ZAPINO, Z-20 and XM-2000

Mountain - do you know if X-Treme is ordering a replacement for the XM-2000? And if so, what spec? Also, do you know if there is any remaining stock of XM2K's in China?

Mountain,

I bought a Zapino a few weeks ago, and have had a good experience with it. I have information about it on my blog and on the EV For Everyone site.

• http://blog.maxdunn.com/articles/category/electric-vehicles
• http://evforeveryone.org/Zap

Let me know if you have any other specific questions I can answer.

--Max

Just confused why people here talking so much on Z-20/R-20 which is still in Egg

I can answer this. The EVT America started promising the Z-20 was nearly ready to ship over two years ago. In the mean time they have built up a lot of interest in some people. Other people, like me, have developed a deep suspicion of everything EVT America says. The first I heard of the Zapino was on Treehugger on 7/7/2007. At that time I looked around and could not find any dealers on the net.

Just confused why people here talking so much on Z-20/R-20 which is still in Egg and XM-2000 which was already the history (XM-2000 mechanism motor/technology will never appear on market again.)

The XM-2000 was costing $1,500 and the Zapino $3K, big difference. Do you know where we can get a discount on the Zapino?

The EVT America started promising the Z-20 was nearly ready to ship over two years ago. In the mean time they have built up a lot of interest in some people.

This is exactly the case. I don't remember hearing anything about the Zapnio until recently when Zap started selling it. The Zapworld page says:

Able to reach speeds of about 30 mph,

Max Speed: about 30 mph

So from the page, customers are lead to believe that it is a 30 mph scooter.

There is very little information on the Zap page. There is much more information on the Z20 page at the EVT America site. Let alone, it is being advertised as a 45 mph scooter. Where I have to commute I will probably get run over if I ride 30 mph on 45 mph roads, so I'm not about to buy a 30 mph scooter, but thats beside the point because I know the Zapino can do >40 mph. But without visiting this forum I wouldn't know that and my "30 mph scooter radar" would go off, because there are about a million 30 mph scooters on the market that I don't care about and would never buy.

The Zap Store page has the same information I think.

Zapworld's Zapino page stincks. They need to add more information/specs, more pictures, and put the fact that the scooter can go over 40. They need to add color scheme pictures.

A google search of Zapino comes up with a few media hits like this one that confirm the 30 mph limitation which is the most damning information to me (if I didn't read what you posted mountain chen):

The rear-wheel hub motor will drive it up to 30mph

I could calculate the speed to be perhaps >40 mph with the "900 rpm" motor spec, but the tire or wheel size is not given. Add to that the fact that they are advertising the scooter as a 3000 watt scooter, when in fact this is the peak rating of the motor. The EVT 168 might be able to do more than that peak, but it is sold as a 1500 watt scooter and can do 30 mph. So at first glance, I'm less than impressed with the power output of the Zapino.
Quote:

3000 peak watts, 60 volts

And in any case I will still probably get run over at 40 mph, I need 45 mph bare minimum for where I commute. I don't know if the Z20 can do it yet but it just might. And a 90 amp controller won't hurt get going that fast so I don't get run over trying to get up to speed. Looking at that spec, this looks like probably over 4,500 watts peak and 2500 watts continuous. What is the Zapino continuous rating? From the information on hand it certainly looks like the Z20 is more powerful and will better meet my needs.

Anyhow, have Zap fix up their page and advertise it as a 40 mph scooter. That will help I'm sure. I'm not interested in contacting 1,000,000 companies that sell 30 mph scooters to see if they can go faster, so I would of taken this at face value.

I have three comments about the Zapino:

1. Why would I spend $3000 on a scooter that is restricted to 30 mph?

2. Zap currently appears to have bad support for this product. One local deal can't get parts for the first and only scooter he's sold. He's currently pursuing lemon laws with Zap.

3. I don't like the body style. It's a clone of like 40 different dubious Chinese Yamaha Vino clones.

Dave

Borg and Andrew -

If 30 mph is a deal killer for you then please note that I believe that Mountain Chen said that the limiter is installed at the throttle. Which likely means it's just a resistor that prevents the full range of voltage from being seen by the controller. Take the resistor out and no more limiter.

That's just my educated guess - someone find a Zapino owner who wants to go faster and start investigating... ;)

I own a Zapino.

It is my first electric vehicle and overall I like it.

However, I cannot go faster than 32mph even on the fast setting on flat ground.

On the other hand, Mountain has pictures of some models going up to 40mph.

Mountain says that I have a special scooter that has "more torque" for hill climbing--- thus, there could be
several versions of the Zapino out there.

I would be quite interested to know whether the scooter is just artificially limited to this speed.
How would I begin to investigate this? Also, how can I measure the amount of current sent to the motor?

However, I cannot go faster than 32mph even on the fast setting on flat ground.

On the other hand, Mountain has pictures of some models going up to 40mph.

Mountain says that I have a special scooter that has "more torque" for hill climbing--- thus, there could be several versions of the Zapino out there.

There certainly could be different models. There are other possibilities as well:

- inconsistencies from unit to unit
- speedometer differences - most people only trust GPS data
- battery age
- rider height and weight
- tire inflation
- speed limiters (maybe yours has one)
- weather (my emax did about 4 mph faster in the cold)

I'm sure there are more.

I would be quite interested to know whether the scooter is just artificially limited to this speed.

There may be a way to test that. You need to find out if the controller is going to full pulse width. If it was a brush motor controller you would measure the voltage across the two motor wires. Since this is a 6-phase brushless motor controller I don't know what voltage you will measure across two of the wires. I'll try and contact someone who does. With the throttle full on and going top speed on the flat it should go to full pulse width if it is not "artificially" limiting the speed.

zaprider -

Another test is to see if it's simply limited by reducing the voltage range coming from the throttle. In most systems the throttle is a potentiometer that provides a varying voltage to the controller. Let's say it's full range is 0V to 5V - if I wanted to reduce the top speed of the bike by approx. 20% I could limit the range of that controller to 0V to 4V by wiring a resistor of an appropriate value in series between the throttle and the controller.

So - how to test if that's the case? With a digital multimeter test the voltage at wide open throttle directly at the throttle potentiometer (you should see two wires coming from the throttle trace those as close to the throttle body as possible). Record the voltage you see when the throttle is fully open. Now the trickier part. You need to measure the input voltage at the controller - you're going to need to do some experimenting to find out which wire represents the input control voltage (i.e. which wire changes in direct response to twisting open the throttle). You'll need to do this with the rear wheel raised for what I hope are obvious reasons!

Assuming you can find a point to access both voltage readings then if the throttle ranges 0 to 5V but the controller only ranges 0 to 3.5V then you know that somewhere between the two the voltage is being reduced. As mentioned this is likely just a resistor wired in series. Happy hunting for that resistor! It's likely near one end or the other (if it were me I'd probably put it real close to the throttle assembly).

This is just one possible method of speed limiting an EV.

At the end of the day Mountain Chen (who posts on this board) will be your best source of info. You can try sending him an email via the option on this forum. He responded to my questions within a week.

Good luck! And, if you do find the secret please let us know :)

Another test you could try is to see if the speed increases over 32mph when going downhill. If the controller is limiting output based on speed, the top speed will be exactly the same going uphill or downhill on a moderate grade. More likely the top speed is limited by the motor configuration. Perhaps your model has more windings, which will give more torque, but a lower top speed.

You might also be hitting the current limit on the controller, which will keep the power output below a certain level. When the wind and rolling resistance equal the power of the motor, you can't go any faster. If this is the case, your speed would be substantially faster going downhill.

It would be difficult to measure the duty cycle of the PWM while riding, but that would be the sure-fire way to see if it was limited.

How about a price?