Zero range calculator
How far a Zero goes on a charge, worked out from the forces the bike has to push against rather than from a marketing number. Pick your model, set the riding, and read the band.
Cruising at 110 km/h at 20°C. The lower figure is the one to plan on.
- Consumption
- 96.0 Wh/km
- Efficiency
- 10.4 km/kWh
- At the wheel
- 9.1 kW
- of 34 kW peak
- Usable energy
- 6.3 kWh
Range against speed
furthest at 30 km/hDrag climbs with the square of speed while the electronics cost the same whatever you do, so there is a speed that goes furthest, and it is slower than you think.
The amber dot is Zero’s own published figure. This bike’s drag was solved from it, so the model agrees with it there by construction. The rest of the curve is physics.
Where the energy goes
- Air resistance74.9 Wh/km78%
- Tyres7.7 Wh/km8%
- Climbing0.0 Wh/km—
- Braking0.0 Wh/km—
- Electronics & accessories0.9 Wh/km1%
- Motor & drivetrain9.7 Wh/km10%
- Battery losses2.9 Wh/km3%
The ridespeed, traffic, terrain
You and the loadposition, weight, luggage
Drag is not asked for as a coefficient, because nobody knows theirs. “Normal” is however Zero measured this bike; the rest are estimated adjustments to that.
Conditionstemperature, altitude, tyres
The batteryhealth, reserve, accessories
Before any of those, 95 W goes on lights, dash, BMS and the inverter simply being awake, which is why crawling is not free.
What each change is worth
Each change is measured from where the sliders are now. It is the question most people use the sliders to ask.
- Headwind+20 km/h against you−17 km−17 km
- A passa sustained 4 % climb−15 km−15 km
- Tired packstate of health 80 %−13 km−13 km
- Winterriding at 0°C−13 km−13 km
- −10 km/hslower cruise+11 km+11 km
- +10 km/hfaster cruise−9 km−9 km
- Pillion+85 kg and more drag−7 km−7 km
- Soft tyres0.5 bar under−1 km−1 km
What this is built on
- Usable pack
- 6.3 kWh
- badge says 7.2
- Kerb weight
- 140 kg
- All up
- 225 kg
- with you and the load
- Drag area
- 0.480 m²
- solved from the 55 mph claim
- Motor
- 34 kW peak
- Maker's claim
- 95 km
- 169 km city
How this works
Drag is solved from the maker’s figure
Every other range calculator asks for a drag coefficient. Nobody knows theirs, and the quantity that matters is the product of coefficient and frontal area anyway. So this one does not ask. Zero publishes a highway range for each model at a stated steady speed, and at steady speed drag is the only unknown in the energy balance, so it can be recovered by inverting the model against the maker’s own figure. Across the catalog that lands streetfighters near 0.36 m², adventure bikes near 0.40 and supermotos, where the rider sits bolt upright in clean air with no bodywork at all, near 0.49. Nobody put that ordering in. It came out of the arithmetic, which is evidence that the method works.
A constant power floor
Lights, dash, BMS and DC-DC draw around 95 W whatever the road is doing, and the driveline adds its own no-load loss on top. Most calculators omit this term, and without it consumption tends to zero as speed does and range climbs without limit. One published calculator reports 874 km at 30 km/h for a 14.4 kWh bike, which is 60 km per kWh, an impossible figure. With the floor in, range has a maximum at a real speed, which is the shape riders observe.
Cold shrinks the tank
A cold pack makes the battery smaller, so temperature is applied to the energy available rather than folded into the consumption figure, where a reader would try to interpret it as work done. Only the internal-resistance loss is charged per kilometre, along with the denser air, which does cost you drag.
Roads go uphill
A range calculator with no gravity term is missing about 0.84 kWh per 1,000 m climbed on a 310 kg bike and rider: seven per cent of a ZF14.4 pack before efficiency, and far more over a real pass. Set a gradient and watch it dominate everything else; set a negative one and get part of it back, but only the part regeneration can catch.
What it does not model
Traffic is reduced to a count of stops, and wind to a steady headwind, so gusts and crosswind are not modelled. Neither is regeneration being unavailable when the pack is nearly full, or tyre temperature as distinct from air temperature. And unless you tell it, the calculator does not know the true state of health of your own battery, which is the single largest unknown on this page and the one thing a log file can settle.
The constant load is an estimate rather than a measurement. Fitting it properly from our own ride corpus was tried and abandoned: with rides from several different bikes at several different masses, no per-ride elevation and stop counts already folded into the average speed, the regression returns a negative flat term and an impossible 1,451 W floor. The regression is ill-conditioned, and a fitted number that confident would have been worse than a plain estimate.
Questions
How accurate is this range calculator?
It agrees with Zero’s own published highway figure by construction, because each bike’s drag area is solved from that figure. Away from that point it is physics, and the error bar is roughly minus twelve to plus eight per cent, which is why the page shows a band and tells you to plan on its lower edge. It does not model traffic, gusting wind, or a pack whose real state of health you have not measured.
Why does riding slower not always give more range?
Two effects take over at walking pace. The lights, dash, BMS and DC-DC draw around 95 watts whatever you do, and that costs more per kilometre the longer the kilometre takes. A motor asked for a third of a kilowatt is also barely working: it spends much of what it draws on its own no-load losses, so efficiency falls too. Air resistance meanwhile falls as you slow down. Between them there is a speed that goes furthest, and below it you lose range again. A calculator that leaves these terms out has no such optimum and reports impossible city figures.
How much range does cold weather cost an electric motorcycle?
Mostly it shrinks the tank rather than raising the consumption. At 0 °C a lithium pack gives up roughly ten per cent less energy than at 20 °C, internal resistance costs a little more on top, cold tyres roll slightly harder and cold air is denser so drag rises. Together that is commonly a fifteen to twenty per cent shorter ride in winter.
What does climbing cost?
Lifting 310 kg of bike and rider a thousand metres takes about 0.84 kWh at the wheel, near 0.95 kWh from the pack, which is most of a tenth of a ZF14.4 battery. You get part of it back on the way down through regeneration, but only part.
Does this use the battery’s badge capacity?
No. Zero publishes both a maximum and a nominal figure for the same pack (14.4 and 12.6 kWh on a ZF14.4), and the nominal one is what you get to use. This calculator starts from usable energy and then applies state of health, because a pack that has done forty thousand kilometres is not a new one.
State of health is the biggest unknown here, and it is the one your bike already knows. Upload a log and it is measured from charge energy against state of charge.