Hi All,

Looking at leasing a Zoe tomorrow, which was a cracking deal (well I think! £139pm for 2years battery included 6k a year)..Handing back my company car which will be left at the office for me to use so I dont have to pay any tax on it so needed a car to commute to work in (15-20mile per day).

Only started looking because I’ve signed up to the EV charging points installer scheme (Rolec) and kind of got hooked on the EV thing..

Looking forward to getting it…

Ian

It’s widely known that the Tesla does not have full regen when it’s fully recharged – apparently because the nearly full battery can’t take it – so maybe you’re seeing something similar. Perhaps it relates to a particular software update, or production date.

Hi,

I think, it is a combination of cold weather, maybe a charged battery, protective behaviour of the battery management system and french software quality. :-/

When I start fully charged in winter I never get more than 6 kW regen. After a few kilometers the regen increases. Last winter the same as this winter.

One day in autumn Zoe would not regen more than 6 kW, even on a longer drive. After the next restart everything was back to normal.

So only if this behaviour persists, you should check the dealer.

Regards

yes… and they are not a friendly bunch either… plus their cars are the BYD e6 which have a massive 75 kwh battery that even on rapid AC charger takes 1.5 hours to charge…

so i agree that commercial EV’s should not hog the public charge points…

We have ours on lease for 3.5 years paying £70 per month on battery hire for the very reasons you cite ie. technology changing, new cars entering market as well as uncertainty over the value.

Yes I feel a tad critical as this is new technology and untested ground – so you have to go into it on that basis or wait until certainty and technology is less anxiety-provoking. We have tried to counter those unknowns.

Hi Mgjackson – Yes the value for insurance purposes is the actual car value (ie. without the reductions because should it be written off and needs to be replaced you may not get either discount). My insurance company made me aware of this as we talked things through.

Additionally you need to make clear to your insurance co the nature of the battery agreement i.e. it is leased and the value which from memory is £6.2k. This needs to be insured over and above the car.

I haven’t heard of Gap Insurance but will check this on renewal. I got a good fully comp protected NCB quote from Admiral which I went with.

I have been increasingly concerned at the diminishing range our Zoe is achieving, 100% giving a predicted range of around 60 miles lately. I understand and accept that battery performance is reduced in cold weather, but in Ipswich we’ve hardly reached zero as yet. I know that careful/eco driving will increase that figure, but we achieved 105 miles twice in the summer so the contrast is more than I expected.

I remembered someone posting a routine for resetting the R-link system and found I had kept a copy. (I couldn’t find it using “search”)
Having charged Zoe again last night and achieving only 60.9 miles I decided to use it and hey presto the range jumped to 121 miles!! Now I am sure this will settle down again to something sensible, hopefully nearer 80 miles, but I will monitor actual miles travelled and see what happens.
This re-setting routine involves losing the current performance data. There is also an option on that screen to “save” the data, which in the past I’ve done. Is it possible to recover/restore the data?

Out of idle curiosity I recently decided to monitor the mains charging current overnight to see what happens. I charge on E7 from 01.00 and Zoe is parked outside under a carport and the temp. was about 4deg…
I’ve attached a sample of the readings which show, as expected, a more or less linear reduction in current from around 29.0 amps down to 7.0 amps at about 3 hours before stopping after 3.5 hours giving 100% and 60.3 miles. My voltage is around 242v.

While Zoe was still plugged in I then pressed the cabin conditioner button on the the remote and found that during the 5 min period the current flicked between 4.6 and 14.5 amps which I did not expect. From the manual the system draws 1kW to produce 3kW output so whether that was the a/c cutting in and out I’m not sure.
At the moment we tend to use the heating on automatic and switch the a/c off when not needed. We only use ECO on longer trips when necessary.
We’ll soon be through the shortest day with the prospect of warmer weather again, eventually!

I have a charger at home that’s plugged in most days until 100% and most days I use rapid eccotricity to 100 % ( the meat balls at Ikea are to die for ) and have not noticed any change in the car

Trevor I can only dream of 142 best I have had is 104 mind you that did put a big smile on my face

And I agree we are paying for the Battery and is made very clear if the battery go’s the 75 % it is replaced