Last night before going to bed I attempted to put together some thoughts on comparing relative performance between the Zero S’s and Empulse TTX’s at the eRoadRacing event at Laguna Seca yesterday
. The goal was to take a close look at the actual performance in race conditions of those two bikes. It’s one thing to look at a spec sheet and say “Oh, the Empulse should be faster” but it’s another thing to see them at a race and see the Zero S’s beating the Empulses and wonder what happened. Is it because of upgraded controllers, or rider skill?
| Bike/maker | Rider | Affiliation | Modifications |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brammo Empulse TTX | Shelina Moreda (#93) | Team Parker Brammo | Unknown – one expects they tweaked the controller settings |
| Brammo Empulse TTX | Arthur Kowitz (#8) | Independent | He worked with Ely Schless for 3 weeks in Ely’s shop reconfiguring the bike, perhaps mostly the battery box |
| Zero S (Zero Motorcycles) | Kenyon Kluge (#96) | Zero Motorcycles employee, races as K2 Racing | Upgraded to gen4 size6 controller, added cooling fan to controller, added cooling ducts directing air to motor, added a different fairing |
| Zero S (Zero Motorcycles) | Jeremiah Johnson (#64) | Independent | Upgraded to gen4 size6 controller, added a different fairing, added a gas tank top so he’d have better leverage, added cooling ducts directing air to motor, unknown other tweaks by Hollywood Electrics |
| Zero S (Zero Motorcycles) | Ted Rich (#28) | SBKTraining.com | Did not upgrade controller, added box around size4 controller to hold ice water, presumably some suspension tweaks |
| Zero S (Zero Motorcycles) | Brandon Nozaki-Miller (#10) | Independent | Upgraded to gen4 size6 controller, cooling ducts directing air to motor, unknown further tweaks by Hollywood Electrics and his own line of upgrade/tweak gadgets |
That’s the raw data. Again, going by numbers on the stock spec sheets the Empulse TTX should beat the Zero S. Most of these Zero S’s were upgraded to have the same controller as is used in the Empulse TTX. One was not.
| Q1 | Q2 | Race |
|---|---|---|
| Ted Rich 1:51.386 | Kenyon Kluge 1:48.068 | Kenyon Kluge 1:48.706 |
| Shelina Moreda 1:51.419 | Ted Rich 1:49.061 | Jeremiah Johnson 1:52.361 |
| Kenyon Kluge 1:52.205 | Shelina Moreda 1:51.019 | Arthur Kowitz 1:55.586 |
| Jeremiah Johnson 1:55.736 | Jeremiah Johnson 1:52.046 | |
| Arthur Kowitz 1:57.091 | Arthur Kowitz 1:54.417 | |
| Brandon Nozaki-Miller 2:05.759 | Brandon Nozaki-Miller 1:55.625 |
During the race, Shane Turpin, Shelina Moreda, Ted Rich and Brandon Nozaki-Miller all crashed out. We don’t have lap time data for them because they didn’t complete enough laps. The table is also focusing solely on the TTX’s and S’s, not the Empulse RR’s because they’re in a different universe of capability.
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