I charge for free whilst I park but this would be the regular charge by the car park for a days parking alone.

So you don’t have to pay the parking charge while charging your EV? 😀

Are the installation costs free if you buy from any Renault dealer?..as opposed to Renault directly then?

Yep! We’re buying from Lookers 🙂

Managed to get my Zoe with the government grant and £4.5k off so think invoice price is £11.2k. So on PCP it’s £124 per month for 4 years. £25 battery hire per month so 3,000 miles P.A. £149 a month I believe is very reasonable.

What’s the deposit you’re paying? That monthly fee is £19 less than ours (we’re also paying £11,090 or £11,190(?)), and I wonder if it’s due to bigger deposit, or lower mileage. We said 9k miles for both PCPs (to avoid having two sets of calculations), but wife is only doing £3k. If the difference is due to the lower mileage (and not bigger deposit), I might go back and ask them to revise her PCP down to 3k! (Our deposit is £500, and dealer paying £200).

Deals are about if you are prepared to look.

Managed to get my Zoe with the government grant and £4.5k off so think invoice price is £11.2k. So on PCP it’s £124 per month for 4 years. £25 battery hire per month so 3,000 miles P.A. £149 a month I believe is very reasonable.

I do not intend to keep the Zoe past the 4 years where this is our third car and I don’t expect it to pay me anything back. It will be handed back at the end of the agreement and hopefully get the next version.

Zoe will be used by my girlfriend to do 16 miles commute 3/4 days a week and short urban journeys. Currently I drive my girlfriend to work in My 3 Series BMW (current efficient dynamics version). It drinks diesel on short journeys and on the commute (it’s most efficient on long journeys). We have estimated that it will save us £70 a month in diesel costs by doing these journeys. Zoe seems even more affordable taking that in to account….

I’m also lucky that in my town we have a rapid charger that is free to use until 2017. Therefore I think I can keep my electricity costs low too.

So, to the OP – I wouldn’t think of the Zoe as an investment. It’s cheap because of the grants and discounts that make it sensible to finance on PCP. There are few “runabouts” that are as cheap to finance and that genuinely can save you money using it instead of an ICE car for short commutes and town driving. The technology is still new so I think the PCP gives you the option of trading it in or handing it back. Invaluable with a new technology. Buying cash could leave you with something no one wants second hand.

I wish I could have had PCP when I invested in HD DVD (who remembers that?)

The deals do look pretty good, just wondering if I’d have the same buying power for cash.

I never discussed it with the dealer; but on carwow, all of the finance deals were quite a bit lower than the cash price (carwow separates these, presumably because the offer-a-lower-price-because-we-make-on-finance thing is so common), so I suspect you’ll have to pay more if buying cash.

Remember if buying cash the depreciation is yours! I’d want it to be *much* cheaper if I was taking that risk on myself. If the car is work £2k after 4 years on PCP, Renault/RCI lose that £4k difference; whereas if you bought outright, you did!

Oh just remembered, I noticed on the main page of the site that accessories are listed, but I’ve seen nothing on Renaults site

I got an email from Renault saying “Thanks for buying a ZOE, click here for accessories”, which took me to the website, where there is a section for every car except ZOE. Well managed, that site! :-/

£66 per month on PCP plus battery hire. 63 plate but had only done 500 odd miles and was in mint condition

That’s quite a bargain!

I’m not sure whether mine was different due to it being an ex-demo but certainly no British Gas installation costs.

The gov’t grant is only up to £900 for the home charger; which is why their website says £115. If you’re buying from Renault, they pay the extra, so it’s free to you. This is the same for us with a non-demo car 🙂

Checked my financial contract and it is better that I first thought which has cheered me up …as I was getting a tad jealous of all the good deals out there I am hearing about! I pay £189 + battery …that is for a new Zoe with metallic paint + 17″ wheels and a couple of other items.

I agree Belle – that having made a gigantic saving …it was worth going for DABS Radio and you can listen to CHILL one of my fav radio stations…which goes v. well with the Zoe!

Hi Sandy, have you had a look at ex-demonstrator offers? Thanks to Samsam I got a cracking deal! £66 per month on PCP plus battery hire. 63 plate but had only done 500 odd miles and was in mint condition. It had only been used for exhibitions.

I’m not sure whether mine was different due to it being an ex-demo but certainly so British has installation costs.

I haven’t yet used the home charger yet as I park in a multi storey at work mon-fri, free parking and charging. My battery has never fell below 30 miles.

I went for the Zen, and love the interior. Even with a messy kid in the back, it’s no problem to wipe down 🙂

I don’t think a small battery pack is practical. As the Zoe uses some of the charger electronics for the motor driver It’s not really made to do both functions at the same time. Your battery pack would have to give out the same volts as the traction battery if you were to connect it in parallel which would probably mean going through a specially designed inverter to make 400v DC. It could only work if you could control the discharge rate of the small battery. Your small battery couldn’t cope with the current demands of the motor it would over heat. If you look at the Volt, it has to have liquid cooling for its battery pack to cope with the motor current demands and that battery pack is nearly half the size of the pack in the Zoe. This means that you would have to start with them charged to the same amount to ensure that you’re not asking the small pack to supply too much current, how could you ensure this is the case.

Any solution that is safe would be expensive and require extensive modification of the Zoe for little gain. You would be better off buying a different car with a larger battery built in.

Your range varies on a number of variables Sandy inc outside temp, your driving style, what speed you drive at etc. so you may or may not have to charge.

The Zen is pale and therefore protected and yes both Zen + Intense are the 2 top specs with a couple of different features.

I certainly don’t pay £129 pm….I pay quite a bit more. Something like £250 or £270 + battery. Coming out my husband’s account at the moment so I’m not on top of it yet. I bought new with metallic + 17″wheels.

You’re right Sandy, Intens and Zen are both ‘top’ spec. You’re just choosing light or dark interior and scent diffuser or reversing camera (Zen still has ever sing sensors thought).

I’m sure a dealer would happily scotch guard an Intens for a fee if you asked, although it’s not mentioned as an option.

If your Stilo has only been depreciating an average of £60 per month, you probably just need to get out your spreadsheet to work out if the extra for a £129/month PCP plus the battery rental and electricity balances out versus the petrol and car tax that you’d save. Everyone’s different, but you might be surprised how well it works out.

Hi Sandy,

I’m in a similar position to you… I’m very interested but not taken the plunge yet.

Also in common, you’re a tight Scot, I’m a tight Yorkshireman. I started out assuming a used one would work out best, but I soon came to the conclusion that a new one on PCP is the wise choice, because depreciation is the big risk. Imagine in four years time, electric cars are much more common and all the manufacturers have brought out better cars. Zoe’s will lose a lot because they are the early tech. Alternatively, in four years time, if electric cars haven’t become popular, again second hand Zoe’s will lose a lot, so I think depreciation is a lose-lose in either scenario. So even with the money available I wouldn’t buy outright, but rather keep the money invested and go with a PCP so that its depreciation is set in stone for certain from the start.

Also, there’s lots of reports of a newer engine on the horizon, and it’s due to be announced at the Geneva Motor Show, which opens in just a few days. Who knows, there might be other refinements beyond the engine and battery, since it makes sense to refresh things with the engine change. I’m hoping they might rethink the choice of colours. Hence I’ve held off just a little bit just to see whether it’s worth waiting for Zoe 2 or take one of the last of the current spec Zoe 1.

I think I’ve seen it mentioned that the Zen spec has some kind of treated fabric as well as the scent diffuser / air filter thingy, so maybe your concern about the light fabric isn’t such a worry. Personally I’d value a reversing camera a lot more since I plan to do a tight three point turn on my drive to reverse into the garage, so I’ve no doubt the Intens suits me better.

If buying second hand, read the thread on here about the dashboard replacement. You probably would be wise to make sure that’s already been done on a used one.

My only other tip is to make sure you ask for a half day or full day test drive. Taking one round the block is fine, but I only got a proper feel for the car when I tried my commute for real, had a go with a public charging point, and felt range anxiety for real for the first time! It wasn’t all perfect. It didn’t put me off, but made me appreciate the car for what it is.