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Yup, Talk about moving the goalposts. From a scam, to saving the world from child labor in 35 pages.
You are over complicating this.
I was curious on how much a battery is to replace, because it will not last forever, it WILL eventually need to be replaced.
Mav replied, $7000 US dollars.
My point is, that is A LOT of money when the time comes. Capeesh?
Yes for sure it's not the main reason most people want an EMX, still I'd be interested to know more about this 750 h run time comparison.
Does it seem right to assume about 3 gallons of fuel for 1 h run time? If so this would translate to 10-11 $/h run time just for fuel, so it would equate the cost for the Varg (including battery replacement every 750 h) without even taking into account engine maintenance/rebuild, air filters, oil change and filter. I guess something is off in this calculation ?
That's the thing. You get people that are not riding much, and will never put that many hours onto a bike complaining that they would never have to spend that much money on the bike they ride for 10 to 20 hours each year.
Chances are riding like that the Varg battery would never reach its max number of charge cycles and there is a better chance of the battery degrading from sitting than from real use.
A varg is not for everybody. There would not be so many options if a single bike could do everything. Some people would rather buy a 110, 125,250 2 stroke, 250F,450 and 500 2 stroke and some people will buy a Varg or another electric and be able to have it tuned to have the power style and feel of any of those bikes with the change of a few settings. Some people would rather go out and ride, some would rather make up as many reasons of why they would not buy a bike they don't ever want to buy.
The Shop
When does Yours arrive?
Their 110 cord has a standard outlet plug.
240 uses a L14-30 twist lock plug.
I think the big thing is the people arguing that the numbers don't work. Are not riding much , or are getting lucky skipping some major maintanance . One of the Guys that was on here that said they had a YZ250 , said he only rode about 20 hours per year. I do not remember his screen name. So I'm not sure if he has been posting recently.
I'm not meaning to sound like a dick towards anybody. But there is a large amount of people who do not understand the level of maintanance required by a gas engine to get the same number of hours on a bike, that a battery would need to be replaced at . I have a lot of racers as customers. Of all of them, 1 guy that is local pro/expert speed in woods racing has had multiple bikes with over 200 hours on them. But most will sell them with 30 to 50 hours on them. So even a lot of riders who ride stock 4 strokes are getting rid of them before they have to dig in.
And its crazy to think that You could grab any of the engines from any factory race bike, and the Varg powerband is easier to ride, more peak HP and Torque. Yet still needs less maintanance than the guy riding 20 hours per year will need to do.
Right now I'm not riding because of some old injuries. If I was to buy a new bike though it would be electric. The last time I rode I broke the plate in my foot. And unfortunately I'm not sure if the new plate will hold up better. The new plate is normally used in a Tib or Fib. And the screws inside look stronger now. This was after the last surgery. Many moons ago now. I have some photos of inside if anybody wants to see the plate while they are installing it.
My point was that 99% of people will end up selling the bike before putting that many hours on to one. And pointing out how a gas bike would cost a similar amount, putting the same number of hours onto one. How many Motocross bikes have you seen with over 700 hours on them?
I will help you out. For an hour of track time I use about a gallon in a 250F or 450. I am somewhere in the middle of the speed spectrum so you could consider it average.
A Pro can run through 2 gallons in a 30+2 moto. so they would get close to 4 gallons per Hour.
Foot matches the name.
Heal up.
It's not the number of years, it's the number of cycles that affect battery capacity, this is the battery Stark is using...
Worth and cost are different things, Stark will be paying less than $1 per battery cell, each battery pack has 400 battery cells, so less than $400 worth of battery cells...
The cost from Stark for a fully assembled battery pack is $6998.90...
The cost of the battery cells is not the major cost of the battery pack.
This is a dirt bike forum, can you post a graph showing the cost/usage of VP race gas in a 450f, against the cost/usage of electricity in a Stark Varg?
I dont ride a 4 stroke and dont use race gas 🤷
Looks like 300 high load cycles and your at 80%. If your ICE is running at 80% that's unusable.
Not seeing how it could last 750Hr.
The green 100W line is at a constant maximum discharge current of 45A, you would have to ride constantly at full throttle with 80hp setting for this level of battery deterioration.
Most riders would be closer to the red 4.5A or blue 10A lines, so >500 cycles before battery capacity deteriorates to 80%.
Pit Row
The way I see it playing out WFO your working off the green line. The rest of the time your working off the others. It's not a constant load scenario. Not sure how battery level effects performance. That could be a big factor. Does throttle response change based on it?
The green line WFO would only apply is the bike's power was set to 80hp, if the power setting was lower, deterioration rate would be above the green line.
Throttle response will depend on how Stark has designed the electronics and software, if they are measuring voltage and current output and using closed loop control, throttle response should remain the same.
Lithium-ion batteries slowly discharge, at 0.35% to 2.5% per month, it's likely some riders will park their bike after riding and draining the battery, not charging it for more than a year, and the batteries will die. Once that happens, the battery cells or battery pack will need replacing. Barn find Stark's will need new batteries.
I had a 1980 XR200 that went through two transmissions and had a frame design that used the engine as a stressed member. Yeah it’s a time bomb of closely meshing gears and the Srark is not the same. Later XR200 designs used a full cradle frame and were indestructible. Seeing Stark do the same thing gives me pause, but may not be root cause just oddly familiar.
You ever been in a ktm durability thread?
Not sure on the Stark. But my kids Oset 12.5r, Stacyc, and ktm sx-e5 haven’t lost any battery power in the years we have had them.
Thank you, I plan to try it out this weekend.
When the Stark's battery charge gets low, the electronics reduce power output to avoid battery damage.
Power output from a fully charged battery should be the same many many years later, but range will be reduced.
Ok let's update the scenario for the Varg, say you need to get a new battery after 500 cycles (when you should have lost about 5 min range).
Varg: 500 cycles, about 375 h run time, new battery $7000, electricity about 1$/charge so $500, total $7500. Doomsday scenario Varg cost: 20 $/h run time
450: 375 h run time may be 375 (?) gallons of fuel, let's take a low 3.5 $/gallon (US average, higher in lots of countries... and some states like California), so $1300.
Now the question is what would be the average maintenance cost for a 450? Air filter, oil change, oil filter, clutch, transmission, engine?
Does $60 every 10 h for oil, oil filter, air filter and stuff seem ok? How much for engine top end ($300 every 60 h)? Maybe engine rebuild ($1300?) every 120 h?
Seems it would be better to wait and see how they do ITRW before we do any cost analysis. Your comparing hard data with hypothetical and pushing it as fact. With 18K coming down the pipe there will be a pretty good track record. Like has been said, how many OO's with make 300+HR's. That will change the cost basis.
For sure we will have real data in the coming years, this is nothing more than a mental exercise to see what would get out of it.
I'm not pushing it as fact, I'm merely trying to see if the cries of "7000 $ battery is crazy expensive" hold water or not, that's all.
My guess was that even if you were to replace the battery the maintenance cost would not be much different than for a 450. And now I'd like to see if there could be any truth in that.
1 dollar per charge? good luck.
With my Kawasaki's 1.6 Gallon tanks I am not sure how that would be possible. The most vocal pundits can't even do simple math it seems.
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