I am driving a Zoe multiple times a week and thoroughly enjoy it.
Is it premium class car and will take me 600km? No, but that's not why I am driving Zoes. I drive them because it's short city commutes 99% of the time. Rarely more than 10-15km, usually transporting something or bypassing public transport in busy times/Corona/if car is just quicker.
I use them via Sixt Share, a car-sharing service. Always find parking within a few minutes with the privilege of getting the e-parking spots and the small size.
Zoe is perfect for European city dwelling and short commutes. Not as expensive as BMW i3 or VW e-Golf. Same type of car as the e-Up! which I haven't tried yet.
It sounds like it could be great for a lot of US city dwellers as well. I have lived in Seattle for several years, and can count the number of >50mi trips I've taken with my personal car on zero hands.
There have been a few times I've been tempted to try to petition a Nissan dealer to try to import a Zoe to the US. Nissan America's short-sighted truck focus belies so much more interesting work going on in their siblings in the larger Nissan Group.
The Honda e at least has the excuse that the US has been the slowest to allow sideview cameras in its safety regulations, though Honda America similarly is short-sightedly focused almost solely on trucks in the US.
wouldn't electric bike/scooter without renting make more sense for you? unless you use it to do big grocery, though this could be resolved by ordering grocery online
I'm living in the Prague without car, only missing car when doing the grocery, but there is no point to buy car just to do big grocery once a week, might as well rent a car or take taxi or order grocery online, if I would be that lazy.
Yes those shifts are needed, but in some cities/countries (talking Europe here for example) that has been going on already. Resulting in more parking spaces including surveillance, and police caring about bike theft (data point: my fairly normal bike has been stolen twice, and brought back by the police twice, thanks to the engraved serial number, and that was over a decade ago). Also with electric bicycles reaching price levels of small cars and becoming way more common, law enforcement gets pushed automatically towards caring, I think.
you must live in odd country, here in Czechia is felony stealing of subject with "more than insignificant value" (read more than 200EUR although last year they wanted to raise it to 400EUR, not sure if they succeeded) regardless what is the subject, so while stealing old used car valued at 199EUR is misdemeanor (contravention), stealing bike worth 300EUR is crime
I don't think they would really treat cars differently, if they are in same value as some bike worth 10000 EUR, the thing is car is much bigger so it's more difficult to hide it and easier to notice/discover than bike and statistically most of the used bikes are worth few euros, so it would be really waste of resources, of course it's different now with ebikes, but it is same as motorbikes, much easier to hide and difficult to discover
Can't comment on OP's country, but here in Germany while technically different, in practice it's the same
Car gets stolen: often the case is solved, license plates help, etc.pp
Bike gets stolen: Police take the report, often blame you it's your own fault that you didn't properly lock it (happened to me twice), usually doesn't get solved even if you have the number. It's worth the hassle to report it but the chnace of getting it back are close to zero.
> Car gets stolen: often the case is solved, license plates help, etc.pp
Are you sure stolen car is "often" found? Here in Czechia they find like 20% stolen cars, bikes will be worse but not that much worse since 20 is already quite close to 0 anyway.
Often compared to bikes. Also I have heard of it, so non-zero. ;) No, I don't have numbers. My point was strictly that with a stolen bike you're out of luck. Also because insurance is mandatory for cars, people usually take this addon that will have them pay for your stolen car. For bikes again it's complicated...
never thought of this good idea, so after all the car is not necessary even for grocery, but I guess parking would be issue unless you live in house, not that big deal to find place for ebike/escooter or leave car on street, but trailer inside?
Lots of apartment buildings have street level storage usable for bikes and trailers, eg in gated inner courtyards or dedicated bike storage rooms. But trailers are not very attractive vtargets for theft anyway because they are cheap and there aren't that many trailer users.
not where I live, people here park bikes either in their apartment or in their cellar, which is usually very small, parking it in some common area on building would be quite rude towards other residents blocking the space and nobody will dare to park bike on street overnight
It's honestly not a surprise. The European market favor smaller car way more than the American one. You just have to see the sheer number of 206, Twingo & Clio on the road.
I still see some Tesla, but usually it is a status symbol, people who just want an electric car usually go for the Nissan Leaf or the Renault Zoe.
This. Commute cars are Aygos and Ups, not two ton sedans. The (original) Tesla is one of the largest vehicles you'll see around here, only beaten by the hughest SUVs. And the commute market is where people buy electric, so that doesn't match at all. Anecdatally the only people I know with Teslas are rich enough they have it as one of their cars, as an extra to see what it is all about. Very few buy it instead of their commute box.
But Tesla sale number per country just mean Tesla decided to allocate more cars to a specific country, as long as it is production constrained not much information about customer preferences from sales numbers.
This was specifically because starting in January this year tax breaks for electric cars were changed considerably for people leasing an electric car, specifically the more expensive ones.
The new Polo is as large as the Golf used to be and the new Golf, especially the station is as large as the early model Passats. This is mostly an arms race, not so much on size as on crash safety, to maintain those precious stars car models creep up in their outside dimensions. Interiors are fairly static.
Back in the 1980s I considered the VW Golf a small car, but not anymore. Not sure if it's gotten larger since then, or my view of a small car has shrunk. But I don't think the Tesla 3 is that much larger than a Golf.
That's one explanation that focuses on the differences between European an American markets.
But also, the Zoe is is in the affordable range for people looking for an electric car in non-massively-subsidized markets (Norway, Denmark), while VWs and Teslas are rather in the luxury range.
The amount of car (utility & status & luxury) I get for Tesla or VW money in e.g. Germany, makes most prospective customers buy either an ICE (looking for a family car), or BMW or Audi SUVs (looking for luxury & status) - unless they are idealists or in search of image polish (business cars bring larger tax benefits for electric cars).
Then there are simply not much electric cars on the market that aren't in the Zoe-class in the first place (although several alternatives are bound to hit the market soon), besides very expensive SUVs and Teslas. And the regular e-Golf pricing is simply not competitive, for what you get.
So most people buying a Zoe is put very simply a "cheapest price will attract the masses"-phenomenon - given what people are looking for (an electric car, maybe as replacement for the smaller second commuter car).
Yes absolutely ! That is why I was also talking about the Tesla has a "status symbol" :) .
Tesla are doubly expensive also because they usually fall into the sports cars category and insurance will make you pay way more.
Also, you probably need a safe place to park it. It is not true everywhere but I know that where I live, there is places where it would get vandalized pretty quickly.
One of the reasons for that is that cars are cheap in the USA, in the absolute and even more relative to incomes. The cheapest RWD model 3 starts at 50k euros - that's unaffordable for 99% of french families.
To give a very simplified but realistic stereotype: An upper-middle class family od two software engineers + 2 children will probably have one "premium" family car for sir (e.g. VW Golf or 3008) and one city car for madam (e.g. Aygo or Twingo)
Europe wasn't built around cars, car infrastructure or car manufacturing. Consequently they are also not subsidized as much, this is reflected in the price of fuel and the sticker price of the vehicles themselves.
There are other side effects: better public transport (though there is great variation and some of the old advantages are being rolled back), better bike infrastructure (again, not everywhere) and more local shopping rather than just malls.
A new Toyota Corolla in the Netherlands costs around €25k, of which around 11k are taxes (5k sales tax plus 6k vehicle tax). Gas price at the pump are €1.67/L (= €6.32/gallon), of which almost half are (sales+excise) taxes.
I'm really not sure. There's VAT which is around 20%ish, maybe that's lower in the US? And then registration + carbon taxes cost on top, but I didn't even include that in the price
It's also just that middle-class and higher incomes are much lower here than in the US + property is on average much more expensive. so people don't have as much disposable income to burn on cars
Many countries also have specific taxes based on engine size and emissions. For example, for 2020 Ford Explorer, a relatively popular SUV in the US (often a police car), you’d pay something like 12k EUR of extra pollution tax in France at purchase.
There is no VAT in the U.S. Each state (except for a few) has a sales tax that may or may not apply to vehicles, but if it does the rate is usually 5-8% not 20%. And since it’s variable it’s tacked on at the point of sale not embedded into the “retail price” of the car.
The registration fees in France can go from a couple of hundred to tens of thousands of euros, to be paid every time the car changes owner... on top of the pollution tax, paid only the first time
It's usually not so much the expense of the car as the cost of operating them. Consider how expensive it is to own a car in NYC, well it's the same in all European cities, even those of much smaller size.
NYC parking prices, California gas prices (and possibly California registration costs depending on country), European tax rates, and "safety" inspection programs (that mostly just increase the cost of operating old, cheap cars), combine to provide a hefty financial incentive for people in Western Europe to take the bus/train.
Hopefully they are too socially responsible to be “thrilled” with that.
American gas prices and vehicle fees are scandalously low, too low to pay for upkeep of car infrastructure, let alone to pay for the externalities of driving and of burning fossil fuels.
Even more scandalously low are public transit prices, which are too low to even cover half the cost of operating it, much less to cover the infrastructure upkeep.
It's not surprise to me it's small car, but that is Renault. I would expect Nissan, Hyundai or Toyota taking the top spots, though by my anecdotal experience I see most often BMW i3.
Tesla Europe numbers are wildly variable. Tesla tends to build their European cars at the beginnning of the quarter so that they can be shipped across the ocean and into customer hands before the end of the quarter. The cars at the end of the quarter are shipped to Americans and the cars built in the last week are shipped to Californians.
So because of the COVID shutdown, that means that the only month that Tesla made cars for Europe this year was January. (And July, but those cars haven't been counted yet).
And, as mentioned the widely anticipated ID3 from VW isn't being delivered until September.
So Europeans chose to buy a Zoe now rather than wait for a Tesla or an ID3. And the Zoe is a nice car, so why wait?
Maybe not much cross-shopping, but since we're talking simply about total units delivered, it's not relevant whether any single consumer is cross-shopping the two options. What's relevant is whether the consumers for each are able to have their demand satisfied.
(Non car person here) How much does the Zoe run vs the model 3? I know they are very different cars but the model 3 without bells and whistles seems pretty affordable for most people.
The Zoe is, sadly, at the moment, the perfect anti-yellow-jacket car: no matter how much rebates the government will give you, you need to put so much cash on the table that it's completely unaffordable to those who might benefit from it the most (daily short-medium commutes between peripheral towns.)
Instead, it's bought by already-affluent upper middle-class, who then get to feel better about their carbon footprint, while also saving on gas ! (Which, don't get me wrong, is great !)
As the saying goes, "it takes a lot of money to be poor."
The situation will, hopefully, get better, when there is a second-hand market for EV, or much cheaper vehicles...
Here in the US, used Nissan Leafs run around $10K. We don't have much call for another car right now (our main car is a plug-in hybrid Chrysler minivan), but if we did, this would be a likely candidate.
I see endless Leafs for sale (the older original ones) for only $5k. Granted their batteries are pretty degraded and I'm sure only gets 60 miles of range when blasting AC or heater.
Actually a lot less, more like 30 miles. Worse if it's cold, hot or uphill. I've owned a couple of leafs.
The problem is kind of interesting - a smaller battery in and of itself is painful but there's a deeper problem. YOu have to spread the charge cycle over the whole battery and you have to do more charge cycles. So a Tesla can discharge different cells each day, and any individual cell gets used less frequently. With the leaf, you're using every cell, every day. So it's compounding and much worse than people realize, forgetting all the other problems like no thermal control on the pack.
I actually loved my leafs (leaves?) but they couldn't even get to the city and back very quickly (I mean after 6 months the battery loses a bar). The newer ones are betterish.
It looks like a battery pack replacement with a new battery pack would run around $6K including labor. Assuming the body is fine, that's not too bad of a deal to add onto a cheap Leaf.
30 miles is what we get on a charge with our plugin hybrid minivan before it switches to gas. The last time we bought gas was 28 Feb. It tends to prefer gas in the winter which is a big part of why we bought gas then (looking back over the records, we normally buy a tank of gas once a month in the winter and maybe one more sometime in the summer unless we take a road trip).
I don't think I'd ever get a plug in hybrid - most of the appeal to electric cars for me in the lack of maintenance and lack of things to break. Adding batteries to a gas car just seems like it's doubling the amount that can go wrong and makes the repairs much more expensive.
All I see here are two percentages and a happy face and a sad face. It doesn't really have anything compelling for me to see. And if I'm more likely to need to get a model 3 serviced for something like a panel gap, I'd gladly take that over the risk of total ICE failure on a Toyota. The website says nothing about the severity of the problems, and it's really just the severe ones I care about.
The plug-in hybrid is the non-plug-in hybrid with a bigger battery and an external charger. Before Toyota released their first plug-in model, this was a popular DIY hack. We had our non-plug-in Prius for ten years without a single problem before we sold it and bought the Pacifica. You're imagining an issue that doesn't exist. It's not some exotic technology, it's something that's been on the road for over two decades in its modern incarnation and has roots that extend back to the 19th century.
ICEs have a track record of decades of catastrophic failures due to major component failure. Water pumps, timing belts, gasket leaks, fuel contamination, the list goes on. I've only ever seen a few catastrophic Tesla failures and only because literally every single time it happens it makes the news. Your single data point doesn't mean a whole lot. I realize this comes across as abrasive but I don't meant for it to. Just being conversational
Total drive train failures are far more common on Tesla cars than on Toyota plug-in hybrids. You have a badly skewed misunderstanding of the actual risks.
It's really not that different from a standard hybrid, other than the additional batteries and external charging mechanism. Hybrid technology is over 20 years old now and is no less reliable than a pure internal combustion engine. The plugin has the additional advantage over an EV of eliminating range anxiety since we know that we can always revert to gasoline mode. We have the first model year of the Pacifica hybrid and while there have been a few recalls, I don't think it's been any more than we had with, e.g., our Mazda 626 or our Prius.
That is probably because of the price, it is the cheapest of them all. I know many people that bought EVs already and the one thing they have in common is vast disposable income or they got it as a company car.
I have a car which I seldom use because I am located in a city and only use it to visit family or some groceries. Did cost 2000€ and has a life expectancy of around 5-8 years. It can go from A to B. I have no parking spot so I would never buy a new car. Wouldn't take a month to get bumps in it.
EVs need to do good on used car markets, otherwise they will remain a curiosity for the nearer future. But of course the cost for the battery life cycle could pose a significant problem. Renault offers battery leasing, which means people don't need to be afraid of it failing after a few years or very cold weather.
For a Zoe, I would still have to pay 30,000€. Convince me to spend 28,000€ more on a car. It isn't a status symbol for me, times have changed, I need to go from A to B.
It's going to be a long while to hit +500km range for $20k. If we assume that Tesla's batteries are around $120/kWh currently (that's generous, I think it's 127), to get 500 km range with the Model 3 would take around 130 kWh (26 kWh/100 mi). That means that the battery alone is going to be $15,000+, which is 75% of your $20k figure.
In my estimation, they'd need to reduce the battery cost down by around 2/3 to reach the vehicle you mention. At current rates of battery cost declines, where battery costs are halving every 4-6 years, we're looking at 2030 or later for a "tens of millions of cars $20k +500km range" vehicle.
That's a long wait, but you don't need 500km range anyway, you can use superchargers to allow a 300km range to do any trip you're interested in.
Range anxiety is not high on the list for Tesla owners, it's mostly about serviceability, overall price, luxury status, and the fact that Tesla is the premium EV by a long shot: no others are close in efficiency and performance in the premium segment.
what about cutting costs in all other areas besides the battery.
An eletric car in it's essence is a quite simple system (especially compared to a gasoline car).
Personally, i think having a minimal car with the bare basics that is electric for a very good price would sell really well in Europe, especially considering that gas prices are high (so people will save money in the lifetime of the vehicle compared to gas) and most people don't see a car as a status symbol.
Creating a cheap, easy to use and maintain electric car for cheap with cheap and easy to manufacter parts would be amazing. It could decimate the "tiny car" (aygo, clio etc) market.
In the US most electric cars are charged on the driveway or in the garage. Most Europeans don't have these.
I'm generalizing of course, but it's a significant difference. Most folks I know would have to run a cable across the sidewalk. Electric is only going to work if all the supermarkets and pubs etc etc have fast chargers. Or maybe they put them into lamp posts.
Running electricity cables to streetside parking spaces and parking lots near apartment buildings is now considered key infrastructure that the EU governments are rolling out. It's slow at the moment, but we'll get there.
In Europe at least regular outlet charging should be more viable than in the US. A typical installation is 230V with 16A breaker, which will charge a car twice as fast as typical 120V/15A installation. Thus, there is less pressing need to do installation upgrades for electric cars in Europe, running a long cord will be good enough most of the time.
1 phase 16A is still not really good - only ~3.6 kW at best. But 230V still makes the cabling easier to handle and 3-phase power is common in residential buildings (at least in parts of Europe), so 11 kW (3x16A) or 22 kW (3x32A) are usual sizes for electric car chargers at homes.
Bigger restriction on that is how many people don't live in homes where they can just install a charger, but rather in apartments with either no charging or no dedicated parking at all.
Right, electric cars are too inconvenient for most apartment dwellers, but contrary to a popular impression, there are lots of Europeans who live in single family houses. Additionally, even residents of rural European areas are driving much less on average than rural Americans, simply because what counts for rural in most of Europe is already denser than rural America, especially in the west portion of it.
I think the biggest reason for relatively slow adoption of electric cars in Europe is simply that most European are significantly poorer than most Americans, while also having to pay high taxes and fees. Median household income in Mississippi is almost 50% higher than median household income in France, for example, and this is compounded by higher taxes in France.
Many live in single family homes, yes, but in the UK at least they very often have shared street parking across a pavement (a sidewalk). That is why I was thinking lampposts.
There are new EU laws regarding charging infrastructure, which is not going to solve everything really, but help.
Pretty much all new buildings will require the infrastructure for charging at every parking spot, if you have parking inside the building. Buildings that undergo major renovations will also have this requirement. But actually charging points / boxes you have to install is a bit lower if I remember, only 1 per parking lot or something.
Thankfully these laws will also be applied retroactively from 2025, so all old buildings have to get their act together by then. These laws do not apply to singe family homes.
Yeah my wife and I live in an apartment building in a mid-major city on the US east coast and we looked into a PHEV (wanted the tax credit), but it just wasn't workable. I looked for garages and lots with charging stations but couldn't find one.
In effect the tax credit seems like a subsidy for detached single family homes, since I really don't see how you can swing it any other way.
This is not just the case in the US, in the EU the same problem exists for city dwellers. Around my place there is even some wealth discrimination going on as the city will build charging pole only if there is sufficient non-subsidized living space available in the neighborhood (because poor people cant accumulate wealth apparently) and you need to buy the vehicle first after which they will place a charging pole within 12 months. So you need a drive lane or garage or charge it somewhere else.
If it wasn't for the epidemic I would have to commute every day. With an electric car I could easily save 100€ per month. A used Renault Zoe for 15000€ could pay for itself after 12 years of use and even turn a "profit" if replacement batteries fall below 5000€ in 2032. This is very different from an ICE car where I expect it to burn a hole into my wallet the longer I use it.
Lets be real here, EV is 50-70% cheaper to drive, its not very different, it just burns bit smaller hole into your wallet.
And you probably won't be installing new battery to a 12 year old 1st gen EV that is worth less than new battery.
You probably won't, but lets compare with current big car bills.
Current Tesla battery cost 75 kwh * 130 $/kwh = $9,750 to Tesla or $16k for end user. It's likely to reach $5k eventually. Wrecked ones cost close to that.
Used 12 year old car cost like 5k for budget, 10k for SUV? What's a thing that I'd bother to replacing on my 10 year old car that cost half the car? IDK probably gearbox or whole engine would cost that. I'd probably go for it if I knew it would last another 10 years.
nope, at least not in Czechia - Škoda Citigoe iV is significantly cheaper at 18300EUR vs Zoe for 26500EUR (and between them is bunch of Smarts but let's ignore them since they are impractical), Opel Corsa-e cost less than 2000 more than Zoe
The new 52kwh Zoe is pretty good, £25k for 200+ mile range.
Probably the cheapest 200+ mile EV in Europe right now.
The Tesla Model 3 is comparatively expensive due to importing. Cheapest Model 3 on the website is £40k. We're not even getting the Model Y until they build the german factory.
And that Tesla Model 3 price is not even so bad. The cheapest Model 3 (Standard Range Plus) here in Sweden is £50k/€55k/$65k.
The base Zoe, with the 52kWh battery, is £30k/€33/$39k.
I recently bought my first car and would've loved to go electric, but nothing with decent battery size and boot size in my budget yet. I got a Passat GTE Sportswagon for now. All trips inside Stockholm I can drive on pure electric so I'm still quite happy.
Very interesting, the Zoe is all the way back on 7th place here in Norway (more than 50% of all new cars here are electric), I wonder why there's a big difference compared with "mainland Europe"..
Of all time: Leaf, Golf, i3, model S, Soul, Model 3, Zoe..
In 2020: E-tron, Golf, Leaf, Kona, Model 3, Soul, Zoe.
Could be because Zoe is a picky charger. It's made to AC charge on TN power nets, and Norway has quite a bit of IT power nets, some places you'll need a heavy transformer (size of a bucket) to charge it.
In most of Europe, I think it's viewed as the only Electric car that's competitive on price against Internal Combusion cars. For a bit more, an eco conscious person can get city car with good range.
In Norway, where as I understand all IC cars now are luxury cars due the taxation, the Zoe is just one of many EVs to choose from.
If it was me, I'd choose a Kona or a e-Niro over a Zoe, but I cant afford them (If they were even ever in stock).
At Kona e-Niro prices... in my country... I'd choose a sporty semi-luxury car...
Maybe Zoe is just in that Niche in countries that aren't (yet) heavily taxing IC cars.
But it's probably about the cold weather performance. Other cars charge faster, and that's important (even psychologically) in Winter. Other cars are also more efficient per km, so you're getting hammered by both in Winter - A car that uses a lot of kw/h per km in good weather does even worse in snow/slush and wind, and then leave you at the charger for longer!
The orignally Zoe and ZE40 models weren't great either, I think they lacked heat pumps too (even worse cold weather performance!), but while I'm only seeing Renault heavily push the Zoe to regular folks now, maybe the Zoe brand name has already been tarnished in Norway?
You could be right about that. Zoe is just one of many options. If you need the range you probably want a larger car as well (chargers are everywhere here, short range car for commutes isn’t a problem.) Most other long range cars also have heat pumps and battery heater/coolers.
I’ve the Kona EV myself actually, great car. And to illustrate the ICE/EV price difference here, top specced it was slightly cheaper than a base model ICE Golf.
Edit: I replied too fast. I looked it up on Wikipedia and the "purchasing power parity" isn't all that different between, say, Netherlands and Norway. So I can't really explain it.
“Purchasing power parity” doesn’t apply equally across all products. An equivalent salary in Denmark or Sweden will buy you more groceries than in Norway, but in Norway it will buy you a nicer electric car!
That's the point. Taking what you earn a and live with in Norway, and comparing it with other countries, due to massive subsidies (luxury-tax excemptions that usually apply to cars), a Tesla is an affordable option for an Norwegian looking for a nice car, while this is simply not the case for most other European countries.
The same applies to Denmark and Netherlands to some degree, btw. They just have other subsidizing programs.
E.g. VWs built in Germany are cheaper to import back from Netherlands to Germany, because Netherlands adds more tax to cars in general, VW thus reduces the price for this market, and you I individually don't pay the tax if you export.
> a Tesla is an affordable option for an Norwegian looking for a nice car
Not only that but between the EV incentives and ICE disincentives, a Tesla won't be just affordable, it might end up costing just as much as a lower-end ICE car. The value proposition of the 2 options is reversed so one extracts more value by going the EV route. This has historically been called as "tax benefits for the rich" presumably because most EVs were still out of reach for much of the population. This should equalize now as more cars like Zoe come onto the market, assuming the incentives are there to stay.
Might be market dynamics; are Norwegians more status-conscious than the average European? The e-tron in the lead there would definitely indicate something along those lines.
Or possibly available credit and willing to use said credit. The UK is a bit of an outlier in terms of car spending when you look at its average wages, but the massive popularity of PCP loans probably explains that.
Norwegians are also higher income than the average European, of course, but that probably doesn't explain all of it.
I've driven the Zoe on a daily commute that's 160 km (100 mi). It's a fantastic car.
I've also driven it from The Netherlands to France, 1000 km (621 mi). Then you get into a problem that the charging time from 10-80% takes a full hour, and it's necessary about 5 times for that distance. I personally still thought it was a fun trip.
That's with the 40 kWh version. I believe the 50 kWh version has the same charge curve, but obviously gets you farther.
You can get much faster there if you charge more often and stop around 60-70%. On long trips, I take a lot of margin, which isn't necessary if you drive to somewhere you know really well (say, a second home) and which has plenty of chargers.
I have to admit, I'm a bit in love with this car. So I'm perhaps overly positive.
Would the Zoe be your only car? Do you plan to do cross-country trips? If not, what would you consider other than a Tesla for long range trips (ignoring branding/marketing for a second)?
Ideally, yes. I live in London and 97% of my journeys would be there.
An example, "normal" cross-country trip for me to, say, Bristol, is just over a 100 miles. Well within the Zoe's range.
Anything crazy-further as a very one-off, and maybe I'd rent an ICE for the weekend. (edit: although someone just mentioned the 10%-80% charge time being just an hour ... fine by me!).
As said, the Zoe would be on my radar if the competitors don't step up. But I've heard about quite a few alternative EV released in 2021.
The Polestar 2 looks great. id.3 is fine. Hopefully Kia impress ... will be on the look out for others.
Family of mine drove from northern Germany to Greece (don't know where exactly) in an E-Tron last year. It was a 2 day trip, but they said it was very chill. They could recharge in about 15 minutes (to 80%?), don't know the exact range between trips, but it was considerable. Would have taken 2 days with a conventional car as well, maybe just a little bit faster.
Now, for business trips in rush hours it would probably be another story.
In the UK a Renault Zoe is about 30% cheaper than a Tesla Model 3 and is smaller and more urban. I.e. more in line with most cars you see everywhere in Europe.
It is also possible to lease the battery instead of buying it along with the car, which seems to be a popular option (although it seems they've removed the option, apparently).
The UK also has London with the congestion charge. EVs are exempt from the £15 per day charge. That works out at a £3750 'saving' over 50 5-day weeks in a year. Combine that with the incentives to buy an electric car, finance schemes to spread payment and the benefits of EV (lower fuel price) and you wonder why more people in the suburbs are not buying EVs. Sure you see some but not that many. Money is not the problem given how many expensive German cars are on the streets.
There is still range anxiety so anyone with an EV and living in London's suburbs will still want an ICE car for when they visit the relatives in the shires or go to their weekend retreat. The Zoe lacks in that area due to range. Meanwhile the Tesla offerings also fall short due to their size which is not what you want on country lanes or in city centres.
Parking at home and on-street charging is a problem so having an ICE and an EV is not practical in the way that it might be in a typical US city. There simply isn't enough space on the street.
Then there is public transport. This is good in London and out to the suburbs, you would want to get the train/Tube to get into London if you had an ounce of common sense, taking a car in is just silly.
The UK is not just London but then it is. There isn't a lot of money to go around in most regions. Plus commutes can be long, too long for range anxiety. Then the people with the money - the boomers - are sceptical about EVs. The UK is therefore going to be stuck with lousy ICE cars for a long time to come.
> That works out at a £3750 'saving' over 50 5-day weeks in a year.
Since the congestion charge is only for central London, this assumes people are driving into the very centre of London every day, which I don't think many people do. Certainly not most people who live in London suburbs.
A Zoe is a nice city car that sells well but only as a second car. It does not compete with the Model 3 which does replace ICE vehicles as a main car. You simply wouldn't do a cross-country trip in a Zoe -- say, from Belgium to the French Riviera -- so most families would need another vehicle (ICE, PHEV or long-range & fast charging Tesla).
They just don't share the same market. EV compete with ICEs alternative more than they compete with each others.
From what we see on European roads it's quite common for people in Belgium and the Netherlands to drive to Southern Europe for the summer holidays.
Usually these are big wagon cars, though because they need to fit the family and luggage in there. So I think that people will stick to ICE until there are family-sized EV with the range and the price range. Teslas are not really an option at the moment, IMO.
I don't doubt that _some_ people do it, but I would seriously doubt that everyone, or anything approaching everyone, does it. This would imply a much smaller market for small cars than actually exists.
So, yeah, the Zoe wouldn't be suitable for those people, but it might be suitable for people who buy small cars anyway (which is most of the market, AFAIK).
Obviously a lot of people take the train or fly. I'm just saying that a lot of people drive, as well. I'm not sure EVs are ready for this sort of trip in any case.
How often do people do a cross continental trip of 1000km+? Like honestly.
Same argument I heard back in the day on why so many buy estates instead of hatchbacks “in case I move a cupboard”. Like how often does that happen in life?
I'm a Parisian who have never owned a car, so that's what I've always done.
But there are just no EV to rent anywhere in France. The ones you you find on Getaround, Ouicar or other peer to peer renting sites cannot actually be rented (owners always reject the inquiry upon request -- probably a trick by the website operator to get people to at least request some cars and get an ICE anyway).
It seems to not be true anymore. I checked last week to rent a car in France for the holidays, and all the cheapest options for small urban cars were EV (mostly Zoe).
Note that I only checked for big renting companies (Sixt, Enterprise, ...). I was very surprised!
Many people have Zoe-sized cars as their main car. People rarely do cross-country trips. I'm not sure I would buy an EV at all if I were planning Belgium to South of France trips.
But even as a second car, the segment Zoe caters for is exactly the best one for EV in Europe, IMHO.
It seems to me that at the moment Teslas are for wealthy people who want to display "Tesla cool" more than a practical choice.
I guess most people in need of an utalitarian Family car for longer trips buy an ICE for cost vs. utility reasons, even if they consider a Zoe as the second car for daily commutes/shopping.
There are simply no affordable electric family cars in most European markets. By affordable I mean in the range of regular income families - most families don't have the money to spend twice the price just to have an electric car. Of course this is not true for heavily subsidized markets.
I can understand someone leasing the entire car, battery included.
And I can understand someone buying a car outright.
What I can't understand is why someone would want to buy a car outright, but still end up paying a lease on the battery. To me, that doesn't have the benefits of either option.
People have been worried about EV's batteries in terms of lifespan, loss of charge, maintenance, etc. The option to lease the battery was a way to alleviate that worry, IMO.
That's true but you can always lease the entire car. If you only lease the battery you can't just let the lease expire because you still have to find a new owner for the car and if the car has a reputation of needing battery replacements then you might have trouble finding a buyer.
I ordered one :D. I love the size of the car, it's small enough to navigate in a town and AC charging speed is high (22 kw, no one else, besides a SMART offers this in this price range). I can't charge at home (as I live in an appartment in the city) and I don't want to wait 6 hours for a full charge. Fast chargers ( >= 50kw) inside towns in Germany are (still) rare and there are more 22kw chargers available around me, also free ones at supermarkets. I occasionally drive more then 500 km, but maybe 3 times per year, and then I would propably take the train anyway.
Yes the new Zoe is a good EV, can do some long distance but is limited by its 50 kW DC charger. Peugeot e-208 has 100 kW so a bit better for the same price range.
Zoe is also a nice proof of battery price drop, Renault kept the price constant but battery capacity went from 22 kWh to 52 kWh
IMO the real sleeper of the EV race has been Kia. They've been serving up reasonably priced, practical EVs with decent ranges for years now to very little fanfare.
They're building some good experience in the field. Renault made quite a revolution years ago when they introduced the Twizy, which to me was the perfect small car for commuting. Unfortunately it was ahead of its time, mainly due to the high costs of the car itself and the batteries, sold either as a product or as a service, so despite its minimalist appearance it was out of reach for normal office workers who would also need a bigger traditional car for their families.
As a 100% motorcycle rider, if I had to buy a car today, I would choose the smallest possible one anyway; over here in the EU most modern cities are built on, or around, historical ancient ones where roads were made just for horses and carriages, and when a road is surrounded by buildings of historical importance, which is almost always the case in city centers, no way they're demolished to make a bigger road, so small cars are a must.
I would expect Toyota or Nissan to be in the top spot, though not sure if they count hybrids or only fully electric cars.
As fore Renault, are we sure these numbers are not driven be some big purchases of some (French) car rental companies for their fleets? It would make perfect sense especially in France.
I'd really like to see which countries contributed to this success of Renault and in what countries it holds the top place.
EDIT: at least in Germany it's tight victory for electric Golf over Zoe - 7320 vs 7066 cars sold in first half 2020, third place far behind Tesla Model 3 with 4367 cars, in UK is winning Tesla, in France Zoe
https://www.best-selling-cars.com/germany/latest-germany-bes...
Model 3 is great in the US, but here people prefer BMWs because of more service locations and much better service (we can get new parts easily from Germany, don’t need to wait for parts from the U.S.), and pay extra costs from importing from outside E.U.
The Berlin factory will help with all of these problems.
In terms of quality of finish and materials, yes. But those are status differentiators rather than functional differences and the Tesla brand name has a status all of its own so they appeal to people with slightly different preferences around status signalling.
Quality is definitely not a status differentiator. The brand is. Usually higher price goes hand in hand with better quality, because that's what is expected of a more expensive car for quite obvious reasons.
If the quality is functional, then it's not a status differentiator. If it's just about appearance, then it is. The interior materials in a BMW of a similar price are more expensive, more "premium", and the tolerances in the way the interior is assembled are tighter but none of those things affect how the car functions.
This is a great car! We have the original version (same car but smaller battery) and it still runs so good after 4 years or so. Love driving it. It's a perfect car for day to day needs around the city/shopping/commute but I also love going on longer trips of 200+ KM.
Always a new discovery of different places thanks to the need to charge. Runs about 150 KM on a single charge on eco mode so when we go on a longer trip we find a nice and interesting place to have a break and explore while it charges.
The Zoe has a short range in part because when it was first designed batteries were relatively low in power density and very high in prices. When batteries improved on both of these, the range was upgraded.
Battery density and prices are going to continue to improve, and so we can expect the Zoe will be upgraded in the future. And the battery progress means that larger and longer-range cars will become affordable to a broader public in Europe and elsewhere.
Sadly the Zoe is just a little to small. It may be an attempt to keep the weight down, but the interior of the Zoe is just a little shorter than that of the Clio, meaning that I can't physically fit my legs behind the wheel.
I know about a dealership that sold 50 Zoes in a day last month. And they are located in a small city in Germany, almost rural. I can only imagine how much they are selling in bigger cities.
Tesla will only really start competing in Europe once their factory is up and running. It messes with their financials to have lots of vehicles being transported. That should give them some high volume but the cars are still not perfect for the European market, but at least they should make a good margin.
It will probebly be 2 more years before they have a 'small' car for Europe and China in production. Only then they will really compete with the shorter range city cars.
It's actually surprisingly hard to buy a leaf here - Nissan isn't a popular brand. Renaults are everywhere though - Clio is one of the most popular cars outside DACH region and Zoe being is its electric counterpart.
Maybe not adult passengers every day, but it's more or less the same as the previous generation of Clio inside, which is the standard workhorse for damilies of 2 adults + 2 kids across europe
I am driving a Zoe multiple times a week and thoroughly enjoy it.
Is it premium class car and will take me 600km? No, but that's not why I am driving Zoes. I drive them because it's short city commutes 99% of the time. Rarely more than 10-15km, usually transporting something or bypassing public transport in busy times/Corona/if car is just quicker.
I use them via Sixt Share, a car-sharing service. Always find parking within a few minutes with the privilege of getting the e-parking spots and the small size.
Zoe is perfect for European city dwelling and short commutes. Not as expensive as BMW i3 or VW e-Golf. Same type of car as the e-Up! which I haven't tried yet.