CC has had lively discussion over the last few weeks touching the subject of alternative fuels, triggered by the VW emission scandal. One subject that has come up several times is the use of all electric power in urban environments. In Europe, the undisputed leader in this technology is Renault–Nissan, with the Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf respectively. The Leaf will be familiar (or at least known) to US readers but the smaller Zoe is not sold outside Europe.
The Zoe is actually part of the Renault Clio supermini family, and shares the basic structure of the conventional Clio, on a platform that was designed with an all electric version in mind. Power comes from a 22kWh lithium battery pack, located low in the floorpan, where you might expect to see a fuel tank. That keeps the centre of gravity low, but the car still weighs in it at almost 1465kg, around 3300lb. Under the bonnet are the motor and charging control systems. The boot is a competitive size, as is the interior accommodation for four. This battery drives an 87bhp, 162lbft motor, driving the front wheels. Front suspension is MacPherson struts and the rear is a torsion beam with coil springs.
Style wise, the car is completely separate from the Clio externally, and to me anyway, at least as attractive as the good looking Clio, although with a softer impression, helped by the grille less front and the blue touch to the lights. Inside, there are many familiar Renault switches and details, and the centre stack housing the touch screen and some controls is pure Clio. In the most commonly seen and promoted white, the car almost has an Apple vibe that may not be entirely unintentional.
Charging the car is by plug in only; there is no hybrid option and induction charging isn’t here yet. As usual, there are variations in charge rate based on the supply available, ranging from specially installed domestic 220V systems to three phase charging points. Charge times are nine hours at home but the thee phase 63amp chargers can get you 80% charged in 30 minutes. Renault offer a fast charger that is compatible with a domestic supply also, charging the car in around 3 hours.
Although I haven’t driven one – I’d love to try it – reports suggest that the driving experience is better suited to the urban environment than to an open main road or motorway. To start it, get in, belt up, insert the key (actually a credit card sized and shaped keycard), press a button, engage “D” and depress the accelerator. Being electric, the torque is of course immediately available and the low speed refinement is impressive. Nothing there to frighten any one.
Above 50 mph or so, however, the electric motor’s producing a lot less torque and power is dropping away. Speed increases here are harder to achieve and take longer, which may limit the use the car gets there. But that’s missing the point.
This is a car for the urban environment. It has a range of 80 miles or so on a charge, which is sufficient for several days for many urban users. This, with the ease of use, the fact it avoids some inner city congestion penalties (in London, for example, the Zoe and anything like it are exempt from the central zone congestion charge scheme) and the class competitive level of capability in many areas make it valid choice for many users.
Relative costs are always difficult to assess, but in the UK the car costs around £14,000 (after a Government grant of £5,000) and Renault lease the battery for another £85 – say two tanks of fuel – per month, for a car with sat–nav, cruise and Bluetooth. That’s comparable with a similarly specified Clio and I can certainly see the attraction of the Zoe as a second or third car for a city dwelling household, and a safe choice for young drivers perhaps. Factor in the attractive style and non aggressive image to help seal the deal?
We know two things about electric cars – the battery range is going to get better (the Zoe’s big brother the Nissan Leaf has already moved to a v2 of its battery) and the price is going to come down as usage and volumes increase.
Perhaps, on this evidence, we shouldn’t be too pessimistic but may be permit ourselves some optimism?
The US is a such a disadvantage compared to Europe (and most of the world) for charging electric cars at existing common electric outlets because of our 120V AC mains power. Instead of charging on common domestic outlets taking 9 hours as on the Zoe, it would take 18 hours. The same issue makes our dishwashers and washing machines take forever to do their job as the water heats with a 1000w heating element instead of 2500w.
American A/C was set up by Serbian genius Nikola Tesla, working with George Westinghouse (not that fool Edison, who lobbied for DC power). My water is heated by natural gas, which is more efficient.
American homes often have 220V for certain appliances. 80 mi. should be good for a lot of commuters. And it won’t lose power at altitude (say, Denver or Flagstaff), either.
The rear reminds me of the Toyota Yaris hatchback.
The vast majority of American homes have 240V three wire service, allowing 120V for lighting circuits and 240V for common items such as electric dryers, central AC, electric ranges, electric dryers and sometimes electric heat and electric water heaters. 240V three wire service has been the standard since the end of WW II and utilities commonly offered upgrades to older homes during the ’50s and ’60s.
If electric cars need a 240V charger in the garage, this retrofit shouldn’t be too hard for most Americans.
A buddy of mine and I ran 240V outlets from a modern service box in my first home – a 1921 vintage bungalow – to the kitchen for a range and across the basement for an electric dryer. It was basically a beer and pizza job, the materials were under $50 bucks 22 years ago. While a simple job, I recommend an electrician – I always sweat for some reason when sticking tools into an electrical panel.
Amen on that to playing in the circuit box. I had to replace a breaker, and I wore rubber gloves under work gloves and had someone ready to knock me away with a wooden handled broom in case things went wrong. I could have pulled the master fuse, but that would have also killed my work light. My electric heat is 220 / 20 amp, 12 guage wire is ok for that load. However my range, dryer, and water heater are all 40 amp, and has a much thicker gauge wire.
I’m ok working with electric; it’s very simple – it’s either right, or very wrong.
Seems like a nice car, definitely would be good for a daily commuter for myself, but the one thing that jars my sensibilities is that . . . . . . I buy the car, and then have to pay a monthly rental fee on the batteries?
Sorry, that concept is very off-putting. I’m already going to be paying a car loan, my home electric bill is going to rise (while my gasoline budget falls, of course), but I’m still expected to pay somebody for battery use.
And this is from a guy who’s first interests on a replacement car next year (once I’ve got the garage built) is a Volt, Leaf, and possibly a Bolt. And I’m hoping to test drive an off-lease iMiev this coming weekend, just to see what they’re about.
I think the model just separates paying for the car and batteries, which some people would appreciate because the lifespan of the batteries are still somewhat of a gamble at this point. Presumably there is some benefit in data to Renault too.
Renault have a guy named Laurens van den Acker styling their cars these days, and he is extremely good at it. Trouble is, hell will freeze over before I buy a Renault. I feel much the same about pure electric cars.
I can buy a huge amount of diesel and road user tax for our equivalent of 14 thousand quid plus import duties so no not for me though it would take care of my running around quite well.
Is the name a play on ZerO Emissions? I like it, over there I see it making all kinds of sense especially with more and more families being multicar (vs 20-30 years ago). Over here too, for some people/situations. Yeah, range WILL expand, the battery lease is pricy, but at least it presumably allows an easy upgrade when newer tech, i.e. longer range becomes available. It also presumably allows the concept of switching packs on trips but I am not sure how the pack is installed.
The time to charge at home seems long for 240V, that seems similar to our charge times on 110V.
Hi Jim,
yes, a play on words as you suggest. A Parisian called Zoe Renault was sufficiently unimpressed to sue Renault over the name.
The idea of the battery lease is to reduce the up front purchase and enable you to get a later, greater range battery when yours reaches a certain performance limit
The problem is the electricity to charge the batteries of electric cars has to come from some other source of power. Although wind, solar and bio-fuel generated electricity have come a long way they are still a relativity small part of electric generation and are not 24\7. The bulk of electric power in the US comes from coal, natural gas, hydro, nuclear or oil. Each has it’s own set of environmental drawbacks including wind, bio-fuel and solar. There is no such thing as a free lunch, something the so called “Green Environmentalists” tend to forget. With conventional gasoline powered automobiles getting fuel economy and very low emissions approaching what would have only been a dream 30 years ago I feel they are still going be with us for many years to come. Unless electrical generation comes up with something radical and unheard of there are going to environmental costs associated with transportation.
And don’t try to tell me that asphalt paving doesn’t emit hydrocarbons on a warm day and cement the binder in concrete doesn’t have huge environmental drawbacks in it manufacture. Everything has it’s cost, you can’t get away from the fact.
Wind power is especially marginal, & is a small fraction of CA’s output despite the farms at Altamont Pass & Palm Springs. So choose your poison. Yet another alternative today is fuel cells, with Toyota’s Mirai in limited release, but that has batteries & a high-pressure storage tank for the H2, which is why they talk up the car’s protection features.
You nailed it, Loco. An electric car is only as clean as the power-generation plant on the other end of your power cord. Where I live, the power comes from coal. That would make any electric vehicle I might own in effect a coal-burning car. Um, no thanks.
It’s not as simple as that. Coal power plants in the US and EU are quite “clean” in terms of the typical emissions (smog forming, etc). The problem is CO emissions, which is of course a GW contributor. But because an electric car is so efficient (90%), even one that uses 100% coal-power electricity has a smaller CO footprint than a conventional gas/diesel car.
So an EV is still “cleaner” regardless of its electricity source.
I think you meant to say CO2, not CO.
You can look up GHG emissions for EVs (via power generation) here:
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=bt2
And the power plant emissions data it uses comes from here:
http://oaspub.epa.gov/powpro/ept_pack.charts
Even charging off the dirtiest, oldest, purely coal-fired parts of the grid produces less emissions than a comparable ICE vehicle. You could probably find an exception somewhere, but that’s certainly not the norm.
The face reminds me of Reddy Kilowatt. Probably not on the minds of the designers, but still apt.
Reddy Kilowatt I remember him well, The carton character that was the mascot of electrification of the US in the 50’s & 60’s. The promise of great things that never happened. They said electricity produced by nuclear reactors would be so cheap that it wouldn’t pay to put a meter on houses. We all know how that went. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it’s mistakes.
My beef with nuclear is, who assumes liability for an “incident?” If industry can’t afford insurance, I don’t want the gov’t to cover it at my expense, or grant them bureaucratic immunity. I’ll take the CO2 instead.
If insurance won’t cover something, it’s too great a risk.
My avatar likes it!
A good thing about an electric car is how its CO2 footprint gets better as more low-carbon and no-carbon power sources come online.
This Renault in France is very low-CO2, since the French get 75% of their electric power from their very successful nuclear program.
…with most of the balance coming from hydro and renewables.
Another decade or so and cheap solar power may yet deliver on the “too cheap to meter” promise.
Too bad the Leaf isn’t as attractively styled as this car.
For most cars, I’ve noticed the U.K. price seems quite high when converted to dollars, but £14,000 doesn’t seem all that bad (approx. $21,000). HOWEVER, that battery rental fee, what’s up with that? And £85 ($130-$135) would buy a LOT of gas at today’s prices….right now my 1997 Civic uses $55-$75 of gas a month. I looked at the price, just this week, for replacement batteries for a Prius. WITHOUT installation they cost $2,200.
So bottom line, like the car but the finances would never work in the U.S. if only converted from Pounds to Dollars.
BTW, is it just me or have values for the Leaf dropped into a deep, dark hole?
In the UK, petrol costs £1.10 or more per litre, say &.50 a gallon
Prices for anything used and electric have dropped into that deep dark hole, and will continue to stay there as long as gasoline is sub-$2.00/gallon.
In the Richmond area, you can pick up an off-lease Leaf for around $11-12k, and an iMiev for about two thousand less than that. Volts are only running a bit higher than the Leaf.
Which has got me looking at one for a commuter car next spring once my garage is built and wired.
The 1st few years of EVs have quite the depreciation curve. Here in Reno/NorCal it seems like only the Tesla models have strong residuals.
It would be tough to make much use of an 80 mile range car where I live. I’m a low annual mileage driver, but a weekly trip of a 100 miles or so is fairly common. In the cold months you never know when a simple 30 minute trip will turn into a 2.5 hour slog through snow filled streets.
+1 for the bit about an electric car being only as clean as the power source.
What’s always bugged me is that electric cars tend to be small, humble, slow runabouts. Don’t misunderstand me, nothing wrong with small runabouts etc; my point is that we could probably achieve most of the environmental benefits – right now – if people bought the existing small, humble, slow runabouts that use conventional technology. But that class of car doesn’t have mass appeal, otherwise they’d be everywhere already. Meanwhile, people buy 6000 pound trucks as runabouts, because that’s what they really want. Why do we bother?
PS. Here’s a pic of another electric Renault
Another pic of the Renault Twizy
This is an expensive car, for what it is. £14,000 is almost 20.000 Euros, and this price includes government subsidies (other people’s money), so in reality it actually costs a whopping 26.000 euros. A comparable new car with ‘normal’ engine can be had for much less than half of this amount.
And on top of that, one must pay the equivalent of almost 120 euros every month for ‘battery lease’ ?! With a ‘normal’ car , a typical (European) urban driver will likely spend (much) less than that on monthly fuel costs.
This just doesn’t make any economical sense.
And that’s before we even begin to delve into all the general issues with electric cars – not just pathetic range and long recharge times, but also huge infrastructure problems (electrical grid) if electric cars ever become a significant percentage of all cars.
Better Place tried the same nonsense in Israel with the Fluence and went bankrupt.
I saw one of these parked In Madrid a few weeks ago while there on business. I thought it looked nice and definitely caught my eye. Didn’t have a chance to get a closer look. Didn’t realize it was electric.