Quick update from me – sorry, I’ve been away for a while. My car finally arrived at the dealer a week ago. I’ve got Renault to agree to give me the 17″ Alloys that I originally ordered but then deleted to get early delivery (which never happened). The alloys are on 10-14 working day delivery. Following that apparently we have to go into the dealership to sign the battery lease etc. (can’t do it over the phone) and then we have to come back the next day to pick the car up. I’m also purchasing through SMC Aldershot – even though I live in Thames Ditton – since they were the closest dealer that we could go and test drive a car and order from when we originally ordered. I’m hoping that my next update will be accompanied by a picture of my new car but you never know…

Interesting idea… I can see the potential. It might just be me, but I keep getting stopped in the street (often as I’m playing with a charge point in a car park etc) and asked to explain ‘what it’s like’ and ‘how far can you go?’. My new car is also the talk of the village as I glide in and out with hardly a sound.
Yep, I can see this idea running in UK too. I for one would be happy to host a small gathering at home to talk about ownership for a return of something like 3 month’s battery rental.
Come on, wouldn’t you too? @Trevor – perhaps this forum has a higher than average source of interested volunteers if Renault fancy trying this in UK?

Hi Trevor,

Since having our Zoe back from renault EV service Birmingham after having the battery charge computer software updated and reloaded in August 31st I think

we are now safe to update my owner status to working fine after major software upgrade to battery charge computer 🙂 🙂

Many thanks

We voted probably not because of the abysmal treatment that we received from renault UK while our Zoe was off the road for 3months with “charging issues”.

After blaming my wife, blaming me and then blaming our charger 4 times the issues where cured by Renault EV Service Birmingham by updating and overwriting the battery charge computer software in our car,

Our Zoe is working fine now but if only Renault UK could have worked with us instead of 3months of denial and blame games.

Their attitude towards us stank :{ :{

Just spoke to our dealer, the Zoe is finally here. Picking it up at 14:00 tomorrow, baring any last minute disasters!

Insurance is done and the dealer say he knows about setting up the R-Link so that should be all sorted. I did the battery hire agreement over the phone with him, so should hopefully be a smooth handover tomorrow.

I do a round-trip including 40 miles of motorway, 10 miles of A roads and 10 miles of urban driving. I drive at 60mph except for overtaking and try to keep my driving smooth and acceleration in the ‘green’ bit but only use Eco mode in the built-up areas with 30mph and 40pmh zones (I turn it off for A-Roads and motorways). I also make a lot of use of cruise-control. Oh, and I slow to 55mph for one particular 5% gradient 2 mile stretch of the M42 although I suspect it doesn’t make a huge difference.

I usually complete the round-trip with about 28 miles left.

Don’t do 70mph 🙂 I did a test once and a one-way commute with 20 miles on the motorway which usually takes ~ 1/3 of a charge took over 50% of the charge.

Stick to 60mph and you should be fine. The time difference between 60mph and 70mph is aprox. 8mins per hour but I can attest on the M42 and M5 you rarely get a completely free run at 70mph anyhow during rush hour so you are likely to take about 5 mins per hour longer to arrive if you stick to 60mph.

As for the 60 miles are 60mph rule I’d say that is pessimistic and you are likely to get closer to 70 miles.

How about trying it at 50mph one day just to see? At 50mph you should have about 40% battery capacity left, if the new equation is accurate 🙂

Appmacguy, I remember it being discussed some time ago. However, in response to your question I’ve skimmed through the battery lease agreement I signed and I couldn’t see any reference to it, so I think it must never have been imposed.

Open Charge Alliance Officially Launches To Make Public Charging Easier
September 27, 2013 By Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield Leave a Comment

If you’re one of the many EV drivers who occasionally makes a trip beyond the range of your car, you’ll know how utterly frustrating it can be to arrive at a public charging station to find you don’t have the right RFID or ‘smart’ card to replenish the battery pack of your parched EV. If that sounds familiar, you’ve probably wondered why you can’t easily roam between EV charging networks like you can with your mobile phone — or pay for what you use with your credit card.

The Open Charge Point Protocol Could make it easier to charge your EV in Public.
The Open Charge Alliance agrees. Officially declared an organisation yesterday, the OCA exists to promote and facilitate interoperability between EV charging networks and consists of representatives from many different charging providers and charging equipment manufacturers.

“The biggest challenge facing the adoption of EVs today is no longer related to ‘range anxiety,’ but rather stems from access limitations to the public charging station that line our highways, streets and communities,” the OCA says in its first ever press release. “Many of these early stations are accessible only via proprietary, subscription-based networks. Unfortunately, the closed nature of these networks has generated deep frustration for both EV drivers, who expect the same accessibility that they enjoy at the gasoline pump, as well as charge station owners, who as a result of proprietary protocols are locked into a network system that prevents them from making changes as their needs evolved or price points get too high.”

Essentially, while there are accepted standards for the way in which a charging station connects to your car and delivers power, the the way in which the charging stations authenticate who can charge and who can’t, as well as how they handle any communication protocols back to a central server, are essentially standards-free.

That’s where the OCA comes into play. Although it is only officially a day or so old, many of the OCA’s founding members have been working for years on developing a free and open standard which defines not only how charging stations authenticate users, but how different charging networks communicate with one another. The result is the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP), a set of peer-set standards which many charging providers in mainland Europe and parts of the U.S. already adhere to.

Just like other open source standards and open-source ideas, no one person owns copyright to the OCPP and the standard itself is free to examine and adopt. Just like open-source operating systems, the OCPP slowly evolves as features are added and new technologies emerge, making it a continually improving standard.

If adopted OCPP could make carrying rival network cards a thing of the past.
At the moment, OCA claims around 10,000 charging stations around the world already work to OCPP standards, many of them in Northern European countries where it’s easy to drive from one country to another in an EV without worrying about having the right card. Sadly for the British residents of the Transport Evolved team, the standard has failed to make much of an impact on U.K. charging networks.

However, with version 2.0 of the protocol due to release in the next few months, which includes much more advanced support for pay-as-you-charge and inter-network status reporting, the OCA is confident many more tens of thousands of charging stations will adopt the standard.

But with way too many closed networks still operating a ‘members-only’ policy resulting in EV drivers carrying around wads of access cards, the OCA is faced with some tough campaigning and educational work within the industry before charging station access truly becomes as easy as filling up at pump number four with regular.

@Trevor I didn’t realise we were charged for using 43kw rapid charging. I have yet to do this but I haven’t read about any additional costs for this. Does it appear on the monthly battery statement?