The end of visiting petrol stations is one of the main things my wife likes – we plan on leaving it plugged in most of the time, so in theory it should always be ready to go. I’m a big fan of the preconditioning too, especially in the hottest and coldest months (hopefully the heating will also take care of defrosting windows in winter!).

Another benefit, although mainly seen in the Zoe and the Tesla S and X, is the increase in boot space and, in the Zoe, the higher driving position due to battery placement.

I forgot to mention that, according to the agreement, you remain liable for the lease payments until a private buyer signs a new agreement with Renault. Selling to a dealer (i.e. a trade-in) is easier – your liability ends on the date of sale, as long as you send the proof of sale to Renault. It’s just selling to a private buyer that seems a little iffy – I guess it makes sense, there’d be nothing stopping you saying you’d sold the car and giving a fake buyer’s details, whereas it’s easier for Renault to check a dealer bought it.

I think that when selling a Zoe it’d make sense to either time it for the end of an agreement and just keep the car charged, or pay off the agreement early so you’ve as little outstanding as possible. It does make the private sale of a Zoe a little more tricky, though; you’re relying on the new owner to sort out the paperwork quickly.

The battery lease has it’s advantages and disadvantages. What I have been told is:

When you sell the car the new owners can sign a new lease, but if you try to sell and no one wants to buy I suppose you need to pay for the lease unless you return the battery to Renault (which would render the car useless for a prospective customer). The car is yours, you never need to return the car under any circumstances.
I also assume that high capacity packs will be available and prices will come down, but these are my assumptions that I think most people share.

Here in Sweden we will not sell the ZOE for another year or two, and thus I cannot get a lease for the battery here. I want to buy the car in Denmark, which is fine for Renault. But they cannot lease the battery to a non-Danish person! I offered to pay for the lease for three years in advance, but they have not yet confirmed I can do this. I have also asked Renault Sweden to add the battery to their portfolio this year and the car at a later stage so other Swedish ZOE customers can buy the car abroad and later continue the lease in Sweden.
One thing is for sure, I do NOT intend to wait 1-2 years more for the ZOE, but currently there are no other good alternatives. What to do?

You might find it interesting to review the battery hire agreement, which has been uploaded to the Documents section (clicky).

From my conversations with various Renault bods (so this may well be wrong) at the end of your contract, you simply sign a new one and carry on. You can change the terms of the lease at any point up until 3 months before the end of the term, so if you’d signed up for 3 years but wanted to sell the car then you’d be able to change to, say, 2 years and pay the difference.

In terms of selling the car, a private buyer would need to take over the agreement (just as if they’d bought it new) and as this would be the case with any Zoe it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker. The Leaf is also going down the rental route as well, so this may become the standard way of doing things. I understand that dealers will have a slightly arrangement, so trading the car in shouldn’t be a problem either (this is alluded to in the lease agreement).

If you no longer wanted to pay for the battery after the initial term, then Renault have the ability to remotely disable the charging facility – you’d be left with a very large lawn ornament!

Yes Nosig it became clear to me I need the CEE 16A socket after reading your post, so thanks again. I will change it.
Can you explain the efficiency again: I was prepared for 10% loss because of heating of the battery and now you’ve added anoter 10% loss (probably because of heating of the socket and the cable).
I can’t accept the 50% loss as I understand it would mean I consume 33kwH of electricity to charge 22kwh battery of ZOE. Luckily you say that using a CEE 16A socket is a simple and cheap way of achieving 16A continuously for 9 hours and therefore achieving 80% efficiency.

Yes, you’re right about the more efficient tyres not being available in 17″ but I really do like those wheels and thought the trade off in range was worth it. My daily round trip commute is only 25 miles anyway and besides, I drive like an old granny so I won’t exactly be chewing through battery charge -lol.
I actually wasn’t considering a black one until I saw the black demonstrator at the local dealer. It looked far better than it does in the photos, especially with all the little blue highlights around the headlights, badge and grille.