-
Search Results
-
In reply to: Finally – today is the day!
DanTup is right – it’s all about the difference between what the insurance pay out for the battery and what Renault think it is worth. Your insurance company will not consider the battery separately, they will consider it a part of the car and as such will apply the same market value calculation to the battery.
If there wasn’t a problem – my questions and probing wouldn’t be moving waves as it is at the moment.
Anyhow, picked it up yesterday. A little disappointed that a paintwork repair on the front bumper (damage that I spotted on one of my many visits to the dealership) is a pretty terrible job – so it is going back in next week for them to have another go. We are on holiday on my motorbike anyway so that loss of the car for the duration is not an issue.
We sorted out all of the paperwork – received a written letter from the dealership detailing the agreement we had come to and also a cheque to make up the difference between the battery rental price we were quoted – and what we have ended up signing. (£50 vs £57 – some of you may remember this from another thread.)
But otherwise, all good.
In reply to: Finally – today is the day!
I agree; but then I think insurance companies deciding the value of something you insured for a specific figure is bullshit anyway. Your premium doesn’t get cheaper over the year, so why should the value they pay out?
I’m hoping to never have to find out; and that in 3 years when we have better data on batteries, that owning the battery doesn’t seem such a scary concept. Rental is another complication – would’ve been much better if Renault covered the insurance on it 🙁
In reply to: questionn about charger speed?
You can work these out roughly quite quickly know the battery is approx 20-22kwh if you don’t remember the exact numbers:
- 43kw – would charge the battery twice in an hour, so 30 mins a charge, which is approx 3% per minute (20 second per 1%)
- 22kw – approx half that speed, would fill the battery in about an hour, so 60 min charge, which is approx 3% every two mins (40 second per 1%)
- 7kw – approx a third of 22kw, so about 3 hours, or approx 30%/hour, which is 1% every 2 mins
- 3kw – less than half of the 7kw, so over 4 mins per 1%!
In reply to: questionn about charger speed?
I’ve calculated it it came that 1% should be gained on 22kW in 36s, 7kW in 1min 53s, 3kW in 4min 24s, 2.3kW(Granny) in 5min 44s. That should work when the battery is lower than 80%.
In reply to: Finally – today is the day!
Pretty sure insurance companies are in no position to tell what a battery is worth. It’s not like it’s an asset that actually looses value, in that it belongs to Renault and is maintained/repaired by Renault to a certain standard.
An insurance company couldn’t estimate they’ve have to check retail price, which will stay at £5k constantly. Until such time as Renault decides the price should change.
My insurer didn’t make a big deal about it. I didn’t feel the need to press them as I’ll use Renaults freebie service to work out the ins and outs along with my insurer. Seemed like a pretty well thought out service from Renault.
In reply to: Finally – today is the day!
I think donkeh is referring to the fact that insurance companies will want to pay out what they believe the “current value” of the car(/battery) is, and not what the finance company are owed.
GAP insurance exists to cover this – it’ll will top up the insurance payout up to what is required to settle finance.
The battery rental agreement states what the battery needs to be insured for, but doesn’t say what happens if (when) the insurance company say it’s not worth that much.
Personally, I think the whole thing is a scam; and the insurance should pay out the “insured value” you give them, and set their premiums accordingly. It seems really shady to basically say “well, you said the car is worth £20k, but we think it’s actually only worth £11k”.
In reply to: Finally – today is the day!
Its funny I raised this with my insurance company, and after 5 mins checking they said it would be no problem insuring the car and covering the battery in the same policy even though it was owned by Renault. Seemed like a water off a ducks back to them.
Anyhoo, enjoy your car today… Tomorrow you can “enjoy” the rather strange layout of the windscreen wipers. Its not really off putting but curious none the less.
Topic: Finally – today is the day!
As those of you who read my thread about the battery and insurance (here) will know – I raised questions about the validity of gap insurance sold alongside the vehicle.
The sales manager at the dealership has been very good to us – understanding and recognising the issue and bringing it up not only in the franchise, but with Renault and the GAP Insurance provider themselves.
The upshot of all of this is that a gap (excuse the pun!) has been identified and the various companies are now looking into how to handle it – there is a possibility of an EV specific GAP policy to come out of it.
Anyway – we have come up with a satisfactory agreement which has some time to work itself out, or we receive a payment back from them. All of this means we can pick up our Zoe this afternoon – finally !
Happy Days and the sun is shining too 🙂
In reply to: 200 miles in a day
But that always happens when you get a new car right? i.e. extra miles in the initial few months before things settle down.
Yeah, though it made me realise I may have made some errors with my estimating… I based it on last 3 years which, of which no part was with a new car; and for the whole of that period we’ve either been pregnant, or had a < 2yo child, which probably limited how much we’d go out.
And, now the kids are a bit older (almost 2, and 3) we’ll likely go places like Drayton Manor, Gulliver’s World, etc. more often than we used to go places with just the two of us!
That said; the PCP + Battery Rental is about 10-12p/mile. If we do an extra 200 miles per month on average (ignoring this month as an exception), that’s only £20 or so. It might be more than the petrol; but we never bought the ZOEs to save; so it’s not all that bad (other than the fact all that payment will be required in a lump sum at the end!)
There is a stretch between the Cambridge A14 (Ecotricity) charger – and then getting to Thurrock (Ecotricity) charger, with no charger in between. It should be fine – but it would be nice for reassurance if there were a charger at the Birchanger Green (Stansted) services.
That does look fairly easy in summer, but I agree in winter it could be tough! We tend to only charge to 80% at services, but did 99% yesterday; I suspect you’ll want to do the same! 😀
Did i not say at some point @dantup that you will end up doing more mileage than u think in the zoe.
lol, yup! It just seems way more than I expected 😀
Though we did pick up just before a bank holiday weekend; and scheduled Drayton Manor around school hols and when they had their cheap Adult+Toddler tickets; so I suspect it is quite an exception. We actually took rental for 1,000 miles each more than we did last three years, so I guess it’s only like I burned half of them in the first month; if every other month is typical, we’d still be within the limit (and still have 1k/year on wife’s) 🙂Went to london and didnt see another single ZOE until i was 6 miles from home when i passed @alanb on the way home.
Other than the two ZOEs in our colours that teased us when we test drove the leaf, we’ve still not seen any ZOEs on the road at all! Seen many Leaf’s (been followed through Liverpool on the way home by White and Blue ones a few times too), and a few i3s, but no ZOEs!
I’m attempting (most of) the trip I did last week, expecting it to go smoother this time as tweaked the route (back to the quick route I’d take rather than trusting the Zoe Satnag!) and charging somewhere else mid trip rather than pushing the range when the family are all in the car. I’ll reserve pushing the range boundaries for when I’m alone in the car.
Good luck! We’ve still only encountered one bad charger (and it wasn’t a big deal), and although we took a bit of a risk yesterday on the way there (think Stafford was the last rapid), we knew there were two chargers on each side, so assumed if one set were bust, we could use the other (however, as mentioned above – I’d forgotten the services weren’t joined until we got there on the way; could’ve been a problem!).
The home charger really helps – would’ve probably been 4 stops otherwise (topping up on the way out and back). It wasn’t a big problem not having it working, but having one has made things so much more convenient! 🙂
In reply to: This warm weather.
I think the only value you can truly trust it the KWs consumed, which is what the battery graphic on the dash shows.
Actually, you can’t really trust the battery graphic on the dash! See my “app and dash show different %” thread. I can leave the car with the dashboard image showing 80% battery and return to see 90%! Still trying to figure out exactly what it is (my newest theory is in that thread, that it’s a discrepency between 20/22kWh in calculations/battery, but I haven’t confirmed it yet).
