Renault Zoe EV Could Have 220-Mile Range & Low Price

February 28th, 2012 by Zachary Shahan

Technology improves, in most industries, and it’s improving at a fast clip in the electric vehicle industry as more and more companies, researchers, investors, and engineers get in on the game. As Chris DeMorro of Gas2 notes below, “Renault is working on a second-generation battery pack for the Zoe EV that could offer about 220 miles of driving range in a vehicle that currently costs around €15,000, or about $20,000.” That’s some pretty awesome news!

Put in other terms, the Renault Zoe EV would have a similar range as the Tesla Roadster or base Model S, but it would be about 3 times cheaper. And, as Chris notes, 200 miles is plenty satisfactory for most driver’s needs.

How is Renault doing it?

“The secret is that, unlike Nissan and its Leaf, Renault leases the battery to customers, rather than sell the whole package, at a cost of €100, or about $125, per month,” Chris notes.

Aha!

We’ll see if this sparks such policies from other companies offering electric vehicles (and which companies aren’t these days).

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Tags: quickies, renault, renault ev, renault zoe, zoe, zoe ev

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joe-M-Wesson/1849880845 Joe M. Wesson

leasing a battery is just like buying gasoline.
$125/month is almost what i pay for gas.
the only thing better is the sticker price.
not sure i’d go for that.
should i trade dependence on foreign oil for dependence on foreign batteries?
hmmm.

.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  Thanks to our forward looking President, we now have several battery plants operating in the United States.
  
  Nissan is manufacturing the batteries for it’s Leaf EV in Smyrna, Tennessee.
  
  We’re even gearing up to extract lithium from geothermal waste water at the Salton Sea. That’s California.
  
  Americans working for our transportation future. An end to purchasing foreign oil.
http://twitter.com/BrandonCoak Brandon Coakley

“The secret is that, unlike Nissan and its Leaf, Renault leases the battery to customers, rather than sell the whole package, at a cost of €100, or about $125, per month,”

Businesses that make logical financial decisions, that also meet ethical goals.. Will speed by their competitors in the next half century.
- Bob_Wallace
  
  I doubt that. We’re seeing lots of messages that battery prices are soon to fall and capacities rise.
  
  Leasing an expensive battery (or building cars for battery swapping as Renault is also doing) may give them short term market advantages, but those advantages go away with higher capacity, lower cost batteries.
  - Amici
    
    I think that when batteries become cheaper, with more capacity, all that will happen to Renault is that it will start leasing better batteries, able to do more miles and will rent them at $80 and not $125 monthly.
    How is that bad to them or us? And – folks will already have a car, so the future already started for them, they just go and pick up better batteries.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  I agree. I think Bob is right that battery prices will fall. But in the meantime, this is a clever decision that could land the company a lot of sales. And this is the kind of thinking that we need more of.