Trevor, do think rapid charging will degrade the battery quicker than 7kW charging? I test drive a Tesla and they told me it had an effect on their batterys, couldn’t tell me how much though. Also has anyone tried using a Tesla supercharger?

I got mine on a 3 year lease from the Bristol City Motors dealership and they knew I didn’t have anywhere to charge it at home. I currently do the majority of my charging at rapid chargers and I am worried that I will degrade my battery life fast by doing so.

I bought mine without a charge point. No questions at all from Rrenbault about this re battery hire agreement. I did investigate whether I could get the charger installed instead at my workplace, but that was quickly discounted as an option.

Just got word from Renault about the renewal of my battery rental…
I proposed them several scenarios, including buying a second EV, the zoe, if they would sell me the fluence battery!
NO WAY. They are willing to sell me the zoe WITH batteries but they said that for the fluence, that`s never gonna happenSad
I could sense some interest from Renault to sell the batteries, but the deal was failed by RCI.
So…for now I’m going to renew another two years (not buying the zoe), and in two years will see…. One thing is for sure: it will be very dificult for me to ever sell this car…I want to keep it!! And I have a few more ideas that I’ll use by the end of these two years….Wink
Just as a reference, the trade value of the car right now was only £ 5000 Sad !!!

All,

I was having the same issues mostly at Ecotricity rapid chargers about 9 months ago. Renault changed my BCP (see seperate thread) and since i’ve not had the same issue again.

i can confirm that ‘wiggling’ the charger around (up & down, left & right) can sometimes kick start a charge even if u have an error message on your dash like “battery charge impossible” – yellow only. if it goes red i found you need to lock and car and close the charge port and go for a coffee. usually that clears the message…. all hit & miss to be honest.

Has anyone noticed if the predicted range goes up on a cold day if you drive on a fast road and then rapid charge? Presumably this would warm the battery and alleviate the cold temperature effect. I guess you would need a day when the temperature isn’t changing much to get a meaningful result. Zoe might have a transducer measuring the ambient temperature for the brains to work out the range in which case the predicted range would change little even if the battery is warmer than ambient. I don’t know how easy it is to accurately measure the stored energy in a lithium battery.

My ZOE lives in a garage, but if I had to charge it outside I would be tempted to make use of the preheat function. Even if it doesn’t directly warm the battery (and I don’t know if it does or not) just warming the passenger compartment should impart some heat to the battery.

Also, since charging warms the battery I would use the charge timer so charging finishes as close as possible to when I get in the car.

Has anyone been able to get the AC times to work via the interactive services when the car is NOT charging? I have had mixed results with this. Sometimes it works but mostly it doesn’t. I know the battery has to be over 45% but it does not seem to want to work when I’m at work. The keyfob works fine but I don’t want to have to remember to do this before I leave. Thought about mobile reception being bad but the car does update the battery status after I park the car.

Bit puzzled.

Indira, unless you buy a electric vehicle with thermal management for the battery winter temperature are going to affect your range. Cold batteries can hold less energy and therefore you have less range. The affect this has on your actually range depends on how bad the temperature is. Charging in a warm(er) garage would help as it keeps the battery at a higher ambient temperature while charging. For us people without this facility we are going to see a good drop in range if the temperature goes down.