That dashboard and reflections.
Larger glovebox.
An accurate guess-ommeter.
17″ low resistance EV tyres for my run tech alloys.
Increase battery range so 100 miles plus is always achieved in real world motoring.
Spare wheel, got a 17″ run-tech off eBay so sorted for us!
R-link stopped crashing when it is needed most!
Be able to use key-card to open power port without it disabling auto door locking.
Factory fit LED light bulbs instead of the power hungry element bulbs fitted daft in an EV.
Disable the Thomas the tank engine toot toot when self locking Sooo embarrassing!

Apart from these she is a joy 🙂 🙂

Thanks for pointing me in what looks like the right direction, despite what Renault insurers said. I admit I have read all the interesting docs on the forum, but assumed that I knew the basics of the battery leasing rates etc and knew that I did not own it.
I thought, naively, that the rental cost covered everything.
I now appreciate what the earlier discussions were about. I see there is a formula for calculating the insurance loss value in the event of a disaster, but I haven’t found a definitive value for the battery from new to quote to my insurer.
In March this year this item was listed on the forum news,
Battery Available to Buy
According to Fleet News, Renault boss Carlos Tavares has pledged he would authorise a move to include battery packs in vehicle purchasing pricing if customers prefer it:
“The whole point of our idea to offer batteries on lease has been to provide our customers with peace of mind and this has been backed up by all the results from our focus group sessions. These are expensive items and we shoulder the cost if they should fail during the lease period. But if the feedback we get from our sales network shows that customers prefer to buy the batteries along with the cars, we will change our minds. We’ll wait and see how customers respond to the plan before coming to a decision.”
but I guess failure in service is not the same as total loss in a RTA etc..
So I’ll get a provisional quote for my car from Renault and see what they say.

This is a really helpful piece of analysis. It confirms my hunch that the battery lease model is unsuitable for lower mileage users. That’s a bit ironic as it’s short journeys in combustion engined cars that are most polluting.

Very good article 🙂

You might want to make it clearer, however, that you’ve used the 12 month battery lease costs in the comparison table. Taking a 3+ year lease (as most of us will have done) will reduce the monthly cost by about £20 and therefore easily beat the diesel clio.

@mojo36
The insurers are not (in my opinion) fully in-tune with the Renault battery rental arrangements. The Battery Lease agreement stipulates that the car-owner must insure the battery but its not specified separately on motor policy documentation. It’s not possible to drive the car without the battery. Just like a petrol tank, really.
I do hope this gets cleared-up soon. I’d hate to find that some unfortunate ZOE owner needs to ‘total’ his car before the insurers make their position clear.

Some positive progress!
My Zoe arrived at the dealers yesterday on the due date, but I cannot take delivery until my HCP is commissioned, hopefully early January assuming E.on make this possible for B.Gas to achieve.
This is Renault policy apparently and I presume is to do with data
collection? Although, AFAIK, having a HCP is not compulsory and presumably I could choose to use public chargers as and when.
I’m almost tempted to wait until March for the ’14 reg, but I guess ’63 is OK and I do want to start using it, especially the pre-heat option!
However, at least I now have the car reg etc. and can investigate insurance and have applied for the Ecotricity card.
In an earlier post October 17, 2013 “woodlee” stated some insurers were apparently adding the estimated cost of the battery to the price of the car for insurance quotes which puzzled me since we do not own the battery and Renault insurance have confirmed that this is not necessary.
So near, so far!

Thank you the the info & advice regarding our York trip! The journey was faultless and by following the R-link’s / TomTom’s “Eco” directional instructions, we were left with many more miles in the battery than I expected on arrival. Only one of the four EV bays at the York Designer Outlet had an ICE car parked in them, so it was no trouble parking. The CYC point was very easy to operate and worked perfectly. The charge cost just 50p and ZOE was back up to 98% in around 45min. When finished charging we then vacated the EV bay, parked in a regular space and jumped on the next Park & Ride bus. The CYC hourly rate still applies after the charge is complete if the cable is not detached and charging stopped completely. All round a great first mid-length journey experience for us : )

I have seen proposals that the energy stored in an electric car could be used to power the home in the event of a power-cut. As we are frequently reminded, there is a strong likelihood of power-cuts in the not-too-distant future, as demand outstrips supply.

This would require a sizable inverter and a means of accessing the car’s battery output, so would not be simple or cheap.

http://www.geekosystem.com/leaf-to-home-electric-car/

• This reply was modified 12 years, 4 months ago by  andyfras.

I think Ecotricity will be heading down this route at some point. The Eco Labs section of their website refers to a ‘black box’ which is set to ‘transform the way we use electricity’.

Because the nature of their energy production is unpredictable, I suspect they can trigger the storage device to store power when they are over producing and release when they are under producing, thus reducing their need to buy future contracts from others and not being able to sell their surplus at decent rates.

Would be good if that also worked with my solar panels!