Running Costs

Anyone who buys an EV to save money has proven himself king of fools.

The reason EVs have NEVER become the norm is because from the very start, fuel burning vehicles have been cheaper to produce, and over the long haul, cheaper to operate.

You will never save money by investing in an EV of any kind, over using whatever fuel burner you already have. However, there WILL come a time in the history of this planet that you will have no other alternative, and at that point, the COST of an EV will be totally insignificant. You'll either buy one, or figure out how to live and thrive at home without mobility.

In theory, my Vectrix COULD be actually paying for itself. When I bought it, cheap gas was 4 bucks a gallon, so based my personal distance needs and the promoted ten year life expectancy of the battery pack, my bike would have actually paid for itself in 10 years, and at that point, if all else was still in perfect order, I could buy a replacement battery (hopefully a lot cheaper by then) and go another ten years....

Fast forward to reality check:
1.) Gas went back down, (although now it's back up to 3 bucks). If it stays down, the bike will never recoup its cost, but what other vehicles can even come close to doing that?
2.) My closest dealership is 440 miles round trip, so every time I have to haul my bike there for service or repair, that's 440 miles I could have just driven my truck back and forth to work, and 440 miles wear and tear and charging that I'll have to put back on the bike before it we're back to being green. I've made that trip four times in two and a half years. That's 1760 miles on my truck. My Vectrix only has 3200 miles on it now. So I literally only have 1440 "green" miles on the bike since August of '08. Hardly worth the $9000 price tag.
3.) There's no way in heck this battery pack is going to last 10 years, and I'll be lucky if it lasts 5.
4.) Were it not for a persistant dealer and eventual warranty replacement of a charger, I'd already be out $2500 in repairs on the bike and it has only 3200 miles on it.
5.) It is very inconsistant for range. If I run it too many short days, it loses range, and I have to WASTE miles and charges on it to condition it back up to par.

Now, having said all that. I was looking for a fun-to-ride, short range, fair weather two wheeler to supplement the short range wear and tear that I have to put on my gas guzzling truck every day just to get back and forth to work and the many small errands I have to run every day. The Vectrix is NOT cheap transportation. I cost me almost HALF what my truck did, and even the smallest electrical component on the thing will cost an arm and a leg when it breaks. However, it costs me only about 35 cents per night to charge my daily range needs of 20 miles or less, it requires NO engine warmup, it's quiet, easy to get around on, will ride just as nice on a sidewalk as the highway, slips around traffic with the greatest of ease, has no clutch, no gears, and rarely even needs brakes. It just doesn't get any sweeter than that on a gas burner.

I own a Chevy Silverado Extended Cab truck for my "cage" needs, a Harley Davidson Road King for burning "pleasure fuel", and my Vectrix for everything I can fit in between.

One last note on the whole money/value issue...My wife treated herself to a brand new limited edition Shinka model Mazda RX-8 sports car in 2005. In only three years time, regardless of its mileage, its resale value dropped more than the entire cost of my Vectrix. I think I got a better deal than she did, but heck, we're both happy.

And one last note on the "green" issue...If you truly want to be "green", don't have children. That one decision alone will save the planet more fuel, more food, more air and water quality, and reduce waste by multitudes more than the largest amount of conservatism you can possibly come up with.

My second choice would have been a Suzuki Burgman 450. I've ridden one. Wasn't impressed at all. Glad I sprung the extra bucks for the Vectrix, and I wish the company all the best!

That's because you, in the US, have much cheaper gas and , I presume, more expensive electricity (0,03149 EUR/kWh (without all taxes) here).

In my country, I pay 1.263 EUR/liter of gas = 6.25 US$ / US gallon. My 2001 Renault Clio consumes aprox. 5.5litres/100km (42 US MPG) = 7 EUR / 100km.
I pay 0.5 EUR / 100km for electricity for my Vectrix and I've driven 6000kms in 2010, so the savings were 390 EUR.

The amount sums up to nice savings. I didn't have to service my Vectrix in 2010, so the electricity bill was my only running cost.

Sure, don't buy a vectrix to save costs.
I had 4 battery packs in my vectrix, and only one performed as expected during 1 year. The two first packs were replaced by general recalls (they said a bad connectors and so on, but the truth was that by early 2007 all the vectrix batteries were dying at fast pace due to bad firmware and lack of BMS).
Fortunately the third pack performed superb. I had over 80 km of range with conservative driving. But after one year some cells went out of balance, getting temperature readings of over 60C during normal driving conditions. I got the 4rth battery again under warranty. Disastrous battery: It is not performing well. The cut-off voltage without load is 120v, meaning that there are 5 cells with small capacity. After a full charge I can ride 1 km at full power, then the voltage drops so much that the controller limits the discharge rate and I can't get full power any longer. My vectrix is crawling like a normal 125cc gas scooter!!!

My 4 year warranty will expire in 6 months. My bad, 4th battery will last after hot season, 8-10 months. THEN I'll need to buy a NEW battery with BMS. Vectrix will only have BMS for lithium. And vectrix will advise me to purchase an entire new vectrix build around this "new battery" technology. OK, hold on. If according to vectrix engineers I have to throw my old vectrix into a museum AND BUY A NEW ONE, why don't I buy a 2012 ZERO? or a 2012 EMPULSE?

And the resuming of the scrap vx-2, build in China, with full china quality: dammed cheap cheap cheap mentality... Of course the new GP VX1 bikes will have the same CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP mentality... is this the end of vectrix??
I believed in vectrix for 6 years (2004-2010). But I'm starting to loose faith.. After 3.5 years of having a chronic problem in the v's core technology, vectrix couldn't find a single good solution.

By the way, in my country I pay 0,140069 EUR/kwh and 1.31 EUR/liter of gas.
My 2008 Wv polo bluemotion consumes aprox. 3.9 litres/100km, very cheap to run.
Electricity is becoming really expensive in my country. But the world's peak oil in 2005 will keep future gas prices very high. Electricity is my choice.

cheers,
R

Hello every one
By more than a year I follow the forum this is my first post
I’m from Portugal, in the center of the country Leiria
I have V1 that I acquired in July 2008
My diary journey is 27 km.
Everything runs fine until I did 3600 km, when the battery pack died. My local dealer did perform the change with no costs for me, and until now everything runs OK.
Now I have run for 11800 km, I always charge de bike at home preferential during the night (half the price of the electricity) and I control the charge with a simple electricity meter. Before the Vectrix I had a Honda Transalp 600 for more than 12 years. When the price of gasoline starts to rise in 2008, I decided to make the change. Another decision was always compare the prices of gas in my region, the supposed consume of gasoline in Transalp (5,5 L/100Km), the costs of maintenance (tiers, chain, oil, brakes …), with the consume of electricity and tires in my new Vectrix.
Now, after aprox. 2,5 years the numbers are:
Total distance: 11800 km
Total energy: 1050 kWh
Total cost of energy: 80 €
Equivalent costs in my older “traditional” bike: 892 €

Other numbers:
For the Vectrix tires (front and rear) and top case support ( the first one broke): 500 €
For de the “traditional” bike in equivalent distance: 800 €

Now the price of gasoline in Portugal are at the level of 2008, 1,60 €/L, in my projection the pay back will be in 5 years, if battery pack runs OK, comparatively if I had bought a traditional new bike.
The advantages are in the next years the price of battery pack certainly fall but de electrical motor of the bike still fine for next 5 years or more.
here is the evolution of gas prices

JF

Total distance: 11800 km

Now the price of gasoline in Portugal are at the level of 2008, 1,60 €/L, in my projection the pay back will be in 5 years, if battery pack runs OK, comparatively if I had bought a traditional new bike.

I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. According to my experience, a V NIMH battery under Barcelona's weather performs well during 5.000-15.000 km. When the owner notices the first symptoms of a damaged/unbalanced battery (disappearing bar syndrome of over 4 bars - lack of power - flashing temps lights and so on), it may only last 1.000-10.000 km more.
25.000 km is a best-case scenario for my vectrix. Maybe you live in a cooler enviroment, and your best case scenario would be 80.000 km. But I personally think it is quite improbable that your pack will last 5 years...

I guess it is time to call my vectrix fan/friends and find out how their packs doing..

Now please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not convinced that the Vectrix is really all that cheap to run....as far as fuel is concerned (obviously very cheap maintenance wise)

But I calculate that if costs me about $1 to charge up after 35km. where my old 500cc Scarabeo scooter, which did 3.6l/100km would, on current fuel prices, cost $1.50.

it does all depend upon how much you pay for fuel and electricity.

my Vectrix has cost me in total to date (including electricity, tyres, etc) ~$10'000
it has travelled 21'500km, giving a total of $0.465/km if it stopped working today.
I bought mine in Nov 2009.

Its already the cheapest vehicle I have ever owned.

petrol here is $1.36/L
and I have a battery big enough to use off peak electricity only, which means I pay $0.10/kwh
My Vectrix uses 9kwh/100km (90Wh/km).

Matt

I made the switch to EV over 2 years ago based on the fact my car was accumulating a massive annual mileage and fuel in the UK currently costs an average of around £1.26 (US$1.95) per litre. According to my calculations that's $7.37 for a US gallon or £5.72 for a UK gallon.

I had never owned another motorcycle/maxi-scooter so cannot compare running costs. My car does around 49-55+ MPG, but needs filters, plugs, oil and in my case a replacement water pump, turbo and other parts which soon add up. For super unleaded (my choice) I pay £39-£42 (US$60-$65) to do somewhere between 280-330 miles per tank on average. My electricity is free to me at work and minimal cost at home charging off peak overnight.

For me, my journeys to and from work are slightly quicker, I don't have to sit in traffic jams, my fuel is virtually free in comparison to petrol and the only running costs to date are 2 tyres and some services to make sure it running OK. I have done over 11,000 trouble free miles (there have been minor software glitches and 1 blown fuse) to date and aim to use my Vectrix 8-9 months of the year.

With those kind of figures, I'm glad I purchased my Vectrix.

My car does around 49-55+ MPG

That's UK MPG not US MPG, right?

Indeed it is.

Interesting discussion - I just threw some numbers into a spreadsheet, based on my location and riding experience. Where I live in California electricity costs around $.15/kWh and gas is well over $3/gal. To be conservative I rounded down the cost of gas to $3/gal, but who knows if gas prices will drop, stay the same, or skyrocket. When I bought my Vectrix gas was $4.50/gal (in 2008), so clearly the cost of gas is a significant contributing factor. I chose the Honda Silverwing for comparison, as the initial cost is similar and the bikes are about the same size/weight.

By my calculations I will have saved a couple thousand dollars by the end of this year. Of course there are all kinds of caveats - I know - such as battery pack failures, the inconvenience of limited range, etc. But keep in mind that ICE bikes are also subject to failure. For example my Honda CBR had a starter problem that required replacement of the starter. The starter was located in the middle of the engine block... it was a very expensive repair.

One more thing to consider: some employers may allow charging at work, in my case approximately half of my charging costs are not even coming out of my pocket.

when the speedo shows 115 it's only pulling 6amps, and when the speedo shows 30 it's only pulling 2amps.

it also only consumed, as far as I understand it, 3.5kw/h to fully charge from that red light at a total cost of 0.63c @ $0.177 per kw/h.

*snip*

the final interesting thing I noticed was that during the final part of the charging when the speedo shows '30', the battery temp actually dropped.

115 on speedo = 11.5A into the battery (probably at ~130v)
so 1500W.
1600W on the AC side @ 265vac = 6A (were you charging at night perhaps? or have a big solar system connected? 265v is right at the grid service limit)

3.5kwh sounds right from a red battery light, while still only being up to the cc 3A stage.

Matt

First of all, and I suspect this is because we're 240v in Aus, when the speedo shows 115 it's only pulling 6amps, and when the speedo shows 30 it's only pulling 2amps.

The nail measures the amps in battery's DC volts. It starts at 12 Amps, and as the battery recharges and increases in voltage, it lowers to 10.5 Amps: the charger inserts a constant amount of energy. In DC voltage: volts x Ampers = Watts

Your gadget only measures the amps in the grid's AC volts, 240v

Anyone who buys an EV to save money has proven himself king of fools.

The reason EVs have NEVER become the norm is because from the very start, fuel burning vehicles have been cheaper to produce, and over the long haul, cheaper to operate.

This is patently wrong. I don't know if a Vectrix saves money over a conventional motorcycle, but one electric motorcycle is hardly enough to condemn all EVs. I, for example, sold my car many years ago now and replaced it with a $1400 electric bicycle. The bicycle paid for itself the first year and has had operating costs close to zero ever since. I did spend $80 on new tires once. Now you might claim that replacing a car with a bicycle isn't a fair test, but your original statement was so broad it covers me. I bought an EV to save money and I did save money. At the time I would have liked to replace my car with an electric car. Unfortunately this wasn't a practical option.

I think my wife is going to buy one of the new electric cars coming out in the next year or two. I expect it will save money although this is not the motivation to buy one. Really she uses her current car so little that operating costs are not consideration. The reason I think it will save money is mostly on maintenance. The only things that will conceivably need work on an EV are the same moving parts as in an conventional car: steering, axles, CV joints, suspension, and so forth. The electric motor won't break and the battery packs should last the life of the car. Toyota has shown that large battery packs can have exceptional durability. What won't need maintenance are: oil, gas engine, transmission, starter, alternator, water pump, fuel pump, oil pump, fuel injection system, exhaust system, and on and on. Also an EV with regenerative braking shouldn't need much or any brake maintenance either.

Electricity prices vary greatly based on where you are and how your power is generated. I can't speak to these. The nice thing about electricity is I can lock in that cost right now with solar panels. Gasoline, according to most reports I have read, is expected to rise in price ahead of inflation for the foreseeable future.

as it turns out, it ended up using just under 4kw/h...it seems it hadn't finished.

my gizmo showed 1450w on full charge, 500w on low charge, 300w with fans only and 50w on standby.

is that 6amps, 2 amps, 1.25amps and 0.2 amps respectively?

it was a night charge...it finished at 11.30pm local time.

I was going to set my gizmo to turn off at 50w, but I now realise that part of the charge process was just fans running with no charge, and that seems to use the battery for power...meaning I'd interrupt that if I put in a 50w shut off.

ah of course, you're using the china vision energy meter.

I suspect those meters read a bit on the low side (in both amps and watts), but at least its linear.

IIRC, the only part of the charge process that runs the fans only is just after the 3A constant current phase.

that is a good time to terminate the charge process, but keeping the fans running would be good.

you can rig the fans to stay on (and be powered from the grid) with a 12v powersupply.

with that energy meter, be aware it takes ~15sec for the power reading to stablise (its alot more low power cutout than effective energy meter).

Matt

Hi everyone
How about comparing the V to another household appliance. A friend has a new 55" plasma TV. This appliance uses 500W continious to run. So if it ran for 8 hours it would consume about 4kW/h, about the same as a full charge for a V.
It seems to me that we should look at our energy use in a little more wholeistic way. The energy we use without thinking (see TV example above) could be generated at home with solar and negate all the losses involved in moving the same energy to where we want to use it!

As for the energy meter, Power Factor is a complication in AC power and means that you cannot multiply AC volts by AC amps to get AC Watts. I have tried to use one of the cheap energy meters and have found it to be very inacurate compared to good Fluke type instruments.

Running costs of a V: I dragged my battery packs out again this week, tested all 102 cells and replaced one. Put two new tyres on and inspected the break pads (like new). I will give the V a wash and that is the yearly service. I last replaced a swollen cell in November '09.

All up, my V has had 5 replacement tyres (my cost= $500), one motor controller, a charger (both warranty items= $0) and 4 replacement cells (donated by Vectrix Australia in it's dying days= $0), about $640 in electricity costs for a little over 20 000km of fun, two wheel transport!

I am not complaining about the $14500 purchase price in March 2008. I expect the bike will last another couple of years with occasional cell replacement and tyres along the way. I recently aquired a Prius battery pack and am wondering if this could form the basis of a replacement pack for the V. There are other options apart from the vapourware that is the New Vectrix Corp.

The exciting new product coming on the market from Brammo, Zero and maybe Mission and Motocyze are not widely available outside the US, so those of us who want to ride electrons have verry little choice but to maintain the existing Vectrix fleet for as long as we can.

Cheers

Hi there,
here a little "sum-up" of my usage:

......Dist.droven ...Costs .....Money saved .Differenz Cost/Km Payback
Total 8255,9 Km ..€ 10681,3 .€ 2261,0 ....€ -8420,2 € 1,0 ..21,17%

How do I calculate this? Distance is the easy part...

(runing) costs caused by the decision to buy a Vectrix:

Purchase € 9108,0
Registration € 163,5
Disclock € 39,9
Insurance/08-09 € 348,0
KWH-Meter € 39,9
Insurance/09-10 € 348,0
Peak-Adapter € 271
USBextension € 14,95
Insurance/10-11 € 348,0

I needed no tyres for the drivingdistance yet because I had 2 other V´s during mine was on repair.
I did not have to pay for charging yet, this was fundet by family and my work (both wanted no money yet.
Costs are about € 90 FOR 8385 Km by calculating a consumption of 5,5 KWh on 100 Km (I don´t drive above
70Km/h. The Insurance is rather high but it´s a "Teilkasko" meaning damage like theft,fire acidents caused
by deer and other things are paid by this insurance (partially comprehensive insurance).

Benefits:

Funding State € 300
Funding City € 500

NOT using car € 1461
This only works out because I DO use the Vectrix instead of the car when the weather
is fine enough. That means I still drive the Vectrix when I won´t ride my Virago.
The sum is not only gasoline but the costs I had per Km with my cars too (Tires,
repair, maintenance etc. through the cars Life)

And there is two other benefits:
There is nothing compareable to the smooth, silent riding,
and I learned a lot in this Forum about EV´s from you all!

Greetings Mike

a further 24 hours later it showed 135v, and it stayed there for the next 48 hours.

This question has been widely discussed in this forum. Hi self discharge, energy lost into heat disipation and so on. It is normal in NIMH.
If you want full range, unplug and go. Don't let the battery stay 2 days without recharge.

I get red light at about 121-122v

This is the part that is not normal. Cutoff voltage with no load of 122 means that with some load the voltage drops to the motorcontroller's forced low-limit, 115v. 6 cells are empty and can't sustain the voltage.
Cutoff voltage with no load:
116v-117v: superb battery
118v-119v: Ok
120v-121v: reduced range
122-123v: Owner perceives problems.
124v-: Battery is no longer usable.

My battery was recently checked...every cell

that's ok... But the battery was checked at full charge? Or completely depleted?
To find bad cells you need to perform a full discharge. With the battery discharged and with some load (engine running), check all the cells.
Of course, this test will kill the weakest cells, but if you plan to replace them...

A device like this one may help you:

http://www.ev-power.eu/index.php?p=productsMore&iProduct=327&sName=celllog8-logger

It can record data, and can beep alarms.
One tip: If you put one wire every 3 cells, with 5 devices you almost cover all the battery. This device records data, so with a deep discharge it will help you locate the damaged - short capacity - hi self-discharge - bad cells.

12 hours later it showed 139v.

a further 24 hours later it showed 135v, and it stayed there for the next 48 hours.

I still have a full bars showing. after riding 6km at reasonably low speed, I had 131v.

Hi Aircon, when my battery was down (one! dead cell with only ~1Ah capacity left) the voltage droped to 134V after resting some days.
But that don´t mean that your battery is defective to (crossing fingers). Now with the repaired pack (I had to use one Block [9 cells]
with only 27 AH because I got no other spare cells)it stays around 139 Volt. My Range is around 50-55 Km depending on the conditions
(ridingstyle, temp, restingtime after last charge, etc.)On my longer trips (40 Km with 1/3 city 2/3 intercity @ Vmax ~70 Km/h the voltage
drops after several Km to 131 V too and stays there for 20 Km, then drops the last Km to 127 V. With the damaged battery it dropped to
128 V after some Km and stayed there before it went down. The 3V Diference where not 2 or 3 cells in my case only one. It was caused by
the rise of the internal resistance of the pack under load caused by the heating of the dead cell (*). So when you have still 131 V and no
heavy heating your battery should be usable. But check V and temp often. Avoid full charges or full discharges to avoid stressing the
weaker cells.

(*) At this Point I want to mention that my pack has NO internal voltagesensors, only the 12 Temp-sensors. I did not dismantle the sensors
my bike was delivered that way.

Greetings Mike

... He just tested each cell individually and they were all pretty much identical...but no load. He concluded that my battery is perfectly healthy.

He also said red light shouldn't come on until about 100v!!!

Sorry, but checking the cellvoltage without load makes no sense. I checked other NiMH cells which where not balanced, they had all the same voltage over
a long period of discharging, although one cell had about 40 Ah and the other 68 Ah (testing 78Ah cells). And about the 100V discharge comment. either
he made a joke or has no idea. :-/
Talk to people who are used to highvoltage and high ampererates, maybe the can help you, do research here on the forum and test the battery yourself.
But be carefull, the voltage of the battery is dangerous and can seriously hurt you if you don´t know what you do.

Greetings Mike

Measuring the open voltage of each cell involves a lot of work (nevertheless it is almost useless! It will only find totally dead cells). Both battery packs would need to be removed and then the three layers separated from each other. The temp sensor cables need to be removed and later threaded through the plastic trays in the correct way. A torque-wrench needs to be used repeatedly over at least several hours to connect the modules in each of the three layers properly (maybe threadlock would work, too, but I have not tried that).

Are you sure he did not just measure the open voltage of the 34 cells in the top layer?

And turning up without a laptop? How much did you pay this guy?

The way to find under-performing cells quickly is to look and feel for lateral swelling of the cells. This also involves taking the three layers apart.

This approach would have found all the significantly under-performing cells in the Vectux. While the battery is apart, you might as well measure open voltages, just in case there is a cell with an internal short that did for some reason not swell up.

And YES, you can indeed kill yourself in the process - not for the faint-hearted!

Are you sure he did not just measure the open voltage of the 34 cells in the top layer?

clever comment MIK, you may be right. If they know so little about batteries and the Vectrix, they would not figure out that there are 3 layers. They measured only the top layer, only 1/3rd of the battery...

Glad to see that finally somebody dared to initite this discussion on COSTS! Few months ago (see discussion "why did Vectrix fail?") this was not accepted in the name of "green-attitude" :-(
Whatever... my position was to compare a Burgman 125 rather than a Silverwing 400. Rational behind my choice the maximum speed equivalence, where I think you use the engine couple (less important in a cummuting mixed itinerary in my opinion)

That is what came out

Vectrix
Sale price about 11.000€ - NOW 9000€
Electricity to run the scooter (approx) 1€/100km
6 months check (repetitive as per manufacturer recommendation) 15€
Batteries under warranty 5 Yrs (2000€ new pack)- NOW 2 YEARS (and a lot of issues identified)

Suzuki Burgman K8 125
Sale price about 3500€ Now 3200€
Consumption (based on my experience) 2.9lt/100Km = 3.5€/100Km - NOW 4.5€/100Km
Oil + Filter change = 20€ every 4000 Km (done by myself)
Engine duration (estimation) 25.000 Km - 50.000 Km already done

The rest of maintenance can be considered similar (e.g. brake pads)

That makes a price delta of about 7500€ (NOW 6000€) and a yearly running costs of about 150€ (6000 KM base + ). No difference in maintenance (2*15€ for Vectrix and 1.5*20 for Burgman).
I would have needed more than 30 Years to make even (battery change & engine change not considered)- Experience shows that it is more likely to change batteries after few years that engine after 25.000 KM!!

Please feel free to amend/improve

6 months check (repetitive as per manufacturer recommendation) 15€

There is nothing to check.
The bike will tell you if there is a problem, but otherwise just leave it alone.

btw, the brake pads last just about forever.
I'm at 23'000km, and my pads are still almost brand new, and the same ones the bike came with from the factory.
if you are finding your are needing to actually use the friction brakes often, you're doing it wrong.

Matt