E-Rider on the Road | Martin Ammerlaan | Zero SR/S

15430 euro’s. The amount of money it took just to re-fuel my previous bikes. A Yamaha FZS600 (sports allrounder), and later a FJR1300 (sports tourer). To their credit, it spanned over a decade and a half, and over 200.000 kilometer in total. Were the bikes so thirsty? Not really. The FZS600 did 5L/100km (45mpg), and the FJR1300 (40-43 mpg). Right where you expect them to be.

That was just the fuel. One can easily double that number for maintenance. Oil changes, spark plugs, batteries, the occasional valve check, drive-chain and sprockets, new bearings. Nothing really out of the ordinary. It only got a repair once, and that was 200 EUR. Now add 10 sets of tires, and you just got north of 30.000 euro. Thirty thousand. Jikes!

No one really bats an eye if you refuel every other day or so, but once you add up the numbers the cost of an ICE bikes are staggering, far beyond the price of initial purchase.

This made me look at EV’s some years ago. In the summer of 2021 I rented a SR/S for a long weekend. And it blew my socks off. Instant acceleration, super quiet, decent range (>200km on B roads) and the dreaded range-anxiety never really got a grip on me. There are plenty of places to charge and a quick top op when you are lunching is really easy to do.

The man who helped me getting started on the rented Zero, jokingly told me ‘here is a charge card, if you can add more than 20 EUR on it for the weekend, I’ll happily pay the rest’. Jokes aside, I didn’t manage to spend more than 20 EUR on ‘fuel’ for that weekend. A full charge was 4-5 EUR and most of the charges are done just at home on your regular power outlet. That was the final push, my FJR1300 was on it’s way out.

Not long after I bought my own SR/S and made a dedicated power outlet in my garden where I parked the bike. Whenever I get home, I just plug the bike in, and the morning after, it’s all charged up and ready to go. I even added a smart switch to start charging when my solar panels are generating power. I can confidently say I can do a full charge on my solar panels alone.

I bought the SR/S second-hand, so the price was already down from showroom level. It was a year old, and have done 2500km. Had some updates applied to it. It can now use the full 17.3kWh battery, charge at 6.6kW and even reverse. When I go out for a drive, and it is less then 150km, I don’t have to worry about charging anymore.

Several weekends to the Eifel region in Germany later. We quite happily cleared 350-400km a day and charged when we wanted to drink / lunch. In the hills, the Zero is an absolute beast and really comes into its element. The power, the smoothness, re-gen braking. Since you don’t have to shift gears, you can spend more attention to the roads itself, the line to take into the corner, ease in the torque and start accelerating mid corner and just shoot off into the distance on corner exit.
And re-gen braking really helps the range. You can adjust the re-gen braking and on medium to heavy setting, you really have one-pedal-driving. You barely touch the brakes. It makes for an incredibly comfortable ride.

Many new trips are considered, even a deep dive into the Alps, which is just shy of a thousand kilometers from my home. I bought the bike in the spring of 2023, and happily use it as daily. To commute, visit friends / family and do longer trips. Done over 20.000 now I can confidently compare the bikes. I am not going back to a ICE bike. 🙂