Just checked Trevor’s range predictor again.

70mph = 54miles range
60mph = 73miles range

So I’ve reviewed what I’ve said previously.

If you travel at 65mph for your entire journey, assuming no steep inclines (or rain) you should manage your entire trip so long as battery is 100% charged at the start.

To be honest if your spending up to 70 but some bits at 50-ish you’ll probably find the distance easy and with reserve miles too.

I had exactly the same issue a few weeks ago, my car hadn’t been plugged in and when I started it in the morning it had the BCI message. As I’ve currently got scaffolding in front of my house and can’t get to my charger I drove round to a local charger and got the Cruise control message. If I turned the cruise control switch off it changed to BCI. I stopped at the charger. Started the car and the message cleared. The car took a charge without a problem. The BCI message came back at the Heston east bound charger on the M4, the charger has a problem and seems to drop out when my car battery is charged above 88%. I tried it a few times in quick succession and then the car gave the BCI message.

I took my car to Renault and got them to look at this fault. They had the car for 5 days and couldn’t find anything. When I asked about the cruise control message they said it’s probably an ICE related thing that if the engine is reporting error messages the programming then disables cruise control for safety purposes. The car has behaved it’s self for 500 miles of driving since, with charging on 7, 22 and 43kW chargers.

Are you up for dumb suggestions Dan?…

You’ve got two Zoe’s… How about you get a car trailer and tow the other Zoe. When you run out of battery, swap Zoe’s.

Double the range. Genius!

my zoe has done nearly 29k but the battery still shows 100% charge.

however at the moment I cant report any reduced range after a full charge but charging does sometimes take longer e.g. on home 7kw home charger the car shows 3.45 hrs for full charge from 0% to 100% but when I check the ZE app the charging time can show 5+ hours

so maybe this is due to the battery ‘wear & tear’…?

I’ve just reported this in a post. Seemed to resolve itself after a charge.

I wonder if these errors were specific to the 12v battery that runs all the the stuff the traction battery does not. I.e ecu, cruise, lights, pretty much everything.

btw, something I have absolutely no knowledge of, is battery capacity degradation.. if the used ZOE has done 200,000 miles, then it’s battery might not hold as much as it did new, so it might have a reduced “maximum range”. I don’t know anything about measuring this, or how the car represents it (eg. if it has 90% of the original capacity, would it only charge to 90%, or would 100% be the new 90%?).

Yes you do need to look at the whole picture and not just the fuel. You don’t give enough info.

Are you sure you have got your fuel bill right? Sounds low. Even if it is right …what do you pay for car tax? It may be you have a very low tax to pay because you have a new low emissions BMW. BMW wins kudos for this. Zoe tax is £0. How does that compare?

What do you pay per month for your car or perhaps you own it outright? How old is it and does it require annual service + maintenance? My servicing/warranty etc is covered under my lease scheme.

And yes – there is an electricity cost which is approx one third of your fuel bill ….if you use 100% of your own electricity and not the electrical infrastructure which is currently free. I use both. For me this is a saving on my fuel however I pay £70pm (old price) for battery hire. I think someone said £57 today.

For me with a 14 yr old VW Beetle (owned for 12 yrs) which I needed to replace and had some problems…to get up-to-date Zoe was a great and economical choice given I had just started a business. It had all the things I needed including integrated sat nav etc. and for £250 pm (inc battery) was affordable with no additional costs.

Horse for courses.