Any new Renault Zoe owners out there?
Discussion
giveitfish said:
I don’t know if the the new Zoe is different, but the old one has physical stereo controls on a dedicated stalk on the steering column - they’re hidden from view behind the wheel so are easily missed.
Yep still there, slightly different design but they work just as well. Getting some good economy figures now the weather has turned. It struggled compared with the Model 3 in the colder weather, but has now turned the tables. Though I do drive the Zoe a lot more leisurely.
Still not managed to get out of the 20s on rapid chargers though
The local 22kwh charger is a better bet.
Still not managed to get out of the 20s on rapid chargers though
The local 22kwh charger is a better bet.PF62 said:
I have a 100KW i GT Line R135 50KWh on a two year lease turning up in a couple of weeks time to 'dip my toe' in the EV water as a second car.
Now just to get a charging point sorted out.
I'm in a very similar situation (mine delivered last week), you wont be disappointed.Now just to get a charging point sorted out.
It took it round to our yard in Hertfordshire and back today, 75% dual carriageway and motorway, 25% B road/clear urban road, 132 miles in total, doing 60-65mph on the motorway/dual carriageways, which for most of the journey wasn't much slower than traffic. I forgot to reset the computer (another quirk that there doesn't seem to be a trip that auto-resets each journey), but had 30% battery remaining on my return, which means it did 3.77 mls/kWh today so 188mile range.
Update from the OP!
5 months, 6,000 miles into 'new' Zoe ownership - leased, 1+35, £340 per month, 16kpa. Its the GT Line, 50KWh Rapid Charge. Cant be arsed to read what I wrote originally, but dont think our view has changed much, probably improved further.
We also have a sheddy diesel A6 tip car which I use for my 2-3 days a week long commute (200 mile round trip), a 'toy car' (ok, a 992 911) and my 19yo lads '06 reg Renault Clio (1st car, cheap insurance and utterly utterly faithful!)
My wife uses the Zoe primarily for her 70 mile a day commute up the M5, M42 and Birmingham suburbs - she's a school teacher. Goes without saying, its proven cost neutral at worst for a start. Got the free Chargemaster Box with the car, moved to Octopus 5p rate and it very nicely tops up every night whilst we sleep. TBH, haven't really noticed the bill go up much either - its winter, so its just been absorbed into that. Maybe £20ish a month? Take into account the lack of diesel and the loan we were paying on her old car, in terms of monthlies, we are probably £50ish up. It just works, so so easy to drive, REALLY nippy especially around town.
She's been getting 3.5 miles per KWh on an average commute, 1.5p a mile, and she doesn't hang about on the motorway sections. Drives it exactly as she would her old diesel (erratically, sometimes like she stole it, sometimes Ms Daisy). Certainly no 'Eco' mode here, no regen mode there. That reflects in seeing the range hover around the 160 miles through the winter - heated seats, aircon, headlights - all going, all the time.
Then lockdown happened, and she's working from home. So rather than spend £20 on diesel every few daysl, I've bagged the keys for the last two months for my 200 mile roundtrip.
I've managed to get to about 4 miles per KWh, 1.25p per mile, and seeing 180-200 miles on a charge, very dependant on outside temps, 150 when its been -7 recently. I've never pushed it and usually stop for a coffee anyway as its a 13-14hr day for me. So have been stopping at Michaelwood Services M5 North, grabbing a coffee whilst plugging into the Ecotricity things. £2.50 and 10 mins later, and I'm home with 10-20 miles to spare. Think it was 6 degs yesterday, showed as 197 miles, car pre-heated on the drive at 04:45hrs, 60-70mph. If I'd pushed it, could have maybe - just - made it without stopping. The range indicated is very accurate after a few trips.
The good?
It does exactly what we expected it to, real range is actually okay, charging on the drive is a dream - pre-heating is the best bit, its soooo easy to drive, properly nippy up to 40mph, the GT spec is very very good, everything you'd ever want. And I've had no problems charging at Motorway services for the last few weeks on the 50KWh CCS Combo units.
Not so good?
Back doors and tailgate are tinny at best, BP Chargemaster are useless, we had an issue 4 WEEKS AGO with the box and we are still waiting for a call back despite god knows how many calls to them. I'm an ex-sparky so fixed it myself, warranty is useless if nobody responds.
Would we make the same decision again? Absolutely yes.
Anyway, she's back at work next week so handing the keys back. Charged the old skool lead-acid thing ready to go back into my sheddy A6 on Sunday, happy-is that I'm £400 up on fuel money. Going to really miss the Zoe for sure.
I won't deny that I haven't considered chopping in my Shed and 992 for a Taycan / e-tron GT / Tesla - along with my PH card.
5 months, 6,000 miles into 'new' Zoe ownership - leased, 1+35, £340 per month, 16kpa. Its the GT Line, 50KWh Rapid Charge. Cant be arsed to read what I wrote originally, but dont think our view has changed much, probably improved further.
We also have a sheddy diesel A6 tip car which I use for my 2-3 days a week long commute (200 mile round trip), a 'toy car' (ok, a 992 911) and my 19yo lads '06 reg Renault Clio (1st car, cheap insurance and utterly utterly faithful!)
My wife uses the Zoe primarily for her 70 mile a day commute up the M5, M42 and Birmingham suburbs - she's a school teacher. Goes without saying, its proven cost neutral at worst for a start. Got the free Chargemaster Box with the car, moved to Octopus 5p rate and it very nicely tops up every night whilst we sleep. TBH, haven't really noticed the bill go up much either - its winter, so its just been absorbed into that. Maybe £20ish a month? Take into account the lack of diesel and the loan we were paying on her old car, in terms of monthlies, we are probably £50ish up. It just works, so so easy to drive, REALLY nippy especially around town.
She's been getting 3.5 miles per KWh on an average commute, 1.5p a mile, and she doesn't hang about on the motorway sections. Drives it exactly as she would her old diesel (erratically, sometimes like she stole it, sometimes Ms Daisy). Certainly no 'Eco' mode here, no regen mode there. That reflects in seeing the range hover around the 160 miles through the winter - heated seats, aircon, headlights - all going, all the time.
Then lockdown happened, and she's working from home. So rather than spend £20 on diesel every few daysl, I've bagged the keys for the last two months for my 200 mile roundtrip.
I've managed to get to about 4 miles per KWh, 1.25p per mile, and seeing 180-200 miles on a charge, very dependant on outside temps, 150 when its been -7 recently. I've never pushed it and usually stop for a coffee anyway as its a 13-14hr day for me. So have been stopping at Michaelwood Services M5 North, grabbing a coffee whilst plugging into the Ecotricity things. £2.50 and 10 mins later, and I'm home with 10-20 miles to spare. Think it was 6 degs yesterday, showed as 197 miles, car pre-heated on the drive at 04:45hrs, 60-70mph. If I'd pushed it, could have maybe - just - made it without stopping. The range indicated is very accurate after a few trips.
The good?
It does exactly what we expected it to, real range is actually okay, charging on the drive is a dream - pre-heating is the best bit, its soooo easy to drive, properly nippy up to 40mph, the GT spec is very very good, everything you'd ever want. And I've had no problems charging at Motorway services for the last few weeks on the 50KWh CCS Combo units.
Not so good?
Back doors and tailgate are tinny at best, BP Chargemaster are useless, we had an issue 4 WEEKS AGO with the box and we are still waiting for a call back despite god knows how many calls to them. I'm an ex-sparky so fixed it myself, warranty is useless if nobody responds.
Would we make the same decision again? Absolutely yes.
Anyway, she's back at work next week so handing the keys back. Charged the old skool lead-acid thing ready to go back into my sheddy A6 on Sunday, happy-is that I'm £400 up on fuel money. Going to really miss the Zoe for sure.
I won't deny that I haven't considered chopping in my Shed and 992 for a Taycan / e-tron GT / Tesla - along with my PH card.
dgswk said:
5 months, 6,000 miles into 'new' Zoe ownership - leased, 1+35, £340 per month, 16kpa. I
...
Got the free Chargemaster Box with the car
...
BP Chargemaster are useless,
Was your lease direct with Renault?...
Got the free Chargemaster Box with the car
...
BP Chargemaster are useless,
I have heard mixed stories about whether you are entitled to the free Chargemaster box with leased cars, with some reports that only leases from a Renault dealer are eligible, and trying to get an answer from BP is rather frustrating.
PF62 said:
dgswk said:
5 months, 6,000 miles into 'new' Zoe ownership - leased, 1+35, £340 per month, 16kpa. I
...
Got the free Chargemaster Box with the car
...
BP Chargemaster are useless,
Was your lease direct with Renault?...
Got the free Chargemaster Box with the car
...
BP Chargemaster are useless,
I have heard mixed stories about whether you are entitled to the free Chargemaster box with leased cars, with some reports that only leases from a Renault dealer are eligible, and trying to get an answer from BP is rather frustrating.
But then I thought if you don't ask you dont get so got in touch with BP on the off chance. I filled in the forms with the reg number, waited about 6-8 weeks whilst they did some checks with National Grid and all that, and an engineer turned up in the middle of November.
They did a good job, pretty neat and they were gone..... The device then started locking out and after hounding them for over two weeks - they could not even give me a date for an engineer to come and look, I gave up, gave my electrician buddy a call and together we diagnosed a faulty device in the EV board, ordered one up and we were away.
We still don't have a date for the engineer..... Electric Auto / Zen leasing were excellent.
dgswk said:
PF62 said:
dgswk said:
5 months, 6,000 miles into 'new' Zoe ownership - leased, 1+35, £340 per month, 16kpa. I
...
Got the free Chargemaster Box with the car
...
BP Chargemaster are useless,
Was your lease direct with Renault?...
Got the free Chargemaster Box with the car
...
BP Chargemaster are useless,
I have heard mixed stories about whether you are entitled to the free Chargemaster box with leased cars, with some reports that only leases from a Renault dealer are eligible, and trying to get an answer from BP is rather frustrating.
But then I thought if you don't ask you dont get so got in touch with BP on the off chance. I filled in the forms with the reg number, waited about 6-8 weeks whilst they did some checks with National Grid and all that, and an engineer turned up in the middle of November.
They did a good job, pretty neat and they were gone..... The device then started locking out and after hounding them for over two weeks - they could not even give me a date for an engineer to come and look, I gave up, gave my electrician buddy a call and together we diagnosed a faulty device in the EV board, ordered one up and we were away.
We still don't have a date for the engineer..... Electric Auto / Zen leasing were excellent.
dgswk said:
She's been getting 3.5 miles per KWh on an average commute
I've managed to get to about 4 miles per KWh,
That tallies with what I'm getting, 3.5 at 65-70 cruise, 3.9 at 62mph on a route that was virtually all motorway yesterday.I've managed to get to about 4 miles per KWh,
I've done 500miles in a week and half in mine (more than I usually do though TBF) and was beginning to think I should have gone for more than the 8k per year on my lease. The excess mileage is ~7p/mile so it will still be cheaper to use the Zoe and pay the excess mileage than take the diesel family wagon instead which is ~11p/mile just on diesel.
dgswk said:
They did a good job, pretty neat and they were gone..... The device then started locking out and after hounding them for over two weeks - they could not even give me a date for an engineer to come and look, I gave up, gave my electrician buddy a call and together we diagnosed a faulty device in the EV board, ordered one up and we were away.
We still don't have a date for the engineer.....
It is a huge issue for the electrical industry generally. Manufacturers and installers spend huge amounts of time with software related issues. Dumb chargers were simpler and the software Apps provide/use is built into most cars. We still don't have a date for the engineer.....
A large electrical company I know says 97% of customers calls are software relate issues (solar, battery storage etc).
All this clever tech to link things up is great in theory but in practice it can be a nightmare. Electrical companies are going to have to be 50% software based in future.
Frimley111R said:
It is a huge issue for the electrical industry generally. Manufacturers and installers spend huge amounts of time with software related issues. Dumb chargers were simpler and the software Apps provide/use is built into most cars.
A large electrical company I know says 97% of customers calls are software relate issues (solar, battery storage etc).
All this clever tech to link things up is great in theory but in practice it can be a nightmare. Electrical companies are going to have to be 50% software based in future.
100% mate, I'm of the the PLC and a few relays old school of thought; I took the BP / Renault offer up on the basis I got the board fitted and the 6mm run in for free. The connector on the end was a bonus. Sadly, I haven't updated my quals in years but have a couple of friends still in the game who spec and commission stuff in exchange for beer + bbq's. I just do the graft....A large electrical company I know says 97% of customers calls are software relate issues (solar, battery storage etc).
All this clever tech to link things up is great in theory but in practice it can be a nightmare. Electrical companies are going to have to be 50% software based in future.
If I'm honest I'd never pay £1500 for one - I'd rather pay an electrician a good rate and get something nice and simple that won't let me down. Never used the BP app, never used the Renault App - I just program the charge time in the car.
BP app is crap. Getting a Chargemaster engineer is a nightmare though they are polite and do a clean and tidy job. My unit has been swapped twice now - always charged no problem, it was the communicating back to their servers that was the issue. If I'd not wanted to see what I was actually using I would have never known. Now got one with a Vodafone sim (which they are/were trying out) and that's all fine - except they think there's still a fault as they can't send to it. Suspect if you program a charge (you can specify maximum charge rate when scheduling through them - so if you have solar panels ...) then when you next plug the car in it detects and downloads the schedule. Not tested that.
I know my local Renault garage were without a working charger and when i went there for the pre-con fix a few weeks back it looked like new ones were finally being installed (after about 8 months without) and they are no BP CHargemaster ones - don't know if this is connected with them shifting away from a free BP Chargemaster unit to up to £500 back on getting your own installed (though some one here has just say that offer is about to be dropped). I know they have some sort of deal with OVO at present for new buyers.
I know my local Renault garage were without a working charger and when i went there for the pre-con fix a few weeks back it looked like new ones were finally being installed (after about 8 months without) and they are no BP CHargemaster ones - don't know if this is connected with them shifting away from a free BP Chargemaster unit to up to £500 back on getting your own installed (though some one here has just say that offer is about to be dropped). I know they have some sort of deal with OVO at present for new buyers.
For anyone with a Zoe50 - the're two or three 'fixes' Renault can apply.
The fist - if you're seeing far less maximum range than you expect (or if you're using CanZE and not seeing 96%+ SoH) then there is a BMS update:
64453
I believe they have to do it through USB key, not their laptops and it takes a half day due to the downloading, not the application.
However, must haves ... - Energy Screen - showing the energy usage logging screens in the brochures and not on the car:
64756 & 64273
First is the app, second is a bug fix - again USB install for Renault and takes 1-1.5 hours. Adds as additional icon to the app screen, plus an extra widget for the home screens (and is a default on the second screen).
Visuals can be found on the Zoe forum here.
The fist - if you're seeing far less maximum range than you expect (or if you're using CanZE and not seeing 96%+ SoH) then there is a BMS update:
64453
I believe they have to do it through USB key, not their laptops and it takes a half day due to the downloading, not the application.
However, must haves ... - Energy Screen - showing the energy usage logging screens in the brochures and not on the car:
64756 & 64273
First is the app, second is a bug fix - again USB install for Renault and takes 1-1.5 hours. Adds as additional icon to the app screen, plus an extra widget for the home screens (and is a default on the second screen).
Visuals can be found on the Zoe forum here.
HughG said:
Thanks Dan, do you happen to know the update number that fixes the remote charging/pre-condition via MyRenault app?
Mine is in with Hendy Tunbridge Wells at the moment and they don't seem to be able to help. Mine is a June 20 car so hasn't got the November build updates.
For the pre-charge you need to call Renault tech support and go through them - try the garage anyhow as they will have done a few and so will know what they're meant to be doing - also it's a laptop in fix, making their life easier ...unless you need a BCM replacement as was my case - took two failed attempts before they were willing to go that route, but Renault Tech Support were part of the issue.Mine is in with Hendy Tunbridge Wells at the moment and they don't seem to be able to help. Mine is a June 20 car so hasn't got the November build updates.
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