Media Review Stark Varg Range Test by Tucker at ECR

[F451]

Another great video by Tucker at ECR on the Stark Varg. All tests run the battery level from 100% to 10%.

Mountain single track, quick pace, 40 hp, regen 50%: 34 miles.
Max range slow trail ride, 25 hp, regen 50%: 50 miles.
Motocross tracks, 2 pro level riders:
50 hp, 50% regen: 18 miles, 56 mins ride time.
40/50 hp, 50% regen: 18 miles, 64 mins ride time.

 

[Philip]

Mountain single track, quick pace, 40 hp, regen 50%: 34 miles.
.......
Motocross tracks, 2 pro level riders:
50 hp, 50% regen: 18 miles, 56 mins ride time.
40/50 hp, 50% regen: 18 miles, 64 mins ride time.

This is backwards. Is he using more power riding a single track than a motocross track???

And an average of just 18 mph at a motocross track??? That's trail riding, not motocross.

 

[AL_V]

This is backwards. Is he using more power riding a single track than a motocross track???

And an average of just 18 mph at a motocross track??? That's trail riding, not motocross.

It's not 18mph, it's 18 miles of range using 90% of the battery

 

[Philip]

It's not 18mph, it's 18 miles of range using 90% of the battery

It took that pro rider 56 or 64 minutes to ride 18 miles at a motocross track.

Obviously, someone made a mistake somewhere.

 

[AL_V]

It took that pro rider 56 or 64 minutes to ride 18 miles at a motocross track.

Obviously, someone made a mistake somewhere.

Yes, you are correct, the ride times are wrong in post #1.
In the video at 6:45, you can hear the mileage results:
33.8 miles "normal trail pace"
49.5 miles "slow trail pace"
18 miles MX
On my Ultra bee, after changing to decent tires, 21" front, 54T sprocket, added handguards, steering stabilizer, tiny skid plate, I only get about 20 miles, and it doesn't seem to make a huge difference how fast I ride, but 20 miles can be eaten up in less than an hour to several hours.
So, looking forward to more range on the Stark, 34 miles sounds almost acceptable to me.

 

[F451]

Yes, you are correct, the ride times are wrong in post #1.
In the video at 6:45, you can hear the mileage results:
33.8 miles "normal trail pace"
49.5 miles "slow trail pace"
18 miles MX
On my Ultra bee, after changing to decent tires, 21" front, 54T sprocket, added handguards, steering stabilizer, tiny skid plate, I only get about 20 miles, and it doesn't seem to make a huge difference how fast I ride, but 20 miles can be eaten up in less than an hour to several hours.
So, looking forward to more range on the Stark, 34 miles sounds almost acceptable to me.

I posted what Tucker said in his vid about ride times. I don't ride mx so it is of no concern to me and I did not do the math to check how it works out for lap times or whatever, was just trying to summarize what he said his results were.

~4:20 in the vid he states "56 minutes of ride time" for the first mx track test.
~ 5:10 in the vid he states "1 hour and 4 minutes of ride time" for the second mx track test.

The mileage numbers are accurate and those are the more useful numbers for me personally:

Mountain single track, quick pace: 34 miles.
Max range slow trail ride: 50 miles.

I wish he would just write out the results in his video description area, or in the comments, or even just a graphic within the video, but he never does. I suspect its on purpose to keep viewers watching the entire video, possibly something to do with youtube's compensation algorithms? I don't know, but its very annoying.

 

[Philip]

I wish he would just write out the results in his video description area, or in the comments, or even just a graphic within the video, but he never does. I suspect its on purpose to keep viewers watching the entire video, possibly something to do with youtube's compensation algorithms? I don't know, but its very annoying.

LOL! This is why I would rather discuss this with you guys than go to the source.

 

[AL_V]

I posted what Tucker said in his vid about ride times. I don't ride mx so it is of no concern to me and I did not do the math to check how it works out for lap times or whatever, was just trying to summarize what he said his results were.

~4:20 in the vid he states "56 minutes of ride time" for the first mx track test.
~ 5:10 in the vid he states "1 hour and 4 minutes of ride time" for the second mx track test.

The mileage numbers are accurate and those are the more useful numbers for me personally:

Mountain single track, quick pace: 34 miles.
Max range slow trail ride: 50 miles.

I wish he would just write out the results in his video description area, or in the comments, or even just a graphic within the video, but he never does. I suspect its on purpose to keep viewers watching the entire video, possibly something to do with youtube's compensation algorithms? I don't know, but its very annoying.

Yes, without a doubt, he wants you to watch the whole thing, and will probably remove any comments that might tell you the time of the pertinent results

 

[Oded]

At 2:33 into the video, you can hear him say what sums it up for me: "roughly 10% better range than what I was getting on my Alta Redshift".

We all know the Redshift so well, so this estimate (even if not very accurate) visualise for all Alta owners, the difference between the bikes, which is not vast.

 

[Swank171]

At 2:33 into the video, you can hear him say what sums it up for me: "roughly 10% better range than what I was getting on my Alta Redshift".

We all know the Redshift so well, so this estimate (even if not very accurate) visualise for all Alta owners, the difference between the bikes, which is not vast.

Doesn’t seem huge in battery life/range moto enemy but that could be because of the massive improvements in power….not that I’ve ridden one….I’ve ridden an alta but I’ve seen some reviews that say the stark is a lot more powerful?

Maybe someone who has both can speak to this with real world experience?

 

[Oded]

The Stark is definately more powerful, but it is mostly unusable power.
The Alta do not lack power. That's for sure.

Most Stark riders I see on youtube settle on 40-50 HP. That's exactly what Alta offers (42-50 HP).

 

[Swank171]

The Stark is definately more powerful, but it is mostly unusable power.
The Alta do not lack power. That's for sure.

Most Stark riders I see on youtube settle on 40-50 HP. That's exactly what Alta offers (42-50 HP).

I believe this….personally as a vet rider 40 ish range hp for me would be ideal….more fun to be able to ride the bike hard rather than have so much power it will get away from you. This obviously depends on the track and conditions but for most vet style tracks 40 is a really manageable fun amount of power. Just like how I’d rather ride a 125 hard and make a bunch of noise than be on a 250 2 stroke anymore. My racing days are pins screws and plates behind me these days….

 

[Oded]

I believe this….personally as a vet rider 40 ish range hp for me would be ideal….more fun to be able to ride the bike hard rather than have so much power it will get away from you. This obviously depends on the track and conditions but for most vet style tracks 40 is a really manageable fun amount of power. Just like how I’d rather ride a 125 hard and make a bunch of noise than be on a 250 2 stroke anymore. My racing days are pins screws and plates behind me these days….

Those who ride enduro need even less power than MX. When riding single tracks, rocks & and technical terrain, the added power is unnecessary.

What I am saying, this is a great time to buy a used Alta. You still get an incredible bike, at a fraction of a cost.

 

[Swank171]

Those who ride enduro need even less power than MX. When riding single tracks, rocks & and technical terrain, the added power is unnecessary.

What I am saying, this is a great time to buy a used Alta. You still get an incredible bike, at a fracture of a cost.

This is a great point….

 

[Philip]

According to confidential sources:

Right now we are basically treating the cells with kids gloves. When the battery % was showing ten percent the lowest cell was above 3.0V. We are not charging to 4.2V and we consider 3.0V to be zero SoC. We can go down quite a bit below 3.0V and likely get around 10% there. We can also charge closer to 4.2V and get a few percent there too.

Now a word on the power limiting algorithm. As the voltage drops you need to draw more current from the battery to get the same power. Unfortunately, drawing high current from cells when they are close to empty is not allowed. This is for sure and issue in MX when using 60+ HP, but for trail riding it is not so much an issue. The software is set up for MX. Since mechanical power is speed * torque you cannot have both high speed and high torque on a battery with low charge. You can have low speed and high torque; but we chose to limit torque even if speed is low. If we allow high torque at low speed the bike will accelerate hard out of a turn, but will be unable to deliver high torque on a jump face for example. So the algorithm is designed to make the bike feel weak even at low speed when the battery is close to empty. For trail riding that is likely not the best algorithm; it is possible to make the bike usable to a lower battery percentage.

In short, at the moment we are really conservative with how we treat the cells. With time and testing those limits will be opened up resulting in higher effective range. However, if you make a habit of going from 100% to 0% cycle life will suffer.

Oh, and the same goes for the inverter and motor thermal limits. At the moment we are quite conservative there too.

Hope you find this information interesting/useful.

In summary, the battery voltage limits are quite conservative now and that range will increase as those limits are gradually pushed.

 

[Oded]

According to confidential sources:

Basically, this is what Alta did with Erzberg fw - thermal limits were raised, and perhaps also cell's voltage.

Stock Alta also stop the charging process at 4.05v per cell if I remember correctly, for the same reasons quoted above

 

[Swank171]

According to confidential sources:

So basically, we are going to see range numbers increase as testing and R&D continues through software updates?

So is this alluding to the stark being capable of further outperforming the ALTA?

 

[Philip]

So basically, we are going to see range numbers increase as testing and R&D continues through software updates?

So is this alluding to the stark being capable of further outperforming the ALTA?

Yes, exactly.

 

[Aleksandar13]

On my gen 2 with me 105kg no gear on it and headlight... The most I've seen was as follows :
44 miles of range down to 1% battery...
- 18 miles road miles spent at 40 to 45 mph to get to the trails
- 6 miles on the road spent between 25 and 30 mph

Around 20 miles of byways and green lanes in the UK, nothing to technical mostly gravel and some muddy terrain. What I've noticed is that the road section where you do 40mph absolutely kills the battery , for 9 miles on the road you use up between 18 to 20 percent of the battery.
Off road however it's very good and you get so much more out of it.. On a closed enduro track with speeds not bigger than 30 mph and some technical terrain I rode half a day in session of 20 min with breaks of 20 min or more and used 33 % battery... That's where the bike is amazing and you would probably get 3 to 4 hours of riding I would guess.
Next play day I'll test this out and report back but overall I'm very happy with it.