Price and specifications revealed for the Renault Zoe EV which will start at £18k for the Zoe Expression plus an extra £70 a month for battery lease.
Renault are trumpeting a starting price of ‘Just £13,650’ for the Zoe Expression, but that’s a bit disingenuous. The £13,650 is the price after we – the taxpayer – have chucked in a bribe for EV buyers. And that’s not the worst of it.
Having trumpeted a price, Renault then tell us it’s only valid until 5th April when Renault prices will go up – the Zoe EV by £345 – and you’ll have to fork out £70 a month for battery lease. But it gets worse.
Renault charge you £70 for battery lease only if you sign up for three years and do less than 7500 miles a year. Do more and it’ll cost you more, with a 12,000 mile annual mileage costing £93 a month. But it gets worse.
If you decide you only want to take a punt on A Zoe EV for a year, and do just 7,500 miles, than the battery lease will also cost £93 a month. That’s around the cost of 15 gallons of diesel which, in a reasonably frugal supermini, would carry you for around 900 miles. So you can do more miles in a regular supermini for less cost – and that’s before you actually add in the cost of recharging the Zoe’s batteries.
Still, if you just must have an electric supermini, the Zoe offer three trim levels – Expression, Dynamic Ze and Dynamic Intens – all of which get the same 86bhp electric motor offering adequate performance and a range of around 90 miles.
We can’t see buyers queueing up to make the Renault Zoe EV the best selling electric car, when you can pretty much lease an ICE supermini for the battery cost alone on a Zoe.
It just doesn’t add up.
Trevor Larkum says
Well, haters gotta hate!
The facts are it costs the same as an equivalent Clio, is cheaper to run, much cheaper to maintain, way nicer to drive, and helps keep the planet safe for our children. But hey – no need to mention any of that!
Of course, if you’ve already gone for solar then it’s the icing on the cake.
Trevor, MyRenaultZoe.com
Cars UK says
Well, the Clio starts at £10.5k, the Zoe at £18k. If you believe CO2 is the root of all evil then perhaps it’s worth paying through the nose for a car that is less able and more costly, but…
From a sensible POV, even if we were to take the headline price of £14k after the taxpayer bribe (which would disappear in a heartbeat if drivers actually bought in to EVs), we’d take the cracking little Fiesta 1.0 litre Ecoboost and spend the ‘battery lease’ cost on fuel – which would take us further and wherever we wanted to go.
Still, our differences are what make us unique, and if the Zoe makes you happy then you’ve made the right choice!
Hardeep says
There is some logic if you live or commute to London when the savings are significant.
Cars UK says
Why not buy something like a sub 100g/km Mitsubishi Mirage for £9k – saving £5k even after the taxpayer bribe – and spend the battery lease cost on fuel? You’ll be quids in and you’ll be able to go away at the weekend!
Tramp12 says
You’re being a bit disingenuous too by quoting the headline price as £18,000 when its clearly under £14.000 even after the price rise in April.