Trevor, IMHO your mixing two things that don’t fit.

Zoe is an AC charger and uses some tricks to get 43 kW, all other AC chargers top at 22 kW. AC charging is cheap (in fact it’s a switch, a microcontroller and some security gear). So the infrastructure is ok.
But AC means, the DC for the battery is created inside the car. But I doubt you will ever find a car with an AC charger above 43 kW due to size, weight and cooling restrictions.

So we are talking DC for powers above 43 kW.

DC is utterly expensive. The DC network in Central Europe is crap (how about England?) and nobody is willing to pay for a better infrastructure. Even well-financed Germany with rich OEMs like VW, Mercedes and BMW pushing CCS-DC-charging technology are not willing to build up a usable infrastructure.

Tesla is doing its own special way. But Tesla is spending an awful lot of money for their SC infrastructure and nobody knows if they will ever make money.

200 mile in 20 minutes would be more than 120 kW DC (because of speed restrictions at the end of the charging prcedure)…so your wishful thinking for the next “Zoe” is close to a Tesla 3. I hope Teslas couraged (financial) bet on the future will not fail…

All these super batteries are missing a point, even if they can keep their sporty promises.

A Zoe with a 22 kWh battery can go 100 miles roughly in summer.
If you want to charge it in 10 minutes you need a 130 kW-Power Station (at least, no losses).

If the battery increases to 200 miles range, you need more than 250kW.

Where on earth can you find a plug like that? You won’t.

Below is an extract from an article on an investment forum that I monitor that I thought would be of interest.
I’d heard of this type of development for the lithium cell, but nothing as specific as this.

Isn’t it always the way…

… just when you need it the most, that nuisance phone battery magically dies on you.

Or your trusty old laptop’s charge decays just before you can shoot off that urgent email.

So what would you say to a battery that can recharge in just a couple of minutes – and hold a charge for a useful period of time, for that matter?

And let’s not stop there. If you’re with me on the future for electric cars, just imagine a car that you can recharge in the same time it takes to fill a tank of petrol.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Well, news out this week suggests that the technology has finally arrived…

The great leap forward – it’s all about the nano

The news is that scientists at Singapore University’s School of Materials Science and Engineering have fine-tuned of the current lithium-ion battery and, they tell us, a whole new world of rechargeable batteries should be on the market within a couple of years

They’ve come up with a little trick to make lithium-ion batteries work better. Well, I say ‘work better’ – but really I should say this trick brings the battery into a whole new league.

In fact, Professor Rachid Yazami, who co-invented today’s generation of lithium-ion batteries at Sony, says it’s the next big leap in battery technology.

So what exactly is this breakthrough?

Well, if you know your batteries, then you’ll know that a battery consists of a cathode, anode and something called an electrolyte that exchanges electrons between these two poles. Simple really…

In rechargeable batteries, the anode is generally made from graphite.

Now, instead of using graphite, these clever bods have used titanium oxide as the anode.
And though it sounds fancy, titanium oxide is actually quite a normal substance. It occurs naturally in the soil and is widely used in sunscreens and food additives.

And frankly, it wouldn’t matter if titanium oxide was rare anyway, because the point is, these guys are using it on a nano-level.

The anode is made up of nano-tubes, one thousand times smaller than a strand of hair!

When you charge a battery, what you’re doing is recharging electrons (in this case in the lithium-ion). This recharge could, in theory be done almost instantaneously. But, up until now, there’s been a bottleneck in the system… that being the anode.

You see, the graphite won’t allow the electrons to pass through quickly enough. That’s where the nanotubes of titanium oxide come in. It appears that through this medium, the electrons just fly through.

But what makes this such an important change?

This is big news for batteries

Rechargeable gadgetry can be fantastic… and ridding yourself of all those nuisance wires is an absolute boon.

But the truth is that batteries come with their own problems.

First off, it takes time to charge the things. And even then, they can only hold so much charge, limiting the power you get.

If you’ve ever used a cordless hoover or mower, I’m sure you’ll agree with me here. These things aren’t exactly inspiring.

The other big problem is the limited lifespan. After a few years, the batteries tend to fade away – you’ll probably have noticed it on your laptop too. As a society, we’ve then got the problem of getting rid of this toxic waste.

But get this – with this small change in battery technology, we’re promised battery lifespans of twenty years or more.

We’re also offered more power density (in plain English, the battery will be more powerful), and as a Brucie-bonus, the next generation of batteries will charge in a jiffy.

Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel?

AC charging points are only a empty box with connectors. The charger (acdc converter) is in the car. My 11 kW 3ph at home cost me 1k and in my opinion should have cost half of that or less. While DC cars require expensive chargers namely when you go for fast charging the Zoe only requires that the 44kw or 22kw of power is available and the wall box is just a cover box for the cable connectors. In summary, if you go for a Zoe it is a no brained having at least an 11kw charger at home (3hr for 100% of battery). But you need to have 3ph available because a single phase can’t provide more than 6kw.

At least all of you have a battery rental in place. I collected my Zoe last Thursday and they didn’t even have the papers for me to sign. I have been driving around for nearly a week with no battery lease in place. I will be laughing very loudly if they actually send me a warning letter about this 🙂

I’ve had loads of hassle over the battery rental. 3 missed payments, 2 due to the direct debit not being set up and the other payment going against the default finance agreement.

I even got a letter warning me I would face an additional £12 admin charge if I didn’t pay (came the day after I had) abd it’s all due to their own incompetence. Hopefully it is all sorted now.

The most annoying thing is being charged £1 extra each time to pay the amount they missed. I’ve been told the latest one will be refunded.

My battery rental was taken today as per normal. Strange how our experiences with Renault systems vary so much.