ZAPINOS

This smells like spam. Not just any spam, but old fuzzy spam.

You obviously don't know anything about the XM-2000 or "Extreme", do you? What's the price of those Zapinoes, $4k?

Adam,

Are you for real? When you say you work for ZAP selling Zapinos can you explain your role?

Are you a dealer (or an employee of the dealer) selling to the public, a ZAP employee selling to the public or a ZAP employee selling to dealers? Your closing paragraph seems to imply that you work for ZAP but don't do sales through your website. So, what exactly are you doing? If you're trying to drum up business for your dealer network such a lame attempt at hyperbole isn't going to help much (if you're a ZAP dealer I'd contact the company and ask them to put forth a bit more of a professional effort).

Now, it's my turn to take apart your post:
1) Please state what the specs of your bike are. Sure, I can go look them up but seeing as you want to crow about "under promising and over delivering" then it would be nice to know which aspect - the range? the speed? the choice of colors? (BTW, there is no word "underpromise" nor "overdeliver" - a professional sales patter should probably start with a decent grasp of the language).

2) As far as I know the Zapino bikes were first made by ERATO before they split and they're now made by a former member of the ERATO team in his new capacity at a new factory. That person is Mountain Chen. Given his past performance (which is no guarantee of future actions) can you explain the basis of making this statement: "Our new manufacturer is stepping up to the plate claiming a long run approach rather than just trying to make a quick buck like everyone else in China".

3) Is the reason you only allude to a top speed approaching 45mph because you wish to sell these bikes to markets that have top speed requirements of 30mph or 35mph? I certainly feel for your problem - but you might not want to be creating the idea that the bikes aren't what they claim to be.

4) The only Zapino's we know of are (according to the manufacturer) delivered with a higher torque, lower top speed setup designed for San Francisco type terrain. Also, the Zapinos delivered have the EXACT SAME sort of quality issues as other scooters. Yet cost TWICE AS MUCH (I, like tracy and others, purchased my XM2K for $1500). So, are you actually describing a new model? Will that model cost the same or more than the existing model? What support will you offer for owners of the existing (and one would imagine inferior) model? If your answer is "sorry, not much" then how can folks be comfortable that you won't abandon or orphan the new model you're currently touting?

5) Is the ABS a function of the regenerative braking? Or is it a more standard ABS disk setup that can be found on most Chinese import scooters in the 150CC range?

6) If regen is separate from the ABS (which I suspect it is) can you let us know the real world advantage of regen in this application? Or is it just cool to have because the Prius and the Vectrix have it?

7) Is your product so weak and your chance of sales so slim that you have to resort to the much overinflated (that is a word) negative press that plague your competitors? My XM2K has performed just fine thanks for asking. AFAIK, X-Treme is coming out with a new model to replace the XM2K because the technology has moved forward. Yes, X-Treme has had it's fair share of problems - but just it's fair share. I expect ZAP will have it's fair share too - and EVTA seem to be dealing with the lion's share right now.

8 ) I think many company's have many aspirations - for ZAP to have an aspiration for a dealer network is worth about as much as my opinion or your opinion. i.e. not much. Let us know when you expect a customer in each of the US States will be able to take advantage of that dealer network. Also, considering this is an internationally read forum - is ZAP going to have an international dealer network? Or are your comments aimed solely at us lucky folks in the US of A?

9) How can you talk about no bias and also drop in some random fact about a guy you know who thinks these are the best scooters?

Hey - if you really are from Zapino and you really want to win some friends on this board then start giving some thought to what you post and how you post it. I'll give you a chance if you bring value to the board - but if you just want to spam us with more poorly written, poorly researched and poorly supported crapola (not a real word) how about you do us all a favor and crawl back into your cave?

Here's a chance to redeem yourself. For the pre-existing Zapino can you explain if it is speed limited and if so what mechanism is used to implement that limitation? Lest you think that giving out that information would be a bad idea I don't think gas moped manufacturers make any secret about putting restriction plates in the exhaust system (or the other methods they use).

Of course I'd also like to see you address the concerns that has been raised so far with your initial post. Or you could just claim the moral high ground seeing as you're unbiased and I'm obviously a company shill...

awalsh, I'll help you refine what you are trying to tell us. Consider it a valuable critique so you can improve your writing and communication skills.

General form of writing: Intro => Body => Conclusion.

Here goes...

I work for Zap selling Zapinos. Now I'm going to tout this product with meaningless and baseless claims. I have nothing substantial to support my argument. (Thats the intro. Now you can clearly see what you are saying and not bother posting anything. Within the intro is the more-or-less conclusion stated as the last sentence here)

[insert bulls*hit](thats the body of what you are saying)

Seeing as I have nothing to support any of this, it is just as meaningless as if I had stopped typing after the first sentence, as that pretty much covers it. (this is an honest and well thought out conclusion)

I just looked at the www.efun-ev.com web site. The Efun-D looks pretty good. Is anyone importing these? There do not seem to be any posted topics on the efun line. I have a Z-20b on order, but who knows when it will get here or how it will perform. Are these the "Mountain Chen" products?
-= Alan

Yeah, I think DanCar on this site sells them @ www.fun-ev.com.

I've made some inquiries with him and he was very honest about what the bike can and can't do, and I would buy from him.

He's taken a bashing on this site several times...you know how some of us are. I personally have found him to have fair prices compared to other US vendors selling the bike but he takes payment several weeks up front (via credit card).

Hey! Join the line for world domination buddy - no cutting in...

If you want to encourage your Dutch colleague to provide clarification of why the Zapino is best and what his sample set was that would be very interesting.

How is the Zapino governed? Do you limit the control signal coming from the throttle? Or is there a setting in the controller itself? Or something completely different?

What batteries do you have in the Zapino? And at what voltage do you consider them "completely drained". Many of us here were delighted with the range of our scoots when we first got them only to watch the range begin to fall drastically. The biggest culprit was certainly the battery itself (an unsuitable model was used - the actual battery supplier seems reasonable) - however, the low battery cut off was set unacceptably low further reducing the battery life. I'm not raising this to detract from the Zapino - I want to know from your engineers (no PhD required) the specs of the battery and the low voltage cut off point so that they can impress us that they've considered this common failure point and have the problem licked.

Oh yeah, and the customer who rode over the mountains - you did tell him he should condition his batteries first otherwise he'd inflict permanent, life shortening, damage on that very first ride?

Yes, OK, perhaps I'm being just a little merciless (Adam I'll give you bonus grammar points if you realize it's not possible to be a little merciless!) - however, part of the trouble is that most of us new customers do get the same EV grin when we get our scoots and they work better than we had actually hoped. Unfortunately, due to our own actions and due to the lack of clear instructions, our EV grin turns into an EV scowl as we realize just how expensive batteries are and just how quickly an inexperienced user can trash 'em. This is the classic problem where there's no repeat customers and no good word of mouth because so many of the early adopters walk away unhappy.

I'd suggest that batteries are the biggest single issue with EV scooters - does ZAP agree? If so what have they done to address the problem?

Check out HESC if you want to see a key list of issues that need to be addressed with the E-scooter ownership experience (see the key differentiators list)