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In reply to: Can you tell what the current battery capacity is?
If our Nissan Leaf driving cousins can have an third-party app that tells them the State of Health of there battery pack using the OBD-II connector under the steering wheel surely Renault have a dealer application that does the same?
Would love to get a connector and see what happens if I run Leaf spy..
DanTup, there is a project for you when you have your Zoe. Get a OBD-II adapter and make a Zoe Spy app 🙂
In reply to: Can you tell what the current battery capacity is?
when the car is 100% open the door do not start the car! push down both pedals and hold the down arrow on the right stick on the steering wheel, and a miles will flash and reset. This then gives you the theoretical range.
Very interesting; thanks! I was going to create a little spreadsheet with our mileage in, as we want to make sure wife doesn’t go over the 750/quarter (and since it effectively resets each quarter, we’ll need to log it at the start of each quarter), so might throw this in too to see how it changes.
If they say they will guarantee the battery capacity remains over 75% then I want to actual % read out. In fact, I would like to be present when they read it instead of just taking their word for it..
If what was posted above seems to work, and degrades around the rate we’d expect, I’m happy to trust it. Whether or not they’ll agree it’s an accurate method if I ever do hit 75% however, I’m not sure!
In reply to: Can you tell what the current battery capacity is?
Renault have a way of testing the battery capacity. I’m not sure how they do it but I suspect it’s the range reset trick
I hope they have a OBD-II connector (plug under the rubber inlay in front of the USB hub) that just reads the battery %.. If they say they will guarantee the battery capacity remains over 75% then I want to actual % read out. In fact, I would like to be present when they read it instead of just taking their word for it..
In reply to: Can you tell what the current battery capacity is?
The battery capacity that Renault declare is 22kwh. It’s thought that the battery is a bit bigger than this (possibly 24kwh) which allows for a bit of battery degradation before it affects the users range and also means that the battery isn’t truly being charged to 100% which helps its life.
Renault have a way of testing the battery capacity. I’m not sure how they do it but I suspect it’s the range reset trick, when the car is 100% open the door do not start the car! push down both pedals and hold the down arrow on the right stick on the steering wheel, and a miles will flash and reset. This then gives you the theoretical range. Various owners have reported that it resets to values between 120 and 130 miles. Your car will not do any more millage after doing this it just removes the driving history and presumably applies a theoretical miles/ kwh to your battery capacity. It would be interesting to see if owners with early cars could report what reading they get and we could then analyse the data to see if it gives us a usable indication of the battery health.
In reply to: Nissan leaf courtesy car
Agree with your further points @dantup. It’s even got a battery temperature gauge? Who cares what temp the battery is. All I need is range and the zoe is virtually bang on. My wife has done 4 days commuting at 15 miles per day. Every day it knocks 30 miles off the range indicator. It even has 3 different modes to lock/unlock the cable on the dash. If it’s set on the wrong one you have to get inside the car to release it! And if you accidentally knock the ‘cable lock’ switch with your knee, anyone can steal your cable. Horrible car.
In reply to: Nissan leaf courtesy car
Because the leaf was the first. If I’d tried it and assumed all ev’s were the same, I’d not have bought the zoe. The zoe is awesome in comparison but then I’m a petrol head and used to test cars for a living. I still enjoy going out and wasting a full battery just having a spirited drive around. The leafs dynamics are so lardy it’s like pushing Lisa Riley covered in vaseline. The worst bit is the driver interface. Had it for4 days now and still can’t get to grips with it. And the sat nav! Well it looks like an interactive ‘etch a scetch’. Still can’t find the heater controls, still blowing cold air. So so poor
In reply to: Nissan leaf courtesy car
I think both cars are great drives; but I do agree with a lot of the negatives about the Leaf. The inside feels really dated and half-arsed. The sticks on the steering wheel have gaps around them like they’ve popped out too far (and you knock them when turning the wheel!). Carwings sucks. The foot operated brake is horrible. The “dot matrix” display on the dash feels cheap. The dash is constantly lit up with junk you don’t care about during a journey (like battery capacity).
That said; if there was no ZOE, I would absolutely take the Leaf. The drive of an EV sold me. I’m just glad I was able to get it in a car that looks fun =D
In reply to: Nissan leaf courtesy car
If I had tried a leaf first, I wouldn’t have bought a zoe.
Why would you not have bought a Zoe?
I drove both in one day and decided to buy a Zoe. Have not regretted it at all. By far the best selling EV in Ireland is a Leaf. Most owners think it’s the business and always like to point out to me that I don’t own the battery.
I then usually counter with the fact that I paid about €7000 less than most, have a nicer car due to most of the reasons you mentioned and that I have about 700 more or less fast chargers (22kW) compared to their 80 – 90..
But they still think it’s crazy to have a battery lease.
In reply to: Thinking of getting a Zoe
On the battery, yup. Worked out it would take 14 years at 10k miles to pay for itself, so went battery hire route.
In reply to: Thinking of getting a Zoe
Sure hope I’ve made the right decision, probably the quickest I’ve made a decision like this, normally I deliberate for months and eventually some other financial drain comes along and I stop looking.
Pretty sure Zoë is going to do a lot of mileage so I went for the 10500 miles and 3 years lease. Decided if I’m very strong and charge 90% of the time away from home I can still make a good saving fuel costs versus the battery lease.
I don’t mind saying I paid £8495 for a under 6 month old demonstrator Zoe with almost all the goodies (just dab missing, wont be missed). Car was £10995 when I first spotted it, the dropped to £9995 when I test drove it. Then just a few days ago dropped to £8995. Basically they had new lower spec’d demonstrator on the forecourt for more. I haggled for about an hour, seemingly getting no where then salesman went off to try to get a deal on battery lease. When he returned he gave me £500 off to seal the deal that day. Too good a deal to pass up. Worked out £105 cheaper than my base spec pre-registered Stilo from 2003.
Seemed irresponsible to pass that kind of deal up lol.
£16k down to £8.5k for 6 months may not bode well for depreciation. But if Zoë is as reliable as Silo has been I can see me keeping this car years and years.
