Future tuning

[PhillipM]

For those wanting to drop serious money you could make up some poly battery packs which would have the same kind of discharge capability but at 1/4 of the weight - I guess that would pick up the performance somewhat, if you could cope with the range drop.

[Trevor Larkum]

Andy Allenton said:

OK, I'm generalising here, but a Leaf or Zoe has a range of about 100 miles per charge. On top of that, their capacity probably drops by 10% per annum.

I don't believe there's any evidence that degradation is anything like 10%, though some people suggested it would be before they became widely available. My ZOE appears to have lost perhaps 3-5% per year but, as Renault expected this, it comes with 110% or so of official battery capacity - meaning after 2 years and 48k miles it still reports 100% (though in a year or two that may start showing as 99%, 98%, etc.). Put it another way, the offiicial size of a ZOE battery is 22kWh but you're actually just accessing the middle range of a 26kWh battery.

With regard to modding, I think there is a lot that can be done. For example, on paper the e-Golf and Golf GTE could smoke a GTI. I think VW have deliberately derated them for political reasons. Some keen modder could install some beefier wiring and do a bit of software tuning to fix that.