I’ll take the rapid charge for convenience purposes even if the battery is not being treated quite as well. That said, there are Leafs around which have done 40k+ purely on rapid charging with no problems.

Steamrunner – AFAIK, Renault makes a charge of a couple of euro each time you charge at 43kW, though I’m not sure where/if that’s in the battery lease agreement. It’s not a concern to me though – the battery is covered, and the price is low for the time saved.

The Wembly Ikea is a very handy site – and yes, the ZOE does make quite a high pitched whine when charging, the higher the voltage the higher the pitch it seems.

@woodlee – After quite a lot of checking I found the same about the sensors – I enquired about adding front sensors to my Zen and that wasn’t possible. The parking camera is called something like ‘parking sensor with display’ in the list of options and is only available with the Zen as it doesn’t come with the camera like the Intens does. I didn’t consider it worth the extra cost to get the camera. Interestingly, the ‘take car’ air purifier and toxicity sensor (which works very well, btw) isn’t an option on the Intens so you can only get it with the Zen.

Regarding your 28 mile journey to work – you should be absolutely fine with that 🙂 I have a 30 mile commute including 20 miles on the motorway. Due to traffic (plus my general lack of desire to stress myself out) I drive at about 60 on the motorway and can do the entire round-trip commute of 60 miles with about 25 or 30 miles still left in the battery 🙂 I drive the urban portion of my journey in Eco mode (because it desensitises the accelerator pedal) but the A roads and motorway without Eco. I also have the aircon at 22degrees permanently and wipers and lights on auto.

The new allure of electric cars: Blazing-fast speeds
Tue, 09/10/2013 – 11:52am

http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/09/new-allure-electric-cars-blazing-fast-speeds

Already noted for saving gasoline and having zero emissions, electric cars have quietly taken on an unlikely new dimension—the ability to reach blazing speeds that rival the 0-to-60 performance of a typical Porsche or BMW, and compete on some racecourses with the world’s best gasoline-powered cars, an authority said here today at a major scientific conference.

Speaking at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society, electric vehicle pioneer John E. Waters said that relatively recent advances in engineering and use of lithium-ion batteries are producing electric vehicles (EVs) capable of leaving traditional internal combustion engine race cars in the dust.

“Experimental electric cars already have achieved sustained speeds of more than 180 miles per hour, and established world speed records above 300 mph,” Waters said. “Electric cars have inherent advantages in efficiency and torque over gasoline-powered vehicles. Energy storage-to-torque on an EV platform is above 90% efficient, compared to less than 35% for internal combustion engines. I have no doubt that battery-powered race cars will be attracting race fans in the immediate future.”

His talk was among almost 7,000 presentations on new advances in science and other topics scheduled for the meeting, which continues through Thursday in the Indiana Convention Center and downtown hotels. It was among many talks that connect with the meeting’s theme, “Chemistry in Motion,” selected for the venue—which is the location of the Indianapolis 500 and the Indiana Motor Speedway.

Waters pointed out that race cars and racetracks do more than thrill an estimated 90 million motorsport fans in the United States alone. In addition, they have served historically as testbeds for new automotive technology, the place where top-notch performance fosters wider public acceptance of the technology to be found eventually in consumer cars. That is proving true as EVs attain breathtaking speeds, puncturing myths about (slow) EV performance. In the early 1990s, Waters helped develop the battery pack system for General Motors’ electric car, the EV1; helped set an EV world speed record at 183 mph; later founded Bright Automotive, a company that invented a 100-mpg plug-in hybrid electric commercial vehicle; and now heads Waters and Associates, LLC, a consulting firm specializing in global sustainable mobility and housing.

Electric race cars have such a great capacity for speed because they utilize energy more efficiently than internal combustion engines, Waters explained. Turning gasoline into motion involves multiple steps that transfer motion from pistons to a crank shaft, to a flywheel, through a transmission and other mechanisms to finally reach the wheels. Each step consumes energy before it can become applied as motion, or torque, to the wheels. In an EV, in contrast, the conversion is more direct, from batteries to an electric motor that operates with negligible friction (electic motor still goes through a simplified gearbox and other mechanisms to the wheels). EV motors often provide up to 15,000 revolutions per minute (rpm), compared to less than 8,000 rpm for internal combustion engines (consumer cars usually provide less than 6,000). The high rpm of the electric motor eliminates the need for heavy and expensive transmissions.

The bottom line, Waters said, is that EVs have “instant torque,” the twisting motion that turns wheels, that has enabled test cars to zip from 0 to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds. Waters said, “It’s hard to believe unless you experience it. Every Tesla owner knows what I am talking about.”

A limiting factor for electric race cars on oval courses is sustaining speeds over 150 mph. Due to the tremendous energy consumed to overcome aerodynamic drag at those speeds, current lithium batteries could only last about 10 minutes before a pit stop, Waters pointed out.

“Racing in excess of 150 mph on high-speed ovals will take a significant breakthrough in battery technology for EV race cars, or racetracks, to be competitive in the Indianapolis 500 or NASCAR events,” Waters said. Interestingly, there has been some discussion about modifying oval racetracks so that EV race cars could actually charge their batteries while racing. “It brings full-scale images of slot car racing—everyone’s first racing experience as a kid!” Waters said.

Road-course racing, which takes place on real streets with turns and a lot of braking, however, is another matter. Technology such as regenerative braking, which recovers energy to recharge the battery, means the EVs can race from 0 to 150 mph for about 35 minutes, which is a comparable racing time to internal combustion engine racing.

“On road courses today, EVs already can compete with the fastest cars in the world,” Waters said. “With the dawn of new and advanced energy storage, we will soon see supercars—electric race cars with instant torque—that accelerate in a blink of an eye and reach top speeds of 200 mph or more. And this will all happen with an appealing but moderate sound, minimal heat and absolutely no exhaust fumes belching from exhaust pipes. And one more thing: It will cost race teams less money to own and operate their cars than they spend today on non-sustainable technology.”

Source: American Chemical Society

It shouldn’t matter if the charging point can deliver more amps than the Zoe charger is rated at. The car will only take the current that it requires. In the Zoe’s case that it a maximum of 443kW. As batteries are DC devices Zoe has to convert the AC on the Mennekeys connector to DC to charge the battery. The Charging circuitry will have a maximum rate at which it can work. When the batteries get to 80% charge the charging current has to drop as the battery chemistry dictates the rate that it can take the rest of the charge. handshaking from the charger (signal pins) tell the car the maximum current that can be taken from it. This is done to prevent the car taking too much current and tripping the breaker or overheating the charger or cables to the charger. Provided the Zoe recognises the signals from the charger it shouldn’t be a problem but I wouldn’t be suprised if a Zoe firmware update is required if this higher rate charging standard was devised after the Zoe was designed.

I’m really not fussed about the EVSE cable. Even when I was temporarily considering cancelling my order for a Leaf there was no doubt that I’d want the upgraded charger on the Leaf rather than the 3Kw one and the EVSE cable. I can’t think of a single occasion where I’d be somewhere long enough to consider the EVSE cable of any use while not also being within sensible distance of a faster charger.

If the EVSE cable requires a change to the Zoe hardware then you may well find it isn’t available in the UK or it is an optional extra. After all, in the UK we have the free fast charger offer supported by British Gas which, fundamentally, is being paid for by a grant from the government. Why put up the price of your car with extra hardware when the government is throwing money at your customers to encourage them to install faster chargers 🙂

I did think maybe an alternative approach to all of this would be a device with a small storage capacity that could charge at 10 amps then ‘burst’ charge the Zoe at a higher rate. 15 mins of low power draw from the supply and then a 5 mins 30Amp ‘dump’ of power for the Zoe. At a guess, something like a 600watt storage capacity would do the trick.

The same ‘trick’ could possibly be used to ‘boost charge’ the Zoe or other electric vehicles in a few years when old EV batteries find their way into houses as house power stores. You could charge the battery on cheap electricity like you do the Zoe, overnight, or from renewable energy. Then, if you need to top up the Zoe during the day you could ‘boost’ it with, say, 7Kw (3rd full charge) in 10mins at 43Kw like a rapid charger 🙂

I would say that with Spain’s position in southern Europe battery conditioning ie keeping the traction battery at optimum temperature would not sap the charge as much as in the the UK that being positioned in Northern Europe.

It will be interesting to to see what our Zoe’s get up to during January!

There has always been a granny cable available for the Renault Fluence and the battery of the Fluence has a similar power output than that of the battery of the Zoe so what is the difficulty?

This item would be so useful and enable overnight visits of 80miles plus
distance possible.
This cable exists as in the photo so just sell it Renault 😮 !