Zapino Excursion
Posted by Max Dunn Sun, 02 Sep 2007 00:02:00 GMT
Last Wednesday, after weeks of looking around at electric scooters, we finally bought a Zapino and love it! Today, Suzanne and I took a little excursion around town to see if it could carry both of us and to see how the battery would hold up on a longer trip.
The first thing you should know is that it was hot in San Jose today, getting up to 94 degrees. Riding the Zapino was nice because the breeze cooled us off. However, we were worried that it would overheat because we were pushing its 282 lb weight limit with our combined weight of 275lbs. (And no, Suzanne forbids me to break out our weights separately. ;-)
Since we were just out cruising, we were using the energy saving mode which limits the top speed to 30mph. Most of the time, this is plenty fast, but I did kick it into high-speed mode several times going down Highway 9 to Los Gatos.
The Diagnosis light was flashing its 2-3 combination which means that it is overheating, but I just ignored it and kept going
We stopped at a store and looked around for about 5 minutes. When we got back on the Zapino, the overheat protection kicked in and it made us go really slow. This was probably because after stopping, there was no more wind to cool off the controller and it was so hot out anyways. This slow speed was fine since we only needed to ride a block. We then got off again and walked around for about 20 minutes before getting back on the scooter, at which time it had cooled down.
Going home, we continued to take it easy but the “overheating” warning starting flashing again very soon. This didn’t seem to make any difference, although our top speed was a little lower, around 25 mph in the energy saving mode. Just for fun, right before we got home I put it back into high-speed mode and it sped right up past 30 mph, no problem.
I realized on this trip that the diagnosis light is a little annoying. In order to read the flashing codes, you have to look at it continuously for about 5 seconds, which is very dangerous while driving.
Our total outing ended being about 20 miles and the charge indicator was only about halfway down in the green. So we have now confirmed that driving conservatively with a heavily loaded bike can take you at least 20 miles on the Zapino.
Suzanne and I really enjoyed our little excursion on the the Zapino!
Just a follow-up note on the “overheating” issue I mentioned here. It turns out that sometimes when you first turn on the Zapino, it sometimes gets stuck into this “slow mode”. This often happen the first thing in the morning, so it isn’t an overheating issue. To fix it, I simply turn off the key and back on again – sometimes several times – and then everything is fine.
Max, do you still like your Zapino? I’ve been thinking about buying one since my commute is only 2.5 miles each way, and I get too sweaty walking or biking to work. Driving my Honda Pilot that short distance is an incredible waste too.
Jim: Now that we have an electric car we don’t use the Zapino quite as much but we still like it and use it about half the time. We have had a few problems, the biggest is that the batteries are getting weaker after less than a year, also the speedometer stopped working and the recharge plug broke. However, the 2008 Zapino’s have better batteries and many improvements so I suspect that these things are now fixed. So I can still highly recommend the Zapino.