I really love the look of the Zoe, and I’m really looking forward to my test tomorrow. At the moment though, you can buy a new leaf visia on the flex package with battery rental for less than £11,000. A bargain I’d say, but for me the looks are so unappealing. A bigger and more powerful car for less money is appealing though.

I have been driving the Zoe in N.Ireland for over a year now,(Bells of Crossgar).The car is cheaper and by far superior to any EV at present on the market Akaik.Charges twice as fast as the Leaf,(on AC),about half the price, I lease mine.The battery is not air cooled,the heat pump Air con only draws 1Kw but produces3Kw. no road tax,£5k off the price,and free electric,now is the time.

Fair enough if you don’t pay for electricity to charge, but if you do, I think it would be relevent to know.
You can find out how much your fridge or tv will use under agreed conditions. I don’t think it would be difficult for those who agree these sort of things to come up with a test condition which all could abide by. Say one test on an urban route at 1°c with the cabin temp at 20°, then another at 25° and so on.
I Suppose at the moment we can take the quoted range and divide by battery capacity to give us guide.

Although there certainly is a difference between electron consumption it would be unwise to state a single consumption figure. In huge contrast to ICE engines the consumption has a much larger variety due to the much bigger efficiency. It doesn’t only vary largely with speed, but also with temperature, acceleration, design of the airco / heating, battery cooling design, usage of airco etc. It’s much easier to do that with an ICE where, due to the fact that it is always very inefficient, the consumption is much more constant. The same applies to range actually. But since battery range is the biggest limitation on a lot of EV’s, it is a much more useful figure to compare. The Model S on average will use more kW/h, but the battery is 4 times the size while on the other hand it is free to recharge at the Solar Superchargers. So who cares about consumption when it’s powered by the sun for free anyway, as long as it has decent range?

My car has gone back to the dealers again today as the battery charging impossible error has returned, has anyone with the same error actually got to the bottom of the problem and how to fix it yet?

I can’t keep having my car recovered to the dealer every time couple of days when the car doesn’t want to charge, surely the car isn’t fit for purpose?

Any suggestions what I should do?

Thanks

Karen – welcome. In the UK the choice is between 3.5kW and 7kW, and Renault only provide 7kW – is that not an option in Luxembourg? Anyway, I fairly often (once a month or so) charge during the day so I can go out in the evening – I don’t think that would be practical at 3.5kW so I would say your best best is 11kW if you want to do the same. Anyway, I don’t imagine it will do significantly more harm (if any) compared to 7kW and, as you say, it’s Renault’s battery anyway.

I have charged a few times per month over the last year at 43kW and have not yet seen any degradation, and that ties in with data I’ve heard on the Nissan Leaf where Leafs fast charged have done just as well long term as those that haven’t (or equally badly, if you prefer).

I would only suggest considering 3.5kW if you have solar (then you have a chance of charging the car entirely from your solar).

Good to hear a”Team from Paris is arriving” not a year too soon. As I previously have posted , the Engineer from EBG,our main supplier of CPs, asked me Last November, (He came over from Munich), to meet him at one of the three CPs in my small rural area ,we only have 7 in a 100 sq mile area. I was able not only to demonstrate to him the “Battery charging impossible” fault, but also the “Check cruise control”,which by that time has been immobilised,by a poss software glitch? He tried I believe in vain to get an answer from Renault,as did Ecarni.com recently,who were told by Ben Fletcher that he had never heard of any of this fault condition. I borrowed a second Zoe from the dealership,and was able to demonstrate the same fault on the three CPs,which have never managed to charge the Zoe since installation. The dealership were to try to raise the issue with Ben,that’s 6 months or so ago,I heard no more from anyone.
If this warning is allowed to remain on the dash,with the cable connected to the CP for more than a couple of seconds,it will “Stick” and the Zoe will not be able to receive a charge from Any CP,serious business.As you may see from this forum this fault has been appearing across Europe from day one. My experience with feedback from remote diagnostic so far, is of standing by a CP,as the Engineer 100 miles away is telling me that he has cured the fault and the shutter that has been open to the elements for 3 months is now fixed and closed,when I can plainly see it is still open! The same Gentleman from Munich told me on one occasion that he had fixed another CP fault remotely,it was still out 6 weeks later!Good to hear there is a “Customer service interface”

When I raised the question of “Battery charging impossible” with Ecarni.com recently, they told me they raised it with Ben Fletcher who said he never heard of it,but I believe I was warned by his Andy Heron,Head of Renault Electric UK (Before Ben took up that job),that Zoe was having problems with “Dirty Electricity” two years ago.

I also have the Engineer disease and suffer from the same Zoe/Renault frustration. When I go in the front of my dealership,several suits go out the back. A man walked on the Moon 45 or so years ago,and we cant’t charge a battery? The worst part is if there is a “Horses mouth” on this series of inherent design difficulties , he’s not prepared to talk to the Smuck who forked out £20k to pay his wages.