I think if the dealers pointed out that on long journeys you’d be sat at service stations for an hour instead of 30 mins

Not entirely true.. You will not be empty and may not need a full charge.. I find that a 30 minute charge at 22kW gives you 70 – 80% battery charge depending on your starting point which would be enough to get to the next services in the UK with most being only 30 miles apart.. If you have a charge of 30% or more it might even get you to 90%+.. Have a look at the image below.. If you are starting at 20% you will be at 90% in 40 minutes

http://myrenaultzoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Comparison-SOC-vs-Time-22kW-and-43kW-Large.jpg

Yes, 43kW is great but for a lot of people 22kW is fine.. In Ireland most charge points are 22kW and it’s what I use most of the time.. They also seem to be a lot more reliable..

P.S. I would still take the 43kW myself but that is a personal thing. Like buying a slightly faster CPU just because I think I might actually notice it typing my documents 🙂

Main thing to check it the colour of the dash, if it has the light coloured top on the dash it is an older model, if it has the black dash it is the newer model.

Other than that not a massive amount changed that couldn’t be rectified by software updates. The only real major change is about to happen as Renault UK are dropping the Zen specification and just having the Expression Nav, Dynamique Nav & Dynamique Nav Rapid Charge.

Now the Dynamique Rapid Charge will have the same engine as the current Zoe where as the Expression Nav and Dynamique Nav will have Renaults new R240 motor that in the NEDC tests gives an extra 18 miles of range (so 148 miles). The downside is it won’t take a 43kW charge – don’t ask my why as it makes no sense to me, you would think that the charging speed is to do with the on board charger and the battery and nothing to do with the motor but I’m not an engineer so maybe the more electrically minded on here could enlighten me. These are only available to order from Mid May though so I doubt we will see them until July/August time – probably explains the current great offers on the Zoe up until the end of june as they will want to clear the stock they have come through.

If any of the deals were still on offer I would be signing up for a Zoe within a week, but sadly without a hefty discount on advertised prices it is just not going to happen.

@badger28 you need to be speaking to your local dealer again as the offers have got very good again. I am guessing Renault UK are clearing current stock as they are renaming the specs and bringing in a new longer range Zoe (although it won’t take a 43kW charge).

Back to the original question in the thread it does come down to a few basic questions as to whether the Zoe will save you money. The big one is do you own your current car, if you own it outright and it is not falling apart then no you will not save money by buying a new car. However if you have already decided you are going to change your car then from a monthly payment point of view you get a lot more car for your money with a Zoe than you do with a comparably priced ICE car. There is the obvious compromise over range but if you can work with that the Zoe (or to be honest any true EV) will be the most cost effective choice. I have the advantage of having an a night and day rate on my electricity so when I charge my Zoe it only costs 5.8p per kWh, driving normally (by which I mean as I would any car using air con etc..) the last 1000 miles use 325kWH according to the Zoe so cost me £19. If you are doing 700 miles a month you will also need a battery rental in the region of £77 a month (9000 miles a year) so monthly costs of about £90.

The running costs you are quoting on your BMW work out at about 53mpg so you could easily buy a new small diesel that returns better than this (new Clio dCi for example can easily return 60mpg) but to get same spec as a Zoe you will have to pay significantly more a month on a PCP than you do for a Zoe, for example you can get a new Zoe for £72 a month on a 2yr PCP but a Clio Dyn S dCi on the same term is £323 a month!

A long winded way of saying it but basically if you can live with the limitations the Zoe is one of the cheapest new cars you can buy from a whole vehicle life cost point of view.

Should start this post by saying I am biased as I both drive and sell the Zoe but to say that a new Zoe at £89 a month with a battery rental at £70 a month is robbery seems a bit harsh.

Yes I agree it is silly of Renault to not match the contracted mileage on both PCP & Battery Rental (which is simple enough to do and the dealer can do it) you have to admit that at £159 a month you have a cutting edge electric vehicle with a very high standard specification. Compare this to lets VW Polo SE 1.2 90PS, which I think most people will agree is a good small car, the advertised offer is £149 a month but with a £2,950 deposit and then fuel on top!

If you do know anyone looking for a Zoe they are actually cheaper over 2 years, we are selling them on a 2 year PCP with no deposit at £69 a month (this is at 5K miles per annum simply because on Renault Finance the GFV does not change between 5K & 3K, if you wanted it at 7500 miles it is £72 a month). Wont put which dealer I work for as quite like this forum and don’t want to be kicked off for advertising 🙂

Compared to what else is on the market I am constantly amazed that more people don’t consider the Zoe instead of an ICE car, I’ve done almost 14K miles in 9 months in mine saving the company a few thousand in fuel (even after battery rental) and myself several thousand in company car tax.

Dan you need to read the small print again.

The £70 battery charge is for 7500 miles a year

The £89 car rental is for 6000 miles a year.

Just to clear it up for ya, I agree robbery. Your paying for milage you can’t use, or if you do you pay excess on the car side, which will probably not hit you until you return the car. I.e. Around £360 if you do your mileage, I’d find that a scunner, here is the car back and here is more money too.

With Carlos Ghosn the CEO of Renault-Nissan having announced that he won’t be in charge of the next five year plan – implying he will be moving on – there is a slight risk that if Renault-Nissan can’t make EVs profitable they just might pull out under a new CEO. If that happens the value of the cars might fall, a bit like when Rover closed. That said, my brother-in-law had no problems getting his Rover serviced and repaired, so the value to the user didn’t deteriorate. But its fuel was readily available. What will happen if Renault ceased to supply batteries is speculation. At the moment there doesn’t appear to be a third party supplier of batteries, but that could change, particularly as the battery pack was designed to be changed easily. Perhaps Duracell will step in and offer longer running times?

Mere speculation, not a prophecy of doom. I want EVs to succeed along with sustainable electricity generation.

Fred

Oh, and £70/mo for 6k miles is bad because it used to get you 7,500…

Aaaaand, the “April 2015” brochure has been replaced with the expensive battery rental prices again? It was not like this at the start of April:

https://www.cdn.renault.com/content/dam/Renault/UK/brand-and-editorial/Brochures/Vehicles/zoe.pdf

(The brochure website changed sometime during April too)…

So, still a good deal, but not as good as it looked if battery rental is up £20/mo at least, and if you go over your miles, it’ll work out really bad 🙁

Even more concerning is that the non-Access battery rental is written as 30p/mile there:

Renault ZOE offer includes the UK government’s plug-in car grant (PiCG). 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.

I hope these are all mistakes; as if they’re charging 30p/mile on a 6k/yr battery rental at £70; that is robbery.

But then, maybe it’s deliberate – maybe they’re making the car cheaper by cranking up the rental prices? 🙁

(I forgot to mention – it does have £20/mo added on to the battery rentals; not sure if that’s a mistake – doesn’t look like just the old prices, as Access is also down as £45, and that launched at £25/mo!)

You can imagine how I felt reading £89/month having just signed up for £159/month in April – but on contacting the dealer he tells me I can have the better offer. Hope its true.

Of course its really £109/month if they have hiked the mandatory battery rental from £50/month to £70/month. Even so it will still work out around £2300 cheaper over 48 months. It will be interesting to see if the dealer will let us keep the £50/month battery lease agreement we’ve already signed up to – that would be even better.

I opted for the PCP route because as an experiment, having previously bought cars outright, because by the end of 48 months both of us will be 70 or over, and we may not want to keep the car. Alternatively we might want to take advantage of the improved technology that is predicted by then. But the real clincher was the 4+ and the recovery cover that goes with it. I just hope that when we review the experiment in 4 years time it doesn’t prove to be a bad idea – and much depends on Renault and its dealer fulfilling the promises.

Already down to a high percentage of short local trips within 20,30 and 40 mph limits, and as my mobility decreases we are making short trips by car rather than walking. Our ICE cars which will return 40 mpg+ on a run are below 30 mpg most of the time and suffering disproportionate drive-train wear in the process. We have a garage with a 7 kW capable mains supply and 4 kW of solar PV on the roof, so some of the day-time charging will use power otherwise sent to the grid.

I did look at low mileage ex-demo cars within a reasonable distance and although there was a significant saving on the cash price the finance offers were nowhere near as good as for a new car, and the end cost wasn’t that much lower. If we’d been prepared to buy anywhere in the UK perhaps we may have been able to do better.

Now that Renault have said that the R240 version will be available to order from mid-May it remains to be seen if we can get one on these terms. While in France its 500 Euros cheaper, in Spain its dearer than the current version apparently.

Fred