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@nosig, my car will be used mostly around town and it is unlikely that we would approach the range of the car on a normal basis. Putting non standard wheels on the car would make my insurance go up by more than the cost of the wheels because it is then viewed as “modified”. The one trip I would make monthly is just outside the range of the Zoe unless extremely lucky, so we’d need a charge mid way anyway so I decided to get the wheels which look a lot prettier than the 16″ alloys. Before I saw the wheels I was intending to go for the 16″ for economy and range.
Wow, things are really a lot different (in a weird way) out there on the island ;-). Thanks for explaining.
Smitchy, I find it amazing that the Zoe, even if you discount the regular battery lease, is more expensive than a Leaf even though the car is 2/3 the price. That doesn’t make sense at all. Neither the fact that, even though the battery is leased so the car should write off a lot less, that a Leaf has a much lower write off. That’s the opposite compared to the real non-lease world. Extremely weird. Have you asked the lease company why that is?
Nickh, an insurance company wants to charge you more if you replace one set of 16″ wheels with another set of 16″ wheels? How would they know and why on earth would that matter? I’ve never heard of anything like that on this side of the pond.
That having said, at least you get the huge discount on the car (like the French) and the free charger at home. I had to save 8000 euros more. I really hope that those French cars won’t be making it here in a few years on the second hand market, that would drive my value down really quick. Are there any specific conditions about that discount?
Smitchy, I don’t understand the problem with the charge point at your work. Charge points installed Holland (as well as Belgium, Germany and France as far as I know) by the local counties all (if not free) have interfaces so they can be turned on by a chip card. All card providers here work together so you can use any card on any charge point. If you’d be working here, the government would put charging points here, but you’d still have to pay for the electricity. So no free gifts at all. The charging infrastructure is set up differently in the UK? Charge points installed by counties all provide free electricity? 🙂
Anonymoussmitchy: There are a number of ways a charge point can be offered by a company and in Birmingham and Worcester the first charge points were government offices. The first option is for them to charge you a ‘membership’ fee which would cover costs. The second is to charge you on a payg system. Both of these can be offered as benefit in kind and taxed in the same way (they offer you the service and you just pay the tax) or they can be fully deducted from your salary. The last option would be to have the system run by a third-party. The third-party would ‘lease’ the space and pay for the used electricity at a agreed rate and then charge you a fee (membership or payg). Polar and PodPoint both run systems like this and would be able to work with your department to organise everything. I believe a combination of grants and capex tax offset can be used to cover most of the cost of install as well (a company can offset the price of the charge point against tax as a capital project or something, not sure how it works).
Spoke to my dealer (SMC Aldershot) and they have not yet had any of their cars matched. One order was placed on 4th May and then mine and another on 11th May. I’ve sent them the pre-reservation contract stating that my vehicle is guaranteed to be ahead of others which were ordered by people who did not pre-reserve and he will take it up with Renault. If he has no luck, then I will call them and make an official complaint. I would see this is a breach of contract by Renault.
It’s so disappointing that something that could have been handled in a way that generated a lot of positive noise for Renault and EVs in general has been handled so badly and will probably be costing both goodwill and additional resource tied up in handling complaints and queries!
Hi all, just got back from holiday had my test drive today. The weather totally spoilt the drive due to the noise from the rain which took away the quietness of Zoe. Still it was a pleasure especially in traffic its so easy to drive. The build quality of the demo vehicle was really good. The salesman managed to get my black Intens order up on his computer which told him it will be leaving the factory at the end of next week, what a surprise! We arranged a pickup date of the 29th June to tie in with my commitments.From my invoice dated 1st December 2012 it seems a long while to wait for the car but I think its worth it.
@smitchy73 – not abusing the public purse is all well and good but I’ll bet they give you (and most of your colleagues) free parking! If they’re happy for you to appropriate massively valuable town centre land for car storage, I wonder why they’re squirming over a couple of quid’s worth of ‘leccy?
Thanks all, yes the intial question was posed to them a good few months ago before I got my Leaf, now that I have it, I have gathered quite a bit of support especially as it has proved to them that it is viable, unfortunately the people that count aren’t really convinced, they just wrote off the idea and use the tax payer and free electric as an excuse, but I never really challenged it with more knowledge in regards to, laughably, governement funded charging point, and or installed by another company and having the payg idea. As I had said my union is looking into it and asked me if I would mind making a contribution to it, which I have no problem with, never have, even suggested that at the time.
I think what gets my manager, who has brought the union in, is that he has asked me to do a 30 mile detour to another office to check on equipment at that office and then make my way home, but as I don’t have enough charge I can’t do it, so therefore he has to send me down during the working shift which takes me away from the real work.
Don’t get me wrong there are car parks to get charged in but as I don’t pay for my parking at the moment at premium rates, I don’t want to start now, I am also a low grade civil servant, unlike the one’s who don’t want to install a charge point.
I suppose we’ll see what happens.
The thing is if they are picky about charging points and free leccy, they haven’t really thought of the 300 staff in the one site who charge their Ipad’s, Kindle’s, other makes of e-readers, as well as their mobile phones all ‘free’.
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