David, your view is similar to mine, but as posted elsewhere the £20 a month battery uplift could stop it all stone dead as I am only going to see the pain without the Renault deposit allowance to sweeten the deal.

I need to look into PV cells & the payback time as currently I just get annoyed with the cold calls & no answers when you ask them a question, just a pre written script.

How does this affect the battery rental price for a dealer demo?

That’s a very good point.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my brother has recently plumped for a bargain ex-demo Zoe after seeing mine and being impressed with it. He had his rental agreed when he did the deal on his car, which is that he would be on the £50/month 7500/year, 7.5p excess deal, so I’ve advised him to watch out and make sure that’s what he’s still getting when he signs for it.

I think he might have just done the deal just in time (literally by days!). I think anyone buying an ex-demo now would probably have to sign up to the new rentals, which is pretty rubbish for the used market but how it has to be since I can’t see that Renault could ever do a different deal for the used market. I suspect after a while second hand values will take a hit, because no dealer will be able to sell an ex-demo if the new car deals are better (i.e. subsidised by a higher battery rental), so ex-demo prices will have to come down too in time.

I think someone else said it in this thread, Renault are doing themselves no favours by making the battery rental deals like a yo-yo. The lower rates that many of us are grateful to be on have only been about for a few months (since December I believe). The concept of battery rental is alien enough for new Zoe converts, so messing with the rates for a short time is just crazy and bound to confuse, offend and alienate some people.

If I were in charge at Renault, I would make it one tariff for all, which would be 7p per mile with a minimum of £50 per month. Nothing to chose between, no need to predict your usage, no worries that you’re on the wrong deal. Simple pay-as-you-drive motoring that you can simply consider an offset against what you were paying for petrol. This is more-or-less what everyone was on before anyhow (give or take a fraction) so why don’t they just make it simple, honest and affortably reasonable, and make minimal fuss over it, rather than catching people out with a stinger excess and destroying long term trust.

Sorry if I’m seeming to preach about this, but I feel quite strongly when I see companies try to make a quick buck by catching customers out, and I’m sure lots of people will fail to spot how bad this is. It’s not a long term strategy for success, and it’s such a shame because otherwise they have a great product. This new deal is both sly and evil in my opinion. All it will achieve will be to make new Zoe owners either fall in the trap and unknowingly rack up a big bill (and they will resent Renault for it – brand loyalty destroyed), or make them paranoid about going over their mileage, which is just one more thing to have to worry about and hardly a wise move for someone just wanting a car they can use as much or little as they need.

I’m glad I got in when I did, but I feel sorry for anyone still to take the plunge and they will have no choice but to just accept this.

But I have signed a deal for the dealer demo, but not signed the battery rental yet as the delivery date is still unconfirmed.

So when we signed the car order form we were told it was £57 for 3+ years for 9000pa. It is now £77 for the same battery rental however the car is no cheaper, that price is already fixed. British Gas come tomorrow to install charge point & currently we don’t even know what our whole life cost is.

The showroom only had skeleton staff today & no one is at RCI. We can’t justify the unexpected extra £20 a month so are stuck with a car ordered we can’t afford.

The issue isn’t space in the battery for regen it’s the possible charging rates. Lithium ion batteries can only accept a fast charge to around 70% full, then they can only be charged at a slow rate, ultimately if it’s near 100% full the rate is very slow. Regen can generate 43kW if you brake hard from high speed, a full battery just couldn’t accept it so the car uses the friction brakes instead when the battery is nearly full.

How sure are we of these “new” prices?

The new brochure also has the increased prices (online version here).

An extra £20 a month is almost £1000 over 4 years.

But they’re selling the ZOE now at under £10k with dealer deposits; swings and roundabouts! You can now get a deal (without negotiating) that’s better than the deal that many of us got in the last few months that had to push for 🙂

That said, @David’s point is REALLY important. Going over your mileage with the new deals is ridiculously expensive (previously only the Access one was 30p/mile).

An extra £20 a month is almost £1000 over 4 years.

How does this affect the battery rental price for a dealer demo?

Just reflecting on Samsam’s point…

I didn’t buy a Zoe to save the world, i bought it to save me money.

For me, it was a bit of both. In my mind it’s all in the same mix. In the past few months we’ve had solar PV added, bought the Zoe, and today we switched to Ecotricity.

The solar is a complete financial no-brainer. Even if we don’t use the electricity from it, the FIT payments will pay back the install within six years, guaranteed so long as the sun shines, and thereafter it’s all profit.

The Zoe was also a financial no-brainer. I’ve calculated some hefty commuting cost savings by taking the Zoe as much as possible.

Switching to Ecotricity isn’t a financial no-brainer though. If I was only doing all this for the money, I wouldn’t be switching. However, in my mind it’s all part of the same endeavour, and I’m more than confident that the other changes will more than make up for the small premium I’ll be paying for renewable electricity.

Since I’ve done all three at roughly the same time (over a few months of each other), it will be really difficult to see what each change has separately done to our energy costs – solar will bring electric usage down, EV driving will add electric usage, plus battery rental but no more petrol, then there’s the FIT payments coming in every quarter now, and so adding the change to the Ecotricity tariff in the mix will properly jumble it up. I’m pretty confident overall it will be financially better, and without a doubt a massive shift in terms of environmental impact.

… but I’m not a tree hugger! Just can see when something is wise.

How sure are we of these “new” prices?

Looks pretty sure to me… This is what Renault are now advertising on their site for the rental options and the excess is clearly stated in their offers.

Direct quote from Renault’s current Zoe Offers page “ZOE monthly payment of £89 per month excludes mandatory battery hire from £70 per month, based on 7500 miles per year, excess miles 30p per mile including VAT.”

In a previous thread I plotted out the various rental levels in a graph. I’ve added the new rates to this graph, which I think illustrates my point that the extra £20/month on all the tariffs is not too bad in the scheme of things (the better offer on the car more than makes up for it).

However, that 30p/mile excess is an evil move that most new customers won’t appreciate how bad it is.

On the old tariffs you could feasibly go over your contracted mileage and not worry about it. The excess was fair and proportional.

On the new tariffs, you’d better pick the right level and not go over it, because it can get very expensive very quickly. Going over your mileage is worse running costs than a cranky inefficient petrol!

This graph is mileage (x axis) against annual battery cost (y axis) for the four old and the four new tariffs. I think it shows my point very clearly. Bad move Renault!

How sure are we of these “new” prices?

The Zoe configuator on the Renault webiste still has the “March” Battery Lease prices shown!

@dantup, but if you were to want to go up a tier and they wanted you to pay the new price, you could be pragmatic and say well, actually you can do more miles per month before you start to lose out.

Currently, you can do 250 miles a month for £25

New Tariff £70 – £25 current = £45

45/0.30p = 150 extra miles.

So as long as you don’t do more than 400 miles a month, you’re better off.

The downside of this is that you start to think of the battery rental as a per mile cost, which at 30p mile makes the car extremely expensive to run. I was considering moving up to the next tier (at the old rate) as just for the extra 20 quid a month I wouldn’t have to worry this malarkey.