I higher capacity battery might weigh a bit more and that will affect the range, More weight to carry up hill and accelerate.

Other side effects of a bigger battery are that you can probably charge it a bit faster and with careful design you can get it to supply a higher current, so the car can have a more powerful motor!

Glad it’s not just us then, maybe Renault’s fault. Even this morning it seems there’s no connection.. Haven’t been out to the car, but it’s plugged in, and requesting battery status still fails, and the app still shows last update at 8:20am yesterday (more than 24hrs ago).

It’s no wonder peoples scheduled charges fail if the car can go without connecting for this long 🙁

We spoke to esure and told them the battery pack was owned by RCI and that in the event of a loss, they would need to pay £6k (or whatever the exact figure in the agreement was) to them. They put us on hold saying that was fine, and would be added to the notes on the account.

I hope this means they’d cover the full amount; though I hope we never had to find out. We didn’t take GAP insurance so in the event of a loss, we’d have to find some cash anyway.

I don’t know if they can really half the physical size of the battery, so wasn’t sure if they might tweak the car too.

I think it’s more of a goal than speculation; I’m sure both Renault and Nissan have declared intentions for 200mi cars around that timeframe. The way battery tech has improved over the last few years (faster than expected), I think they can do it on way or another. Battery doesn’t have to be double the capacity if they can make gains elsewhere too (more efficient motor, better aerodynamics, etc.).

David, I’m reading your last post differently then. You’ve said every single charge point you tried in Darlington let you down, see that’s the thing, were they really all at fault or as you said is it the Zoe that just wont charge on them.

I’m not blaming the Zoe on its own (i’m sure had I been in a Leaf i’d have had most of the same problems).

What failed me today was 1. Satnav for being rubbish at actually routing a genuine eco route (against my better judgement I let TomTom guide me). 2. Battery capacity (an extra 4kwh would have seen me home). 3. Knackered chargers. 4. Inaccurate information regarding charging locations on-line. (later tonight I went to a location I knew had a charge point a year ago, its on all the charge map sites still, and its been removed (nearly ran out of juice twice in one day). 5. Not enough chargers, in the charges I’ve had today I’ve seen 3 leafs and 2 Zoes all having to queue, all the more frustrating when we were queuing for a hamstrung rapid. I also saw 1 Tesla S, he seemed very happy and mot having to charge with the plebs. Lol

I’m sure things can only get better but today was one of those experiences that will take a while to forget. Especially when your feeling bad about the fact you should have been home easily before 5pm, and your 2 young kids didn’t get fed until after 7pm. Felt like worlds worst dad trying to calm my 10month old 3hours into a 50minute trip when all she wanted was out the car seat and being fed.

Well car is finally charged so going to unplug it and get some shut eye, and hopefully tomorrows day out will be better. My partner may insist on taking her b-max or twist the knife for the whole day about how long it took to get home in the Zoe.

I’ve never heard of the car industry offering hardware updates other than correcting design faults. They’re usually come in the next model to encourage you to upgrade, after all they make money be selling cars. Tesla are probably the only exception with the Roadster battery upgrades but they said that they would offer this upgrade when they sold the cars.

In the first year we insured with Renault’s own insurer so there could be no argument on this, but the renewal is crazy ($458) so i am going with LV ($138). Most people have just asked their insurers to confirm that they are aware that the battery is rented and worth $7k odd. The chances of it ever being an issue are so tiny that I won’t lose any sleep.
If it gets stolen just stop the rental payments and let Renault track it !!

I think they’ve either got to make the new battery the same size as the current one, or provide a suspension jack-up kit to stop the new battery dragging along the ground 🙂