Motoring Discussion > If Renault electrics are bad...... Miscellaneous
Thread Author: BobbyG Replies: 24
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 Mon 2 Dec 13 23:19 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - BobbyG
Then electric Renaults must be really bad?????

Would you take a punt on this, new £25k, one year old, 2k miles and only £7299?

www.motorpoint.co.uk/VehicleAdvert/RENAULT/FLUENCE/4405

Without knowing the full specs of the car and the life of the batteries etc, I can't help but think this should tick the boxes of many buyers? Low running costs, looks comfortable enough and well specced?

Surprised that Renault don't have a buy-back scheme to keep their prices high on what ,must be a very limited number of vehicles? Unless they don't want them either?

Although I see from the Renault website the batteries are hired - not sure how that works on a second hard car from a car supermarket?
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 00:32 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Avant
That's horrendous depreciation, even for a big Renault.

Until someone discovers how to extend the range beyond 100 miles, pure electric cars won't really take off.

Imagine - you drive your bargain Fluence to your office 5 miles away with enough charge to get home, but not much more. Suddenly you're called to a meeting with a client / another office in the next county. Or a family member falls seriously ill 100 miles away.

With a petrol, diesel or hybrid you'd just go and fill up. But with a pure electric car you're stuffed.
Last edited by: Avant on Tue 3 Dec 13 at 00:32
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 00:50 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Armel Coussine
Perro was saying an electric car would suit him fine. I'm surprised he hasn't snapped this one up.

Where are you comrade? Woof woof!

The batteries are leased at a quarterly rate. For that I assume if the pack wears out you get a new one under the terms of the lease.

These high-voltage battery packs are quite dear, two or three thousand dollars. Or in this case Euros I suppose.

I wouldn't want an electric car as my only car. A Prius perhaps, but not an electric car proper.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 06:58 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - swiss tony
>> I wouldn't want an electric car as my only car. A Prius perhaps, but not an electric car proper.
>>

I fully agree.
My personal view is that battery operated cars is a fad, or a very expensive dead-end in car design.
Yes, we need to find an alternative to fossil fuel, but batteries aint it....
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 08:28 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Dog
>>Where are you comrade? Woof woof!

Tucked up in bed under my Fogarty wool duvet at that hour Sire.

An electric car would suit us, for the mileage we do, but I'd only consider buying one for use as a 2nd car though.

The Peugeot iOn I drove around the coves of South Cornwall earlier in the year was a pleasant experience.

The Renault Fluence looks a tad boring to me and, I'd prefer to buy a leccie new rather than used.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 07:04 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - WillDeBeest
Suddenly you're called to a meeting with a client / another office in the next county. Or a family member falls seriously ill 100 miles away...

Fair enough, and if that's the sort of thing that regularly happens in your life, this isn't the car for you. But occasional emergencies happen to us all and we make special arrangements when necessary, just as we hire a van or pay a delivery man to get that wardrobe home, rather than going to work in a Sprinter just in case.

Fact is that many - even most - of us drive more far than we really need. Arguably, a Smart would be plenty for my 25-mile motorway commute, but the space of the LEC is useful at weekends, so I use that instead. But if I used the space only once or twice a year, I'd be better off hiring a big car occasionally and using something smaller every day.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 07:46 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - PeterS
While the depreciation numbers do look terrible, the reality is just a bit worse than normal I think. Bear in mind that £5k of that £24k list price will have been paid by the 'green' subsidy on electric vehicles, and I'm sure a 10% or so discount will also have been achievable. So it's gone from £17k to £7k in 2 years - not that far off a Megane I don't suppose!!

If it wasn't so ugly I'd be tempted to buy one at that price. I could use it to offset the 22 mpg consumption of my old V8 powered Audi ;-)
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 08:06 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - WillDeBeest
By towing it?
};---)

Realized too late that I typed 'more far' above when 'more car' would have made more sense. Sorry.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Tue 3 Dec 13 at 08:08
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 08:18 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Crankcase
Interesting. Here's a little article about it - doesn't come out too bad.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/oct/31/renault-fluence-ze-electric-car

If you don't want to read that and only want to know about the range - official about 100 miles per charge, in the real world, probably about 70 to 80 I'd guess. Batteries about £85 a month to lease, and even if the article says £750 for a charging point it's well known you can get them put in at home entirely free at the minute.

I reckon even in my Prius I spend about £140 a month on fuel, and I reckon that range would cover 90% of my journeys, including most weekend runs, so with the occasional hire for longer runs and holidays it's not completely mad.

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 Tue 3 Dec 13 08:56 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - bathtub tom
What do all-electric cars do for a heater this time of year?

With only one source of power, I presume using the battery for heat must severely reduce their range.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 09:02 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Dog
>>I presume using the battery for heat must severely reduce their range.

Yes indeedy and, if y'all get stuck in a jam due to heavy snowfall, well ... :(
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 09:32 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - WillDeBeest
There is, of course, 'only one source of power' in a fossil-fuelled car, too. It's just that it wastes more of its fuel as heat, some of which can be channelled into heating the cabin. With electric cars it's just a matter of time until the technology matures to the point where a little extra battery capacity to power the heater, AC, seat motors etc doesn't detract from the usefulness of the vehicle.

Ten years ago I bought my first digital camera. It was slow, cumbersome and really only to be used for pictures I really needed in digital form. I couldn't see digital supplanting film, but only three years later I was using nothing but digital. Heavy engineering develops more slowly than consumer electronics but the trend is the same. Many of us will already have bought our last new, fossil-fuelled car.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 09:37 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Zero
>> There is, of course, 'only one source of power' in a fossil-fuelled car, too. It's
>> just that it wastes more of its fuel as heat, some of which can be
>> channelled into heating the cabin. With electric cars it's just a matter of time until
>> the technology matures to the point where a little extra battery capacity to power the
>> heater, AC, seat motors etc doesn't detract from the usefulness of the vehicle.
>>
>> Ten years ago I bought my first digital camera. It was slow, cumbersome and really
>> only to be used for pictures I really needed in digital form. I couldn't see
>> digital supplanting film, but only three years later I was using nothing but digital. Heavy
>> engineering develops more slowly than consumer electronics but the trend is the same. Many of
>> us will already have bought our last new, fossil-fuelled car.

Unlikely. Useful battery technology is still tens of years away. They still haven't perfected it in mobile electronics despite the gazzilions spent on it and the sheer size of the market. Battery only cars are a dead end technology.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 10:03 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - rtj70
I don't suppose the fact the batteries on this car are leased and never yours helps it's resale value. It might have kept the purchase price down a bit but having to pay out £85 each month to just rent the batteries is crazy.

On an average month I use say £75 of diesel in my car for about 500 miles. Sometimes I will do a lot more and pay out more on diesel. A large percentage of the driving will be local/stop-start/cold-engine type driving (not so good for a DPF but it's not my car).

In the real world you're not going to get the quoted range out of the Renault, especially when you start needing lights and heating. It's still cheaper if you do enough miles I guess - but can more easily be justified commuting into central London. But there are petrol or diesel cars which are exempt from the congestion charge as well.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 10:00 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Cliff Pope
>> Many of
>> us will already have bought our last new, fossil-fuelled car.
>>

We'll just go on buying fossil-fuelled power stations instead.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 10:37 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Roger.
Seems crazy to me that "green" cars attract a wedge of taxpayers money (that's you and me, folks) to make them even remotely affordable. (Like all "green" taxes it's the less affluent who are affected most by the idiocy.)
With batteries which (a) are not remotely green, (b) don't last that long and (c) are stupidly expensive, it seems to mean these things are a passing fad for people who wish to show the world that they can afford them and suffer from a "Hey, look at me I'm right on green, man" syndrome. ;-)
As proper transport they just don't cut the mustard.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 10:50 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Boxsterboy
There was a similar story about a chap who was only offered £2,500 for his Renault Twizzy less than a year after paying £7,500 for it, and that offer was from a Renault dealer. Renault intervened and he ended up with more, but this sort of depreciation on pure EVs shows they will only remain a niche vehicle.

Range Extender cars (Vauxhall Ampera, BMW i3) which have no range anxiety seem the best solution for those who want to minimise exhaust emissions at the moment, but they are still too expensive. And I think a lot of people are put off buying them for fear of that a better/cheaper solution may be just around the corner.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 10:50 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Shiny
What do all-electric cars do for a heater this time of year?

On most EV's - The speed controller gets hot and air is drawn over fins on the heatsinks.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 11:43 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - bathtub tom
That makes sense st, but does it produce enough heat to warm the interior of a car?

Anyone here experienced an EV on a cold day?
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 12:56 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Cliff Pope

>>
>> On most EV's - The speed controller gets hot and air is drawn over fins
>> on the heatsinks.
>>

You surely can't mean that an electric car wastes heat, which just happens to be convenient for the heater ? :)
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 11:57 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - BobbyG
If you charge it at one of the charging stations at supermarkets is it free?
So no congestion charge, no road tax and park for nothing while someone else pays your fuel bill?
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 20:18 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - mikeyb
Renault now knocking them out at £17,845 on their website and I bet you could chip away at that figure.

I actualy drove the Fluence in Tunisia earlier this year, but over there its just sold as a petrol or diesel. No idea if these are the same, but it did feel that it was built to a price for third world motoring. Felt like a late 90's laguna.

I see Motorpoint now have 2 so if you don't mind one with a heady 3K on it then its £6999

If that was the all in price with no battery costs then I could be tempted
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 20:25 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - MJW1994
Shame it looks so bland. A battery Clio would make more sense.
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 Tue 3 Dec 13 20:56 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - ToMoCo
So, buy this used and what? Sign a contract with Renault for the monthly? You cant sell unless buyer will sign contract?

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 Tue 3 Dec 13 21:13 
 If Renault electrics are bad...... - Runfer D'Hills
I think electric cars are a great idea. For other people. I'd have the battery dead before most people had had their weetybangs.
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