Battery price

[UKLee]

A new complete battery was £6200 or about that a while ago I notice now it is £2699, Makes carrying a spare battery and finding a way to change it faster ( holes in bodywork etc ) worth looking at.
Does anyone do this? is there a lead to charge a battery that is not in the bike, in fact can you beacuse the water system sometimes kicks in whilst charging?

 

[Beagle]

Eddie Karlsson said that with his official team it takes about 1.5 min to swap batteries.

5 minutes…Video creator and racer Eddie Karlsson talks Stark Varg

Stark’s newest recruit Eddie Karlsson just took his (and their) first extreme enduro race win on the Varg – Enduro21 catches five with the rider turned and video creator to find out more…

enduro21.com

Of course we don't know what kind of modifications they've done.

With the official battery price halved, the cost of ownership just tanked. Without any engine-related maintenance the only real cost for high hours bike (besides tires, brakes, chains...) would be to get a new battery. If it does go more or less to the 500 cycles it is designed for, that'd be 3000 € every 300 h (if you're doing MX at high speed), 10€/h, not bad.

 

[VargRider1609]

A new complete battery was £6200 or about that a while ago I notice now it is £2699, Makes carrying a spare battery and finding a way to change it faster ( holes in bodywork etc ) worth looking at.
Does anyone do this? is there a lead to charge a battery that is not in the bike, in fact can you beacuse the water system sometimes kicks in whilst charging?

I believe it is not possible to charge a battery that it is not connected to a bike.

You would need a custom charger/interface that could replicate the functions of the ECU, since that is what monitors all the parameters of the bike.

Maybe Stark does it with their factory riders and that is how they can have batteries topped up and do quick swaps.

 

[Theo]

The new price sounds like awesome news for sure! Now it's even cheaper than a power station having the same capacity.

is there a lead to charge a battery that is not in the bike, in fact can you beacuse the water system sometimes kicks in whilst charging?

Considering that the coolant only cools the inverter and the motor and that active cooling is an available option for charging, the inverter must somehow be involved while charging and so if it's not connected to the battery that should be a problem. I suspect that the inverter works as a rectifier while charging: maybe the charger provides it with AC which it transforms into DC before sending it to the battery. Am I right?

 

[rayivers]

Zero motorcycles with modular batteries - especially the fleet bikes (police, military, etc.) have long been capable of offboard charging, probably using the Zero quick charger. It seems to me that most any MC-type battery should be able to do the same with the proper charger-output and data connections.

 

[VargRider1609]

The new price sounds like awesome news for sure! Now it's even cheaper than a power station having the same capacity.

Considering that the coolant only cools the inverter and the motor and that active cooling is an available option for charging, the inverter must somehow be involved while charging and so if it's not connected to the battery that should be a problem. I suspect that the inverter works as a rectifier while charging: maybe the charger provides it with AC which it transforms into DC before sending it to the battery. Am I right?

I took my charger stand apart just out of curiosity, and the charger unit itself looks suspiciously similar to the one I had on my Alta MXR back in the day. If you look up the specs for that charger online, the output is AC, and the battery is DC, so the inverter on the bike must do the switch from one to another.

Yet another reason on why you would need to have a custom unit to be able to charge the battery outside the bike.

 

[Philip]

WOW! Battery

I remember Anton Wass didn't believe anyone would want to buy a spare battery because of its price.
And now I am betting Stark wishes they had designed a bike with a quick-swappable battery.

 

[rayivers]

If you look up the specs for that charger online

Here are the specs for the Alta standard charger that came with my bike (288xx variant). Page 1 pretty much says it all.

 

[UKLee]

Maybe it is possible to get some jumper cables made up that plug in to the battery cables to reach the second battery sat next to the bike and plug the charger in to the bike in the normal way?

 

[F451]

Stark should come up with a solution to charge their battery while the battery if off the bike, even if they don't sell it to customers now, its a no-brainer.

Hopefully someone will step up with a solution if Stark doesn't offer one, lots of enterprising people out there.

And that battery price, holy cow.

 

[Foss]

I’m debating on buying a spare battery at this price now

 

[TCMB371]

I'd buy a spare battery if it were a bit easier to change it. With 2 guys working on a clean bike it's not that difficult. By myself with a dirty bike after a moto, not so much. I'd rather have a second bike.

 

[Foss]

Yea there needs to be an easier way to swap batteries on the fly. The front two bolts should be replaced with some sort of latch or locking mechanism once lined up. This way the weight of the battery swivels back towards the motor and both long bolts can be installed with little effort needed.