And if you do find a unicorn-buy it! One thing to look for in any purchase is low mileage, indicative of a low number of battery cycles. Yes, it is about twice what you’ll pay for an AeroVee package-but this is more than just a “get it flying” project-it is true edge of the envelope Experimental aviation and you have to expect a few costs associated with that. Sure, $15K sounds like a lot for a motorcycle that you are going to deconstruct, but think of it as an airplane engine you are going to extract from its packaging and it isn’t quite as bad. Yeah, they come around once in a while, if you are well connected in the electric motorcycle world-but if you are just a random aviation guy shopping for something to buy right away, expect that you’ll be looking more in the $15K price range. While we started our search looking in the $8K–$10K price range, this turned out to be a bit of a unicorn. Living in the wilds of Nevada, we don’t have a lot of local options and even the local Reno dealer didn’t have any used bikes-and only one or two new ones. Zeroing in on a 500-mile radius from home, the majority of offerings were in the San Francisco Bay area. When we went shopping, we found a few DSRs and SRs in the 2018–2020 model years available. The battery is the large box under the faux fuel tank (right). Underneath the body work, you’ll find the same wiring harness and components (left). It doesn’t make any difference if you get a DSR or SR motorcycle from Zero. The SR and DSR are electrically identical-one is a sport bike for the road, the other intended for road or light off-road riding. In the 2016 and later years, you are looking for an SR or DSR machine, with the 14.4 battery pack-that is what the original Xenos conversion used and what the various parts are designed for. He also recommends against buying a wrecked or salvage bike-there are just too many unknowns with something like that and he states on his website that he won’t provide support for a conversion based on a wrecked bike. Gabe DeVault recommends a 2016 model or newer, with as low mileage as possible. The first Zero motorcycles began shipping in 2010 and if you go searching on the web, you’ll find quite a few low-priced bikes that turn out to be older, smaller models. If you go to the online nationwide listing of motorcycles for sale, you’ll always find some-but they may well be on the far side of the country. Unfortunately, Zeros are not out there in huge numbers, so the used market can be a bit sparse. So looking on the used market is really the way to go. There is really no need for a brand-new bike and, as with any vehicle, there is a big hit in value the moment it drives off the showroom floor. While you can certainly go to your local Zero dealer and buy a brand-new bike, this is an awfully inefficient way to spend money by normal homebuilding standards. The Zero DSR we used was returned to the dealer with only 1600 miles because the buyer decided he wanted this SR version. This would be pretty difficult to do anyway, as it would be sort of like buying a car by going to the dealer’s parts department and trying to buy all of the pieces you’d need to assemble one. Unfortunately, Zero is not interested (at this time, at least) in supporting those who want to use their components to do things other than ride their motorcycles, so you can’t simply go to a Zero dealer and buy the parts that you need. In order to build your electric airplane powered by a Zero motorcycle power package, you’re first going to need a Zero motorcycle. Of course, you’ll be placing orders for nuts and bolts from various sources (such as Aircraft Spruce) as well-but that’s just par for the course in homebuilding. You’ll need a bike, you’ll need parts from Gabe DeVault and you’ll need parts from Sonex. There are basically three sources for parts that you will need. With the decision made to go electric with our Xenos project, it was time to start the planning and procurement process.
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