Ah, a general update, I see. Will do.
Well, swanned in this morning to work serenely, as always. I still enjoy the drive - there's a real punch of acceleration at town speeds if you choose to use it, and at those kind of speeds it's a peaceful place to be. On the motorway there's plenty of wind and tyre noise. Not very obtrusive, but enough to hide the fact there is no engine noise.
Running costs remain absurdly low for me. Every time I put £70 in the Volvo to fill it up I can't help thinking that's 7000 miles in the Zoe - my electricity costs really are working out at about a penny a mile.
However, since I bought it, there's been a change in that Ecotricity motorway rapid chargers are no longer free. That means that those drivers who were used to doing long distances regularly are now having to pay, and in some cases it's turning out it's now costing them more than a diesel. There's been a lot of noise about that, and undoubtedly it will affect perception and therefore probably sales of these vehicles.
On the other hand, MOST drivers don't use those rapids daily, so the odd £6 here and there on the occasional longer journey isn't really too bad. It couldn't be free forever.
And then of course there is an undetermined in size subset like me, who only use the car for local runs, so never use a rapid anyway. It hasn't therefore made any difference to that subset.
Other non-rapid public chargers are everywhere, and there are more and more by the minute. They all come from different providers, and providers in this nascent market keep buying each other out and taking over legacy networks, so it all changes every three minutes. These chargers vary from free to a few pence to extortionate, so you still have to research, carry different swipe cards, have multiple apps on your phone and so on. You need to be a bit dedicated to the cause at first to make sense of it all, until you find what works for you. Obviously this can be seen a massive pain in hoop if you are used to finding any old petrol station anywhere and waiting three minutes to get 600 miles in the tank. That's a big issue - until you get used to the alternative way of life, at which point fossil fuel at the car really does seem horribly antiquated, pollutey, incredibly expensive and generally nasty. Lots of people will never get over that one though, no doubt.
I've never really used any of those public chargers either though.
What works for me is having the "backup" Volvo. Many EV owners have a second ICE car, and to be honest, that's probably the ideal way of doing it, as long as it fits with your available space and finances of course. We've used the Volvo this year for two UK holidays of a week each, and three longer day trips. I've fuelled it three times since January, and I currently have about 300 miles of fuel in it. We may well only use it once or twice more this year, and I may not have to refuel again this year. All the other miles are in the Zoe (5500 so far). Lots of people do the "day hire" thing for longer runs - be cheaper than keeping a second car of course but less convenient.
Renault don't do this, but Nissan offer Leaf buyers a couple of weeks a year in a free loan ICE car from the dealer you got the Leaf from, so lots of people have a free Juke or something for their holiday. You have to insure and fuel it is all. Nice touch from Nissan.
In terms of range, averaged out I've had about 105 miles a "tank" out of it. I rather suspect it would go another ten or fifteen miles if I tried. I don't really try, so that's at normal speed and acceleration, as long as you accept I don't go above about 65 on the motorway, unless overtaking. To be fair though, I don't go above 65 on the motorway in the Volvo either, so it was no big deal for me.
Reliability - it's always started and got me there, and I've never yet got anywhere near running out of charge, largely through a tiny bit of forethought. The car itself is high, as the batteries are under the floor. We like that. It's heavy and a bit jiggly in ride over bumps, and we like that less. Internal fitting and materials fall squarely into the "perfectly adequate and we're happy" category. It's not a GT cruiser by any means - it really is a town commutey type vehicle.
The only thing that has been utter pants is the satnav, not because of the unit itself - it's a TomTom - but because it features what Renault call "Live Services". That's the bit that does traffic alerts, weather reports and a host of other useless but interesting things. That has failed on me numerous times, and indeed it's having its third dealer attempt at a fix later this week. Renault Customer Services have been brilliant though, and have already sent me a cheque in compensation for all the problems, which will more than pay for next year's "Live Services" subscription (yes, they charge you after the first year, cheeky monkeys.) Assuming the dealer ever fixes it. The actual satnav works fine of course, and it's pretty good - fast, clear, huge screen. Just currently can't tell me about traffic is all.
So, would we buy another? As long as our usage pattern remains as mostly local commutes and visits to mum and the garden centre and the shops and the tip and so on and on, with the odd day run and a backup vehicle, I certainly would. If I had a 75 mile commute or something and it needed charging on the motorway all the time, probably not.
Cost of purchase - well, I got one the storming deal a year ago and they are drying up fast. However, looking right now at the dealer I got it from, a replacement today on a 2 year PCP on the same terms would be £199 deposit, then £199 a month. For interest, I paid £89 deposit(!) and now £169 a month, so they've gone up a bit. In comparison, a Nissan Leaf requires a multi thousand deposit, which was why we bought the Zoe in the first place. TCO for me therefore over two years likely to be under 5k, for a new car with , breakdown cover, warranty etc. I think that's pretty good. A service costs about £80 as pretty much all they do is change the cabin filter. Rip off!
Finally, "they've" been talking about new cars due any minute all year, from various manufacturers, with bigger batteries and longer ranges. The Renault rumour mill is talking of a replacement Zoe with twice the range - if that materialises the car really might work without a second backup vehicle, and I'd be very interested in that.
All eyes are on the Paris Motor Show, as word on the street is there will some EV stuff from lots of people.
|
