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This thread has wandered off track somewhat.
Having seen some reports of successfully renegotiating the battery rental payments on SpeakEV:
https://speakev.com/threads/battery-lease-adjustment.5213/
I wrote to <electricvehicles@rcibanque.com> this morning, but have received a standard rejection letter. As some owners with cars of a similar age have been successful, I won’t be giving up quite yet
In reply to: The cost of charging and usage
mgjackson – I haven’t noticed any battery/range degradation yet after 19k miles, so I’m pretty happy so far.
reboot – it used to all be free for us, so maybe it won’t always be for you, who knows.
There is no vent in the back of the car that I can see so I think the air is just drawn in at the front and expelled at the back to cool the battery a bit during high level charging.
Does it always come on during high level charging, or only when the battery gets warm? Reason I ask is because I could try a short stint of rapid charging on my way home next week when I take a test drive, and if I am to expect that then I’ll check it out.
Haven’t used my ecotricity card for a year! I trust it is still active!
In reply to: Zoe Insurance
Admiral have quoted me 186 quid, and I queried if that covers the battery and it does.
My existing policy providers, the AA won’t insure the Zoe so will cancel my policy without penalty. I can also have the old policy and new policy over lap to make sure I’m covered during the switch over.
I think this might lead to the conclusion that the volume is variable between cars, some might make more noise that others.
I don’t think this is the case but I don’t have any means of finding out. The noise is barely noticeable in my hallway and is most certainly not annoying at that level. My neighbours have not commented and I don’t hear it in any of the bedrooms at the from of the house. These are only a few meters away from the car with the windows closed. If the window is open it is audible. This is why I would probably set my charge timer to start charging at 2am so that my neighbours are asleep. I personally find the neighbours dog or fighting cats (sometimes combined with the dog) a lot louder than my car.
Does this fan at the back of the cabin vent warm air into the cabin from outside, via the battery cooler, like the Fluence does?
I don’t think it does. There is no vent in the back of the car that I can see so I think the air is just drawn in at the front and expelled at the back to cool the battery a bit during high level charging.
Yes, I can try it and see. I have seen it commented before to be loud enough to be heard behind 2 closed doors, and in another case that a neighbour did comment on it. I think this might lead to the conclusion that the volume is variable between cars, some might make more noise that others.
There is a fan in the front (the main aircon fan) and in the back which you can hear inside the cabin durin charging.
Does this fan at the back of the cabin vent warm air into the cabin from outside, via the battery cooler, like the Fluence does?
Donald, I think you maybe blowing the noise thing out of proportion. Yes, it makes noise but I have yet to have someone mentioning it to me as an annoyance. I honestly don’t hear it unless I am standing witin a few feet of the car when I am charging at home. I don’t hear it inside unless there is a door or window open. The sound it makes it about the same as you would get from a mains electricity box on the roadside that deals with high voltage DC power and converting it to AC. This is essentially what causes the noise in the car. It’s the AC/DC converter which makes the noise. I would urge you to try a Zoe for yourself, find a charge point of 22kW or less and just charge the car. It will not keep anyone awake, cause dogs to bark or any other funny business. If this really is a deal breaker for you I think you need to rethink your priorities. Try a Nissan Leaf instead, maybe? The AC charger on that car is very quiet but also very slow.
Zoe does have a fan which cools the battery during charging if the charge point is over a certain output. It is very audible during a 43kW rapid charge. There is a fan in the front (the main aircon fan) and in the back which you can hear inside the cabin durin charging.
In reply to: 3 D's; Dashboard, de-misting and door locks
If I get a chance tomorrow I’ll solder a couple of banana plug leads to a cigarette lighter plug, that way I will be able to plug a volt meter into the 12 V socket (cigarette socket) and measure the volts when the car is running with no load I should get a good idea of the voltage on the battery. When I’ve got a bit of data about when the charger is running and how it copes with the load on it I’ll let you know.
John
In reply to: 3 D's; Dashboard, de-misting and door locks
🙂 I will clean the windscreen – I think that’s a perfectly valid suggestion. My concern, of course, was that the heat pump was losing potency, but cleaning the screen is an easy thing to eliminate from the list of possibles.
Ref the 12V battery, I’ve not heard of any other owners who have had the problem – I’ve had a flat 12V battery twice, roughly every 4 months – with some indication that it might happen again soon. It seems that under certain circumstances, on my car at least, the traction battery is not charging the 12V battery or the 12V battery is draining faster than it can be charged – there doesn’t appear to be anything in the Renault diagnostic arsenal to help determine which.
Renault told my wife last time the 12V battery went flat that there was a technical bulletin which said the doors would unlock if 12V power was lost – presumably a safety feature – but again no-one else seems to have heard the same thing.
The other thing – the Fluence had a cooling fan running to cool the battery during charging in warm weather. Does the Zoe have such a thing? Is there a battery filter to replace at service intervals?
