Official Renault Zoe thread

[RegGuheert]

Bad news....
Not possible to charge Zoe at home without specific box...
No EVSE cable available....

One of the guys from Europe that went with us to Yokohama mentioned this.

It is my opinion that this type of foolish marketing ploy being done with EVs will only hurt adoption of the technology. Manufacturers need to work to eliminate barriers to adoption, not erect new ones.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Bad news....
Not possible to charge Zoe at home without specific box...
No EVSE cable available....

One of the guys from Europe that went with us to Yokohama mentioned this.

It is my opinion that this type of foolish marketing ploy being done with EVs will only hurt adoption of the technology. Manufacturers need to work to eliminate barriers to adoption, not erect new ones.

aftermarket innovators will fix this issue in a month

ESFLOW is my hold out

if that is what you want, you will have enough time to lease a LEAF while you wait

Renault always has declared usable kWh of Fluence and Kangoo, 22 kWh. Total capacity is 26 kWh.... so maybe Zoe will get 30 kWh USABLE, no total.

not in this case

A 1000 charges....??? That's not even three years. Or did you mean to say 1000's of charges???

if you drive 60,000 miles a year, you would be correct

Got any better support for this than over-2-year-old-anonymous-source reports?

yes and this car will come to the US but branded as a Nissan. Batteries are projected to drop in price dramatically and Nissan has set prices based on this expected drop. There will be affordable highway capable EVs for nearly every budget and that time is very near

 

[RegGuheert]

aftermarket innovators will fix this issue in a month

"aftermarket" only exists if there is a market in the first place. Point being the success of the Zoe is not assured and this wrong-minded move is apparently driving prospective customers away.

 

[surfingslovak]

aftermarket innovators will fix this issue in a month

"aftermarket" only exists if there is a market in the first place. Point being the success of the Zoe is not assured and this wrong-minded move is apparently driving prospective customers away.

To be fair, I've heard about this being an issue couple of months ago. Apparently, Renault could not or would not fit all the necessary electronics in the car, which in turn necessitates an external solution. I hope this can and will be addressed in the future. It would be very appealing to charge the Zoe from a regular 3-phase socket without much fuss. They are fairly common in Europe.

 

[RegGuheert]

It would be very appealing to charge the Zoe from a regular 3-phase socket without much fuss. They are fairly common in Europe.

Agreed. 3-phase is ideal for charging applications since the power flow is constant, making the energy storage (capacitance) requirements very low.

 

[KevinSharpe]

Bad news....
Not possible to charge Zoe at home without specific box...
No EVSE cable available....

One of the guys from Europe that went with us to Yokohama mentioned this.

It is my opinion that this type of foolish marketing ploy being done with EVs will only hurt adoption of the technology. Manufacturers need to work to eliminate barriers to adoption, not erect new ones.

To be fair to Renault, it's European policy to encourage people to move away from charging on domestic sockets.

The ZOE European press event takes place on Wednesday-Thursday this week in Lisbon and we will understand a lot more about the car after that. Certainly many potential owners are looking at portable EVSE from Opel and other manufacturers to solve this minor issue.

 

[edatoakrun]

... it's European policy to encourage people to move away from charging on domestic sockets...

Why is that?

I though most European nations had already adopted TOU rates to reduce the economic and environmental costs of electricity generation.

Why would you not want to charge overnight, off peak, when the BEVs are parked in or near home?

 

[KevinSharpe]

... it's European policy to encourage people to move away from charging on domestic sockets...

Why is that?

Many of our domestic sockets are not really suitable for sustained, long term, 'high' current flow. Most of us who have charged in the UK on a "13A" socket will have experienced heating even when drawing only 10A. I've also experienced locations in France that heat the wiring feeding a "16A" socket when charging at 7A.

Why would you not want to charge overnight, off peak, when the BEVs are parked in or near home?

We do want this and expect the majority of charging to be done at these times and locations. All the standards bodies are saying is use a Charging Station not a domestic socket with an EVSE attached.

 

[edatoakrun]

Many of our domestic sockets are not really suitable for sustained, long term, 'high' current flow. Most of us who have charged in the UK on a "13A" socket will have experienced heating even when drawing only 10A. I've also experienced locations in France that heat the wiring feeding a "16A" socket when charging at 7A...

How hard could it be to simply install an adequate socket, with adequate wiring?

I can't imagine that most Americans would buy BEVs without the ability to charge where they park at night.

Do you really think a "European policy to encourage people to move away from charging on domestic sockets" is not in itself a major barrier to BEV adoption?

 

[mwalsh]

How hard could it be to simply install an adequate socket, with adequate wiring?

A couple of reasons right off the top of my head:

street parking for many
ancient (Victorian and Edwardian era) brick-built houses with (old) service panels right in the center of the house.

 

[edatoakrun]

How hard could it be to simply install an adequate socket, with adequate wiring?

A couple of reasons right off the top of my head:

street parking for many
ancient (Victorian and Edwardian era) brick-built houses with (old) service panels right in the center of the house.

Well, I think quite a few people in Europe live in houses less than a century old...

The previous comment was specific to the inadequate "sockets" and "wiring" already in place at existing parking spaces.

Of course, the proportion of drivers in homes without dedicated parking spaces in most European countries is greater than in the USA, just as it is greater in San Francisco, than in Sacramento.

For any BEV driver anywhere who has access to a dedicated parking space at night, the advantages for "home" charging, even at as low as a ~1 kW rate, are obvious, IMO.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

How hard could it be to simply install an adequate socket, with adequate wiring?

A couple of reasons right off the top of my head:

street parking for many
ancient (Victorian and Edwardian era) brick-built houses with (old) service panels right in the center of the house.

Well, I think quite a few people in Europe live in houses less than a century old...

The previous comment was specific to the inadequate "sockets" and "wiring" already in place at existing parking spaces.

Of course, the proportion of drivers in homes without dedicated parking spaces in most European countries is greater than in the USA, just as it is greater in San Francisco, than in Sacramento.

For any BEV driver anywhere who has access to a dedicated parking space at night, the advantages for "home" charging, even at as low as a ~1 kW rate, are obvious, IMO.

the parts of Europe I have seen would make San Francisco look like the "parking mecca" of the world.

 

[KevinSharpe]

The previous comment was specific to the inadequate "sockets" and "wiring" already in place at existing parking spaces.

We can all spend our time arguing about the merits of this approach but it's a done deal and we have a European Charging Station standard today - Type 2!

Personally I'm interested in getting the cost of these Charging Stations down so that we can have them deployed everywhere. Today we believe that sub £50 ($75) is possible.

I was at the ministerial roundtable yesterday and we discussed a proposed EU directive ('law') that will mandate the number of Charging Stations that must be installed by each country... in the UK the proposal is 1.22 Million by 2020!

 

[surfingslovak]

Interesting discussion. I have to agree with the pragmatic POV voiced upthread. One million charging stations! I don't think that Jeremy Clarkson and James May will be able to use this particular excuse on their future trip to Cleethorpes.

One thing to keep in mind when talking about European wall outlets is that the new EU standard is 230V. This means that even if the continuous power draw was kept low due to substandard wiring, it likely won't be any worse than what one can pull from a household outlet in US.

That said, I was hoping that we could get more information on the Chameleon OBC, and how exactly it can be used in the field. I heard through the grapevine that it won't be as simple as hooking up to a 3-phase outlet, which are more common in Europe than here, I believe. My apologies for not being able to partake in this and other discussions, it's been a busy week.

 

[KeiJidosha]

From Zoe Press Kit

"A more extensive warranty than for ICE vehicles
In the same way as ICE vehicles, ZOE ships with a warranty of two years / unlimited mileage or three years / 100,000
kilometres (depending on the country, based on the local ICE vehicle offering).
The Renault Z.E. range also ships with the following additional warranties:
- Electric powertrain warranty: 5 years / 100,000 km
- Lifetime battery warranty: the rental contract states that the battery must always be operational and with a charge capacity greater than 75% of its initial capacity. If one of these two points is not satisfied, the battery is replaced free of charge."

 

[evnow]

- Lifetime battery warranty: the rental contract states that the battery must always be operational and with a charge capacity greater than 75% of its initial capacity. If one of these two points is not satisfied, the battery is replaced free of charge."

Looks like this was one of the proposals that we saw in the Leaf battery survey as well (though, that was 70%).

 

[navidad]

Some Zoe'owners are installing a 7kW WallBox, at home, around 700$.
1 hour of recharge allows to get 25 miles of autonomy.
It is a very interesting compromise.

NB: 700$ is cheap because zoe DOESN'T have the possibility to be recharge by a EVSE cable, so owners are obliged to buy a specific box, and the 7kW one's is not very expensive compared with the 3kW ones.

 

[vegastar]

No portable EVSE is a show stopper for many people. Hopefully some third party will provide it.

 

[scottf200]

Renault Zoe Performs Like It’s Not Electric; Dubbed World’s Best Affordable Electric Vehicle
7 hours ago by Eric Loveday
http://insideevs.com/renault-zoe-performs-like-its-not-electric-dubbed-worlds-best-affordable-electric-vehicle/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Global competition.

Consider us jealous. Extremely jealous.

There’s no chance the Renault Zoe will ever be sold in the US and that’s a shame because all signs seem to indicate that it’s perhaps the best all-around electric vehicle to date offered at a reasonable price.

Sales of the Zoe are now getting underway in Europe and, with that, test drives are starting to pour in. It seems almost unanimous from our thorough digging through of countless test drives that the Zoe is quite possibly the most well-rounded electric vehicle released to date.

Most reviewers are amazed by the Zoe’s ability to never remind drivers that it’s electric.
<snip>
But where the Nissan LEAF is often-faulted for its less-than-entertaining capabilities, the Renault Zoe is constantly praised for its fun-to-drive nature. So, could it be true that the Renault Zoe is the world’s premier affordable electric vehicle? Most reviews answer that question with an emphatic “Yes!”

via Motoring.com.au, Car Advice and countless other sites scanned for verification of the Zoe’s stellar performances

 

[evnow]

Most reviewers are amazed by the Zoe’s ability to never remind drivers that it’s electric.

I'm not sure that is positive. I don't want to go back to the noise, vibration etc.