vectrix' advice on this problem first.

Now it has become imperative to publish this because I have a suspicion that the multi-function-throttle is causing the problem, and another Vectrix driver has had a potentially lethal throttle problem.

Funontwowheels = George wrote:

1. Throttle sticking, difficulty engaging reverse had to replace the sensor.

2. Was given a charger software update, after which the charger promptly blew, however got a prompt repair and new charger which seemed to work okay.

3. Nearly KILLED my self when the throttle stuck in the fully open position, only remembered about the kill switch at the last minute ... a frightening experience. I managed to affect repair by resetting the throttle sensor, however I now feel VERY APPREHESIVE when riding my Vectrix, in case the same thing happens again.

4. Battery and temperature warning lights now flashing all the time, indicating a problem with battery temperature sensors, have been unable to use bike for weeks. I am currently waiting for the bike to be uplifted and repaired and to take delivery of a loan bike. Have missed a couple of opportunities to exhibit the bike because of this and potentially lost sales.

.

Another reason for publishing now is that the Vectrix team has not replied to my concerns as expressed in the below email sent to Vectrix by myself on Jan 18th, 2008.
They did answer my email from Jan 9th, 2008, also quoted below, in a fast and appropriate manner, but I do not believe that the “diagnosis” was correct. These emails from Vectrix on Jan 10th and 11th, 2008 contained the last reference to any of my technical questions. Sales talk only since then from the Australian salesman, and nothing but a referral to him from the USA.

My Vectrix failed totally on Jan 15th, 2008, under non-demanding conditions (except for high humidity).

On Jan 17th, 2008 I sent Vectrix a link to the video in case it would help with diagnosing the problem. No answer whatsoever.

I sent this email on Jan 18th, 2008: (hyperlinks disabled in quoted emails to avoid confusion - they worked in the original and are all available further down in this report!)

Hello Xxxxx,

I believe the assessment that the noise during uphill driving was a "planned power/performance cutback mode" was incorrect.

As you are hopefully aware my Vectrix has completely failed during driving two days ago.

Yyyyy (Vectrix owner from Tasmania) immediately recognised the problem as the regen braking kicking in when I described the problem to him. He also had a look at the video and that confirmed his impression. Please have a look at it and get your design group to have a look at it, too please. Here is the link again:
.....ww.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7PWIvTcTNU
The noise happens at 2:37, 2:38, 2:39, 2:40, 2:41, 2:46, 2:50, 2:51, 2:59 and 3:49min into the 5 minute drive on the video.

Yyyyy has apparently had very similar problems with his Vectrix, i.e. regen braking engaging when it should not and his reverse was not working well, just like mine - until he lubricated the throttle, which fixed the problems immediately and permanently. His throttle was also squeeking, which I thought mine was not doing. I was initially very skeptical about this theory, too.
But only until I turned the throttle today on my now dead bike.
Here is the video:...ww.youtube.com/watch?v=2sdlK-ERW3M
As you can see in the video the throttle is so sticky and squeeky that it does not even return to zero spontaneously!
That was not apparent before the bike broke down without warning, and I never pulled the throttle again afterwards until Yyyyy brought up his idea.
I think it filled with water during the downpours that day, which then dislodged some of the lubricant; as long as there was some water left in the throttle it still had some lubrication, but after 15min of driving in dry conditions it had probably dried out sufficiently to become sticky.
I believe now that the throttle and regen braking system malfunctioned, which might then have let to a main fuse blowing.

Please let me know what you and your design group think of this theory.

Kind regards,

Mr. Mik

Since this email was sent, “Yyyyy’s” Vectrix has also shut down completely during gentle driving.

BUT: With hindsight, the squeaky throttle might have been caused by the tying down of the Vectrix on the tow truck, just to be complete.

The throttle two days after the bike stopped running.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

And this is the earlier email I sent to Vectrix on Jan 9th, 2008 regarding this problem:

Hi Zzzzz,

my Vectrix has again made noises and decelerated for split seconds whilst climbing the long, steep Henry Roberts Drive at about 60km/h, at almost full or full throttle.This time it happened repeatedly, not once only like last time. This time there was no slow car in the way, so the problem became more obvious.
I believe it is some sort of overload protection.

Here is a map of the route on which this happened: .......maps.google.com...
You can view it in Google Earth for a better impression of the terrain.
The marked route is about 4km long, and climbs about 400m.

I have attached a sound file recorded in the boot of the Vectrix; it isn't exactly Hi-Fi, but you can clearly hear the 6 buzzing sounds if you use headphones. The sounds happen at 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s and 21s into the recording.
Does not sound like much on the recording, but it sounds like a loud warning buzzer to the rider, and is accompanied each time by loss of all - or nearly all - acceleration.

Once I returned home, having rolled back down the mountain first and gaining 3km in range displayed, then traveled at 100km/h for some time, then 80km/h for several km, then stopped at home, the battery and high temp telltales came on and "bAthot" appeared where Trip A used to be... (see attached .jpg)

I measured the Motor/gearbox temp as 75deg C at the end of the ride (by infrared thermometer).
Battery temp was reported as 44deg C after 1 min of charging shortly thereafter.
Ambient temperature was 28deg C, and 25deg C up on the mountain.

Is this to be expected? Are these malfunctions or is my Vectrix functioning well, protecting itself against overload?

I am worried that I might have much more of these sort of problems once I am comfortable / safe enough to take a passenger along, and when it gets hotter.
28deg C is less than average temp for the season here, we could easily get around 40deg C.

I was initially planning to post this as another "Vectrix Gold Coast Test Route Report", along with my other reports on ......visforvoltage.org/forum/2547-vectrix-reports , but I delayed this when the buzzing sound happened for the first time a week or so ago (see my email to you from 31-12-2007, which also mentioned the poor range, long charging time, reverse gear unreliability, uneven regen braking and noisy gearbox ).

I do not wish to cause Vectrix any bad publicity, that’s why I have delayed posting the mountain report (That's why there is a Vectrix test route Gold Coast 1,2 and 4 on the forum, but no number 3; this climb was supposed to be number 3.)

I would however still like to report this test drive, in that forum, once the problem has been fixed.

Or, if it is not fixable, and simply represents the limit beyond which the Vectrix cannot go, then I would like to report that.

Henry Roberts Drive is really quite an exceptional climb, the problems with the Vectrix only show when there is no traffic because there is usually a slow car stopping you from going as fast as the Vectrix can.
Very few people would decide against buying a Vectrix because of an honest report showing that it struggles with a mountain that is probably steeper than anything they would ever tackle. And as usual, it would be clear that despite it's limitations, the Vectrix is ahead of any competition by lengths.
A report showing the Vectrix' limitations on a mountain road like Henry Roberts Drive would demonstrate to most people that the Vectrix can handle the terrain which they need it for with great ease.

And those people who decide to go EV despite living in very demanding terrain, well they definitely deserve to know what to expect before they buy!

I have also copied this to Xyz Yzx and Yyz Zyy, in case they can explain - or suggest diagnostic procedures etc. - why this is happening before you travel all the way here for the slightly overdue 1000km service.

Regards,

Mr. Mik

Please excuse me quoting myself here - but I need to make the background of this clear to avoid any misunderstandings.
..................................................................................................

.
.
Now finally back to the mountain climbing report:

.
.
The test route is the Henry Roberts Drive on the Gold Coast, Australia. It is in fact the uphill leg of the “Vectrix Real Word Regenerative Breaking Report Part 2”.

It is climbing Mt. Tamborine.

Here is a link to the map of the route: maps.google.com...
You can view it in Google Earth for a better impression of the terrain.
Here is a taste of it: (Elevation factor set to 1:1, no exaggeration!)

The test route is about 4km long, and climbs about 400m.

It has a speed limit of 60km/h, except for the first few hundred meters, where the speed limit is 80km/h.

My Vectrix made brief, loud noises accompanied by deceleration on the steepest part of the hill at 60km/h, but only if there was no slower traffic (like cars) getting in the way.
It’s the steepest long road around here, but is used by multiple commuters from Mt Tamborine to the Gold Coast on a daily basis. There might be steeper climbs somewhere around here, but I believe they would be much shorter.
The noise happens at full or almost full throttle.

I initially heard the sound once and reported it to Vectrix, then I made a sound recording of the noise with an MP3 player in the boot, and sent the recording to Vectrix (see quoted email above).

Xxxxx then advised me – after asking me several appropriate questions and confirming with the design team in a very timely fashion - that this was not a malfunction, but that the Vectrix was going into "a planned power/performance cut back mode".

After that advice I attached a video camera to my Vectrix to better record the problem. (There was too much noise in the boot to clearly record the noise without having to use headphones for replay.)

I sent a link to the video to Vectrix on Jan 17th and did not receive any reply indicating that they had come to a different conclusion compared to the conclusion after the noise only recording (= "a planned power/performance cut back mode" ).

Then I heard from Yyyyy in Tasmania about the throttle theory mentioned in the email of Jan 18th above.
.

Thats the view from the starting point:

.

Here is the video I recorded during hill climbing on Henry Roberts Drive: (Same as in the quoted email above):
(You can also watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7PWIvTcTNU , which allows you to switch off the lengthwise distortion)

On the right of the screen you can see an altimeter indicating a climb of about 400m during the drive. The thermometer below the speedo measures the air temperature next to the left battery cooling air inlet under the front fairing.

The noise happens at 2:37, 2:38, 2:39, 2:40, 2:41, 2:46, 2:50, 2:51, 2:59 and 3:49min into the drive. Headphones still help a lot during playback...

The video/test drive starts and ends at the locations indicated in this google map:
maps.google.com...
The video is 5:05 min long.

Hopefully Vectrix staff have really looked at the video and the whole issue and learned from it, but the lot of them steadfastly refuse me any reply to my technical questions since several weeks now.

Vectrix’ current plan for my dead bike is to deliver a new Vectrix, supposedly harder to break, on Feb 5th or 6th, and to examine the old one in Australia.
I’ve asked many (so far) unanswered questions in regards to that, too…..Check the ...visforvoltage.org/forum/2789-trailblazers-early-adopters-or-guineapigs... forum for more on that!

I’d really like to know if this noise-with-deceleration-phenomenon in the video was "a planned power/performance cut back mode" or something else.

In the absence of replies from Vectrix I have to ask you people on the VisforVoltage forums for advice – show them how it’s done, please!

I’ll abstain from directly asking Vectrix technical questions from now on, unless they invite me to do so or where I believe it is a safety issue.
I believe (and this is speculation, of course) that the issue has been discussed within Vectrix and that their staff have been advised to not answer these questions.

Instead I’ll put my questions here on “V”.

Mr. Mik

Hi all,

My name is Peter and I live in the North of Tasmania ….Nah! I only got one head, but I wish I had two!

My Job as an Aerial Photographer, could do with two thou, one for flying and one for camera

I have three loves in my life, my flying machine, my photography and my Electric Machine, oops forth, My Wife.

And I have married them up to make a very enjoyable living,

By flying one day, Processing images the next and riding my Vectrix 100klms average five days a week, Canvassing, showing and delivering photos, (wife fits in there somewhere)

So Let Talk Vectrix!

I live in a Hamlet surrounded by two cities, three towns, and numerous one shop hamlets. And all within (return) range of the Vectrix.

Best investment I ever made, instead of buying $105 of diesel each week I only pay $6 of Hydro power and have loads of fun doing it on our twisting hilly Taswegians country roads. I even ride at night for the hell of it, I got roughly $70 in $1 coins in a beer can so I don’t get a shocker bill because in three months

I have done 6500klm, and the scooter only gets stronger,

The Back up service from my Vectrix Dealer in Melbourne is unbelievable

Frank Papa and his crew will go out of their way to service my

Futuristic Machine. (All fighting to get to Tassy) Its weird though the service involves hooking a laptop to it and updating whatever software is current, and it actually improves, Man I ride this machine to break it, But the only way that might happen is when I drop it, At lunchtime I am back at home on charge, go for a 2hr lunch or a quick fly in My Powered Hang glider,,,,? What you thought I was rich? I do every thing on the cheap $9 flying Fuel

$9 photos, Print myself! $1 electron fuel, and I turn that into…. Well put the three figures together!

“So what” if the bike cost a lot, So does a Harley and You don’t drive that every day all day, most guys spend more hours just polishing them. Five minutes! and “V” is clean, green and..er! CUTE. Yeh!, I can handle the jibes from the dreamers! And gunado’ers, but Chicks dig it! Wish I wasn’t fifty thou.

We buy what makes us feel good, looks good, and do what we want it to do. The Vectric does all this for me.

My scooter gets a charge three times a day even more,

Only need to do it at home at it has the range to do the job.

Longest riding in a day has been 190klms on one full and two partial, I wasn’t trying, Just doing my usual opportunity charge

And riding the country roads.

Now you non owners might think this is Hype, Nah Vectrix sales brochure is Hype, I have done real on road miles, and I sometimes think I am on my old Kwaka 650. Zero to 100kphs in 10 seconds, if you weigh 70klg, make it 12 seconds if your 100kg, it climbs steep hills at 102kph of course that’s all it will do, but straight to it.

I don’t know about making power on regen braking, but I feel good about putting stopping power to good use, rarely wasting my brake pads.

I actually wear ear plugs on a country cruise, so the wind noise is eliminate from my headphone music., And I am not left behind when riding with my mates. This Maxi can hold its own and corner better I reckon, Might be the way I ride? After all! I fly around the trees!

As a rule if we get a product that we are happy with, not a word is said, as like most, I get on with my life.

Some join clubs of course, none of that for me, just the tools of my trade, and loving every minute my Vectrix is alive.

Peter Clark Forth

Tasmania, kralc [at] dodo.com.au

Peter = theeyeinthesky has had his Vectrix repaired by a Vectrix technician who flew over from Australia.

He is very happy! I asked if I could put his email onto the "V" forum, then he sent me the above. So there it is.

6 days to get his Vectrix going again in TASMANIA - not bad at all!

The Vectrix man from Australia phoned me today - still planning to bring up a new Vectrix for me next week and take the old one back to analyse why it did what it did.

Can't wait to get on the road again!

Mr. Mik

Here is another post Peter from Tasmania asked me to put on here for him:
Sent to me on 2008-02-04:

I needed to see the miracle so.....
For all those wondering what's the inside of your scooter looks like, I decided to have a look/see
and this way YOU don't have to void your warranty.

This is where you find the Charger, (Big silver box) and the Interface control Module(little silver box)
and dashboard assembly (white thingy)

Taking a few more things off, and one Battery pack out we find buried is the Motor Controller. and a very deep box

Imagine this in Nanosafe Lithium,

And you think that looks cool, The accelerator is more amazing. But DON'T pull it apart or the scooter will have to
be programmed again, that also goes for disconnecting the electronics.

Now to put it all back together, ....Hmmm, If I can remember how.
After wacking it back together, I took it for 140klm the next day (50klm with a payload of 180kgs), three partial charges the last 40klm at speeds that wore a hole under my winglet, from leaning it too hard
Now I was going to glue a rubber pad and a plate of stainless under there before I did that, better get to it!
This bike really hangs on to the road.
Peter.

Hi - George - it's Tim from near Huntly in Aberdeenshire and I've just taken delivery of a Vectrix too. Where in Scotland do you live? Where are you going to get your servicing done? I see one dealer only - near Inverness. Do they do servicing?

Any problems with your machine yet?

Best Wishes Tim

-------------------------------------------------------

Hi all to new Vectrix owners or prospective owners.

In July this year I took delivery of the 1st Vectrix in Scotland

I'd like to make contact with other Vectrix owners worldwide to share experiences and any technical issues with these early production scooters.

I have recently had an article about my Vectrix published in the UK's all new Electric Vehicle 32 page full-colour magazine called Plugged In

See the following link for details of a back copy of this magazine which is currently on sale on ebay Item number: 270177218272

http://tinyurl.com/2c35bg

Look forward to making contact soon.

Yours George

Dear George,

Thanks for your email - guess you are that person. When the man from Vectrix dropped off my bike last week he had another one (blue) in the van that he said was a demo bike for Inverness. Was that for you?

Obviously it's a concern how many people seem to be having trouble with their machines, doubly so considering the small number that are out there and the initial high cost of the vehicle. Do Vectrix come and uplift your vehicle when it needs a repair?

By the way, the University of Aberdeen (where I work) has just announced a 'Sustainable Travel Plan' and they will be holding a Sustainable Travel Plan Day shortly - probably in May. Vectrix will be exhibiting there (as will Toyota and Lexus with their hybrids). You'd be very welcome to attend (as would anyone else reading this post) - I will provide more details nearer the day. You might just make it from Inverness to Huntly in the Vectrix and could re-charge at my home!

Tim

Dear George,

Yes - I've noticed the same thing. The fuel gauge does not often relate to the Estimated Range. From fully charged, the range estimates can vary wildly - particularly at the start of a drive - going from 75 miles to 4 miles and then back up again in a very short distance. Admittedly I'm driving on rural roads - so not much chance to get up to more than 25 mph.

Other than that, no problems so far!

Tim

Hi everybody

I was told the new software calculates the estimated range every 200mt after the first 1,6km has been traveled through. If you don't travel at train-constant-speed, the range gauge will give you weird readings because it suffice for you to accelerate and the consuption of the last 200mt will be projected to the remaining charge of battery and the tripcomputer will tell you you have suddenly no more range left, OTOH if you use regen downhill for only a short distance, it will tell you you can drive from coast to coast all the route 66 through singing hotel California... I do the following, always remember to set the trip counter to zero, then I now that if I travel at 40kmh I can make almost 100km and at full throttle I can do 40km: knowing the extremes I try to use the natural grey PC most of us believe (myself among them) to have inside the skull. From my style of driving and usual roads I go, I feel safe up and beyond 50km, but i don't know if I would go much further than 60km. Twice I had the panel go crazy, no relationship wathsoever between state of charge, estimated range or wathever: I only knew it should have full charge and I had to go to work, so I crossed fingers, looked at the sky begging for understanding of the situation and went on as if all were ok... it worked.

I wonder if the problems experienced from our friends downunder might be related to production issues from the production plant. European Vectrix are build in Poland AFAIK while there is production plant in the USA: I can imagne there could be issues in process control and still disequalities in quality between the two plants?

Regards

Hello All,

I am finally telling the world my Vectrix Story. ---- Book out soon...!!!!

I am in UK and use my bike to commute to work covering around 200 miles a week. I have covered just under 5000 miles since May 07.

I am on my second Vectrix!

The first one died due to charger problems with a month of purchase

The replacement new bike ran up until last week with the following issues
- Charging, Software updates, Battery Temperature Sensors......if the batteries are hot the do not charge properly in some cases.
( The fix in my eyes is simple but not yet achieved by Vectrix. ----- Software update that has a pre set max temp that the batteries
can be charged at. If they are hotter a time delay function waits for the battery temps to cool then charging starts!)

- Throttle sticky
- Encoder problem in the hub......grinding sound....lack of drive....over temp battery light

The bike was collected and repaired 5 times in as many months.

Last week I was riding to work at a speed between 30-40mph. I heard and felt a bang in the rear hub area. I managed to stop safely with the spanner light
on. I switched the bike off then on again which caused another bang...then no lights.... everything had died!

I pushed the bike to somewhere safer than the side of a busy London Road..... a continuing grinding/rubbling noise was emitted from the hub.

I have been told that the encoder, gearbox and motor have gone....along with the main fuse.

I cant complain about the service I have received from Vectrix in respect to the supply of a loan bike until mine has been repaired. But
I have just been offered another new bike!

That will be the 3rd bike in 9 months.....

I came to the conclusion sometime ago that the bike just isnt upto serious daily use.....now when I say serious thats between 30 and 40miles a day 6 days a week,
Not a real problem with any other form of wheeled transport...

The situation now is this.

Get a new bike and continue to be a real life road tester for Vectrix!

Get a new bike and sell it start away!

Build my own? hee hee

After all that I love the idea totally and when it works it is brilliant.............but there has frankly been too many times of complete and utter frustration with
the reliability.

I would appreciate amy comments

Cheers

kiwiboy, maybe try and return it for a refund? That would be the best option. The warranty period is running out, so they can't keep fixing it forever. If you sell it than the buyer can't get warranty service, and won't want to pay nearly the new price. Personally, I'd pay no more than $2,000 for a used Vectrix, and keep it as a collectible.

I came to the conclusion sometime ago that the bike just isnt upto serious daily use.....now when I say serious thats between 30 and 40miles a day 6 days a week,
Not a real problem with any other form of wheeled transport...

The situation now is this.

Get a new bike and continue to be a real life road tester for Vectrix!

Get a new bike and sell it start away!

Build my own? hee hee

Cheers

Same story here....

Since I had the Vectrix (and it's replacement) it has been off the road more than on the road.

The scooter Nr. 2 is now scheduled to be fixed on 19-03-2008, that is 26 days after it failed.
On the expected repair date it will have been 64 days since the first scooter died in the exact same manner. And I still do not have a satisfactory explanation why, and if it is going to happen again or not. It will supposedly all be explained to me on the day by the technician.

By then I will have had 46 days with a functioning scooter, and 60 days with a broken scooter; and zero days with a scooter performing as claimed in the hype.

And then there are the allegations by the dealer that it's my fault somehow, that I have been tampering with the scooter etc, but no explanation how exactly....

Most of my emails remain(ed) unanswered.

And the ability of Vectrix Corp. to honor warranty claims for much longer is doubtful in my opinion. They might be going broke, see their own shareholder reports.

Had I put the energy, time and money into converting my own bike I would probably be in the same situation now (have a broken bike in the garage), but with a rapidly improving product and a lot of satisfaction, and a lot of skills learned.

Well, you never know really, I learn lot's this way, too. I'll use it one day.

And it might be a nice challenge to keep a Vectrix running without any warranty support.

It's not rocket science - or is it?

One tip: If you let them replace your scooter again, try to get one of the originals that allow the rider to weigh 1443.8kg! It'll be more of a collectors item that way!
(See plate between the front forks).

Mr. Mik