Vectrix Owners - New & Prospective

Congrats!!

Welcome to the green club, my friend!! :-) Not only is the Vectrix a GOOD thing, it's a FUN way to be GOOD!!

thanks!

I already know about the fun part :P

But what I like the most, is that one day, everybody will have to admit we were right!!

Congratulations! You'll love riding every km. Plug & drive, plug & drive.

Congratulations, Turok. Now you will learn that a Vectrix owner, can be, on the whole, a happy one.
Reffering to some of your doubts :
Battery durability doubts:
I think that by the time they start dying out, there will be 2 options for replacement:
1. Another set of NIMH´s at a much cheaper price (No-one will want them) or
2. Li-ion´s which will have finally arrived as an option and will probably improve Acceleration, Range, Speed and durability at an expensive price (Everyone will want them)
Now, im sure that 90% of Vectrix owners would choose option 2, and some like me will think "i should have thrashed my NIMHs".Thats because im sure i will change to Li-ion even if my NIMHs are in perfect condition and that even without needing the extra range, i would do it just to be able to go at full blast all the time and get an even greater top speed.

and reffering to exagerated range and accelerations of their brochures, well it happens everyday with all types of automobile manufacturers data claims, not one of the cars i have bought has kept its "promised" consumption rates, to mention one.

Tell us your impressions and experience.
Particularly i am concerned with an uneven engine whine or gearbox whine, im not sure which, when riding between 20km/h and 40km/h. As you have a new bike, it would be intresting to know if you also get this.
RaDy

about the batteries, as long as the Li WILL become available as a kit for the vectrix, I'll be happy..

I tested a 2009 model friday, and I didn't experience the uneven whine, and I shure hope mine won't have it either!

about the batteries, as long as the Li WILL become available as a kit for the vectrix, I'll be happy..

I tested a 2009 model friday, and I didn't experience the uneven whine, and I shure hope mine won't have it either!

If your bike whines a bit, don't panic. That may go away after some time on the road for all the new parts to get to know each other better.

As for the Li upgrade, when it comes, you'll probably opt for a new bike, as by the time you replace the controller, charger and battery, on a used bike, you'll likely decide it isn't worth the expense. Keep your old one in good shape so you can trade up if and when that technology becomes feasable.

I tested a 2009 model friday, and I didn't experience the uneven whine, and I shure hope mine won't have it either!

No, it doesnt happen at the begining, it slowly starts happening after 300Kms or so, i was told not to worry, but i would still like to know if it also happens to you.
For the moment i have 1.423 kms and the uneven whine hasnt smoothed out.
Apart from this, everything is excellent.

For the moment i have 1.423 kms and the uneven whine hasnt smoothed out.

Perhaps you just need more wind noise! HAHA!! :-)

In the bike bike community, when someone complains about an odd noise, we always recommend louder pipes. That won't quite work with the Vectrix! HAHA!! ;-)

Btw.. I have received a confirmation of my order today, it will take about 3 weeks till delivery he said (I think it comes from Escini, and if it's overstock, I'd expect it to be delivered faster, but we'll see..)
Waiting hurts now, I must admit :O

When I talked to my salesperson about the noise, he confirmed what Mik said, some gearboxes seem to be uneven..
But anyway, I'll be glad to write down my experiences, good, bad and ugly.

For the moment i have 1.423 kms and the uneven whine hasnt smoothed out.

Perhaps you just need more wind noise! HAHA!! :-)

In the bike bike community, when someone complains about an odd noise, we always recommend louder pipes. That won't quite work with the Vectrix! HAHA!! ;-)

Its easier to solve than that, i just have to put on my headphones. :)

Btw.. I have received a confirmation of my order today, it will take about 3 weeks till delivery he said (I think it comes from Escini, and if it's overstock, I'd expect it to be delivered faster, but we'll see..)
Waiting hurts now, I must admit :O

My dealer told me he expected my Vectrix in 3 weeks. Now the 3 weeks have passed, it will take 2 more weeks. I bet he knew.
If he was a good salesman, he would have said: I expect delivery in 6 weeks (or more!).
The difference is that now I'm p*ssed.
(especially because my old fossil Honda is already sold)

Dealers, learn from this please!

d..

They actually don't know. My bike was also 2-3 weeks late. But don't worry. It will arrive and then you'll love it :-)

You must be joking!!!!

Hi George, the reason for them suspending trading is due to not being able to publish their accounts before 31st March, which is a requirement by law on the AIM stock exchange. They are actively seeking re-funding and are in negotiation with existing shareholders, Govt, etc. As soon as this is resolved they will either publish accounts or try and sell the business as a going concern. All is not quite lost hopefully! As they delivered my replacement Vectrix only last week and I know most of the UK staff well I am surprised it was not mentioned. I'll have a chat to them on Monday and see if I can get an update. Still love the bike, the larger windscreen is great and the new software seems to work well, I have about a 5% increase in range.
Regards
Ray

IMO if GM and Crysler got bailout money, and Tesla Motors will get 400 millions, so should Vectrix.

got a message yesterday, I'll be picking up my Vectrix this evening! Finally..

Sure hope my money is well spent!

Congratulations!

Now you can enjoy driving electric. It's such a big step forward, you wont wanna go back - ever.

I have just been interviewed by a TV station as I presented and drove around with Vectrix :-)

I hope I won't look silly :-)

Video:

http://24ur.com/novice/slovenija/posta-slovenije-za-zmanjsanje-kolicine-izpustov.html

From 55th second :-)

Boy howdy! Them fellers sure do talk funny! HAHA!! :-)

Looked good to me Andy!! They didn't give you enough time to look silly! HAHA :-) (of course, that would have been way more time than I would have needed to look silly! ;-)

HAHA, they cut out the silly parts :-))))

The original link did not work for me, so I dropped it into here:

Hello George, I just found this forum thread this evening and read through it all. What an emotional roller coaster ride! It started out as discouraging then went so positive I was so excited about buying one, then the announcement of financial uncertainty.

I started trying to get a Vectrix in Aug of 2008 when I found out about it from a friend. I live an hours drive to Toronto, Ontario, Canada and I was suprised the only Canadian Vectric dealer is in Calgary.. some 3000km away. Wierd because Toronto is the largest city in the country and in the most densely populated part of the country. The nearest US dealer is about a 4 hour (400km) drive from here.
No one from Vectrix then (aug 2008) would return emails or ride requests from the website, I could not get confirmation they could be plated /insured in this province so on the advise of the Calgary dealer I would revised this in the spring of 2009. I will be in Calgary in mid may visiting friends and I've lined up a test ride with full intent to purchase at least one Vectrix and consider a second one for my wife after I've tried mine out.

The leap of faith was having the only incountry dealer 3,000Km away and the closest service location 4 hours each way in the states crossing an international border each time. I actually was able connect with someone at Vectrix a week or two ago to discuss some "what if" scenarios if the bike needed servicing and how it would be handled. Nothing was mentioned of the financial uncertainty.. but they seemed reluctant to see a bike get sold to me given the distances from service authourized dealers. Trailering it to the states 8 hours round trip would not be my first choice so I left it with them to come back to me with some options. I have had a lot of experiance with microprocessor controlled DC drive machines (not vehicles though) and have worked on my own ICE based scooters or motorcyles so I am open to being talked through some alignments or assemble swaps over the phone before resorting to the 4+ hours trailering drive to upstate New York.

With this news and such financial uncertainty, the distance to a dealer and the luke warm confidence level responses I got from talking to Vectrix, I am thinking the risks are now just to high. Darn!

I will be doing the test drive on May 15th and see what the situation is then and make the GO/NO GO purchase decision then. Otherwise it's back to looking at ICE based maxi scooters which I could never get as excited about as the Vectrix.

Thanks again for such an informative Thread. If you have any new insights I looks forward to hearing them and May 15th approaches.

Any other Canadian Vectrix prospective or current owners out there?

Regards,

ve3bwp

Living in central Alabama, my selling dealer was also an 8 hour round trip truck ride. When I bought my Vectrix, gas was $4 per gallon, so the cost of just going to get the bike and bring it home was quite steep. Since it's a 440 mile trip, the first 440 miles on my bike were not "green" at all. Then, I had a problem with plating the bike in my state, due to some problems with the 07 VIN numbers. That required another 440 mile trip to resolve. Shortly after my 07 was replaced with an approved-by-my-state bike, I THOUGHT I had an issue with cooling fans (turned out to be new behavior patterns built into the newer software that my replacement had), so I made yet another 440 mile round trip for verification.

Since first purchasing the bike in Late July of 08, I have put 1320 miles on my 13 miles per gallon truck on behalf of Vectrix ownership, and a total of about 2000 miles combined on both bikes. At this point, it hasn't even moved the needle of "greenship" yet, but my hopes were that as new dealers and service centers sprang up, they would get closer to me in the near future. Unfortunately, the economy has been rough on everybody, and Vectrix is not immune to a sluggish economy, so I don't foresee any increases in dealer network for some time.

All that being said, I have been extremely pleased with my bike, and will continue to be pleased with it until it breaks and there's no one left to fix it, and I'm hoping that that will be a long time. If and when that eventuality happens, I will consider whether to just mothball it as a collector's item, or tear it down and convert it to an "open source" component bike that I can get batteries and controllers for.

Honestly, as a consumer, I probably would not spend that much money on a gamble at this time, but the odds originally were more in my favor, so I have no regrets, and absolutely WOULD NOT SELL my Vectrix today if someone offered me a good price on it! The ability to, and satisfaction I get from going to work one to four times daily without ever cranking an engine, and charging on my employer's nickel for those "call back" trips just can't be compared to the most economical gas burner on the planet!

P.S. - If Vectrix goes down, by golly they proved beyond any doubt that the technology is THERE and can be made affordable by a LOT of people, and I'm proud to be "proving it" every day!! :-)

P.S. - If Vectrix goes down, by golly they proved beyond any doubt that the technology is THERE and can be made affordable by a LOT of people, and I'm proud to be "proving it" every day!! :-)

That's kind of why I keep going with it, too!
The amount of diesel and kerosene that was burnt to get this Vectrix sent here, and replaced, and repaired (in Australia) will take a long time to recuperate. It's probably impossible to "offset it" in just the one vehicle. But it shows the possibilities and might spawn a lot of response and interest in other people, just by the sheer fact that it is on the road despite the odds! It just takes away another excuse from all those people that say nothing can be done.

I have managed to get Vectrix into our major newspaper - 'Delo' add-on :-)

This is the kind of marketing that will help Vectrix most. Hopefully there will be more members so successfull as you!.

Norman

Hi There,
I couldn't resist this reply, Ve3bwp. My home call is G3VHE, mainly active on 30 metres CW, and I have had a Vectrix since the uk launch back in june 2007. I am on my second due to the first being written off in an accident.
Its a shame that there isn't a dealer nearer as I sure you would love the bike just as much as I do. Hi-tech definitely but a lot of fun. It saves me aprox $16 a day in commute costs, yeh I know the bike was expensive but we are Twinkies!! (two incomes, no kids, and the govt is getting none of it when we go!)

All the best 73's
Ray
G3VHE, VP8CDK, 5R8AO, ZD8RE, DA2YV,ZC4AK ETC! (42 years military pilot C130's!)