Electric cars

andrewf75

I don’t really see the point in being early to move to electric. The switch is happening, we all know that, but you may as well wait til the infrastructure is there and the price of electric cars comes right down.

zeupater

andrewf75 wrote: »

I don’t really see the point in being early to move to electric. The switch is happening, we all know that, but you may as well wait til the infrastructure is there and the price of electric cars comes right down.

Hi

If you're not a high mileage motorist, have a driveway/garage & access to either a 13A socket or home charger supply, then the infrastructure you need is either there or mostly there already ... so it comes down to price of the vehicle and the total cost of ownership, which in a number of cases can mean that EVs are already highly competitive with ICE vehicles ....

HTH
Z

DrEskimo

almillar wrote: »

There's a new Zoe coming out, no pricing announced yet. This is now Renault's opportunity to quit the battery lease model.

I was hopeful they would, but this interview all but confirms that they will continue to be the only car company offering the battery rental model:

https://www.automobile-propre.com/nouvelle-renault-zoe-achat-ou-location-des-batteries-tous-les-modes-dacquisition-seront-ouverts/

"The customer can buy the vehicle and rent the battery, buy the vehicle and the battery or rent the whole. All modes of acquisition will be open...On the rental battery, we will communicate the amounts when we will communicate the price of the vehicle"

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

If you're not a high mileage motorist, have a driveway/garage & access to either a 13A socket or home charger supply, then the infrastructure you need is either there or mostly there already ... so it comes down to price of the vehicle and the total cost of ownership, which in a number of cases can mean that EVs are already highly competitive with ICE vehicles ....

HTH
Z

Even if you don't have home charging, it can still work just fine if you happen to have a use profile that can fit around the range of the EV. I can go 2 weeks before charging, and actually find charging on the weekends when I shop easier, as it gives me access to very good spaces with no parking fees! Typically the cost of a charge is less than what I would have to pay to park.

Due to the value of the car appreciating and getting it at a good price, my total cost of ownership over the last 5months is either positive or at worse broken even (that includes insurance, GAP, electricity on the public chargers and the home charger I bought to install at my parents house). Although I could probably sell things like the home charger and recoup most of the cost back...

almillar

The very fact that this discussion on battery leasing appears wherever Renault EVs are mentioned and the fact that much of the commentary is negative should be very disturbing to the manufacturer & they have to take note to avoid seeding further brand ambiguity in consumer minds ....

Well we're talking about a ~2013 decision, so let's see what their 2019 decision is when they announce the new Zoe pricing. Zoe has sold very well for them, so I know what you're saying, but I'd say what the leasing has caused is confusion in the used market, rather than a drop in sales.

Martyn1981

BMW director know's his stuff.

“There are no customer requests for BEVs. None,” BMW’s director of development, Klaus Frölich, told a shocked round-table interview in Munich on Tuesday. “There are regulator requests for BEVs, but no customer requests.”

“If we have a big offer, a big incentive, we could flood Europe and sell a million (BEV) cars but Europeans won’t buy these things,” Frölich insisted.


"From what we see, BEVs are for China and California and everywhere else is better off with PHEVs with good EV range."

BMW Says European Customers Aren't Demanding EVs

Do you think there's a chance the dealerships don't want to sell BEV's, and wouldn't feed back any interest?

AnotherJoe

almillar wrote: »

Renault weren't running around telling people batteries would fail after a while, that was the public (and industry!) perception just a few years ago.

Perhaps not but I think they played to that perception and in a way encouraged it by focussing so much on the lease model , in a way they were saying "we agree that batteries are dodgy so you dont need to worry about them with us" whereas no other manufacturer (Nissan stopped it very quickly) did that.

And I've often seen comments along the lines of "why would i pay £75 on battery lease when i only spend £50 on petrol?" despite the fact that purchased car+battery would still be a good deal. Its the psychology.

zeupater

almillar wrote: »

Well we're talking about a ~2013 decision, so let's see what their 2019 decision is when they announce the new Zoe pricing. Zoe has sold very well for them, so I know what you're saying, but I'd say what the leasing has caused is confusion in the used market, rather than a drop in sales.

Hi

On "Zoe has sold very well for them" ... well that depends on their internal corporate definition of 'very well' ...

In Renault's home market (Europe) in the first 5 months of 2019 an imported competitor vehicle (TM3) outsold the Zoe by ~20% and it wasn't even available in numbers for much of the time ... some of the European countries didn't start getting deliveries in that period either! ....

It's selling, but there's no way that it can be considered as 'selling well' even leaving the 'very' aside ... apart from an uplift in production in late 2018, sales have been pretty flat since it was first released almost 4 years earlier, suggesting that Renault have had very little interest in positioning itself as a leader in the European EV market thus both leaving a huge gap for others to fill & squandering a business opportunity .... yes they've started to react, but even their production volume uplift (+60%) looks to be too little & too late .... they should have been making current monthly volumes on a weekly basis by now and using economies of scale as a competitive advantage ...

A comparison of Q2 global EV sales of one of the major automotive companies vs what is effectively a complete beginner in the volume production sector will establish how well they've been performing now they've realised that the proactive window has passed them by & they're now going to have to play the reactive game pretty seriously ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

On "Zoe has sold very well for them" ... well that depends on their internal corporate definition of 'very well' ...

In Renault's home market (Europe) in the first 5 months of 2019 an imported competitor vehicle (TM3) outsold the Zoe by ~20% and it wasn't even available in numbers for much of the time ... some of the European countries didn't start getting deliveries in that period either! ....

HTH
Z

Renault's a tricky one for me. They seem pretty serious, and I think have done a good job (when compared to others), but not exactly setting the World alight.

Perhaps they are demand limited, as the Zoe seems very good, perhaps they are simply trying out the technology, and revising it (upwards) before a larger roll out.

In my (pointless) book, I've got them down as good guys, but could do better.

And as I've said before, Tesla can't do it all themselves, we need serious expansion of BEV's by all manufacturers to break into and through the disruption.

Fun times ahead.

AnotherJoe

Well there's a price for the new Zoe now, in Euros its €32-€36k with battery. This where all these new cars are settling, mid 30's. Still also doing battery rental at a cheaper sticker price, take €8k off.

IMO it doesn't compare favourably with Niro or Kona with an additional 20% more range and more space, apart from the non-trivial fact they are practically impossible to get hold of.

https://insideevs.com/news/357763/renault-zoe-ze-50-prices-germany/

DrEskimo

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Well there's a price for the new Zoe now, in Euros its €32-€36k with battery. This where all these new cars are settling, mid 30's. Still also doing battery rental at a cheaper sticker price, take €8k off.

IMO it doesn't compare favourably with Niro or Kona with an additional 20% more range and more space, apart from the non-trivial fact they are practically impossible to get hold of.

https://insideevs.com/news/357763/renault-zoe-ze-50-prices-germany/

You would also take off the £3,500 PICG right? But yea, around £30-32k.

It will be very interesting to see if they continue to offer discounts on the model, as they have done with the ZE20 and ZE40. When the ZE40 was released in late 2016, it could be bought for as little as £16k. These discounts have slowly been reduced (along with the reduction in PICG), where today you can pick one up for around £20k.

I was skeptical they would discount the ZE50 at all, but given they are still selling the ZE40 (another interesting revelation), I'm now not sure! Will they reduce the ZE40 discounts further, so no discount at all? Will they continue to discount the ZE40 with deposit contributions and dealer discounts, but not on the ZE50?

The Vauxhall e-Corsa can be bought for £27,140, and using the PCP deposit contribution of £2,615, could be bought outright for £24,525. I would of though that the Zoe Gen 2 would need to be discounted to a similar level to compete....