The lease on my Zoe battery completes its 3 years next June. It’s £59 per month. Renault tell me it will then roll onto an annual contract at £59 per month still. Does anyone have any experience of getting the price reduced or buying the battery from Renault?
Battery lease
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You can't really buy out the lease. Plenty of people have spread rumors about it but other than insurance claims I don't know of any UK based person to successfully take ownership of an originally leased Zoe battery pack.
Your lease is ongoing. The duration is just to do with what they declare on your credit file and I don't belive it has any bearing beyond that. It effectively never ends just gets passed on from owner to owner for the lifetime of the car.
Prices will vary with the battery lease so how long you opt to sign up for may affect your price and how long its fixed for. To my knowledge the prices have been steady for a while now though. Just pick the allowance that matches your needs in terms of mileage and they will give you the price. In my experience that price isn't really negotiable, even though if you ask 10 Zoe owners on here what they pay for a certain mileage allowance you'll probably get 10 different answers.
Your lease is ongoing. The duration is just to do with what they declare on your credit file and I don't belive it has any bearing beyond that. It effectively never ends just gets passed on from owner to owner for the lifetime of the car.
Prices will vary with the battery lease so how long you opt to sign up for may affect your price and how long its fixed for. To my knowledge the prices have been steady for a while now though. Just pick the allowance that matches your needs in terms of mileage and they will give you the price. In my experience that price isn't really negotiable, even though if you ask 10 Zoe owners on here what they pay for a certain mileage allowance you'll probably get 10 different answers.
Stick with a year term and lowest mileage option. Just pay the 8p mile if you go over - you do not save money choosing a higher band.
A lot of people were never charged for extra miles, but don't bank on it. If going a lot over mileage you could put money in a high interest regular saver each month to be safe.
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A lot of people were never charged for extra miles, but don't bank on it. If going a lot over mileage you could put money in a high interest regular saver each month to be safe.
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In the UK i'm sure the starting value was £6k, my car is entering its 6th year since building, minus the year on year 10% (excluding first year) I'd happily pay £3544 to own the car outright. I know it wouldn't add that much onto the cars value, but I'd be happier about letting the car go to someone in the family without battery hire.
That is insurance value, not what they would sell a battery at. Below is example from 2018, for a 4 year old battery in Sweden. So ~£3500 plus 20% VAT = £4200 *. To be clear to OP and others, this option is not currently available in UK.
"Just got an offer from Renault Sweden. 44700SEK + vat for a battery from a 2014. That makes up to 5250€ inc vat"
* For low mileage 22kWh owner that is 6 years of battery rental - more if you look at benefits of breakdown cover, battery warranty and opportunity value of £4200.
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To be fair to @Sandy , he was not TOO far off. The guys in Sweden would have been offered 60% of the initial value, so that was GBP 7K.
If the offer would exist here (NL), I'd be looking at 40% of EUR 8750, EUR 3500. That's close to 4 years rent on my current EUR 79 contract , ignoring the other values you mention. Tempting, but still a lot of money for a 22 kWh battery with 100.000 kms clocked. Still, one can disagree about the 10% per year rule, but EUR 8750 (inc VAT), is not an unreasonable number for a 22 kWh battery pack (not just cells) in 2013.
If the offer would exist here (NL), I'd be looking at 40% of EUR 8750, EUR 3500. That's close to 4 years rent on my current EUR 79 contract , ignoring the other values you mention. Tempting, but still a lot of money for a 22 kWh battery with 100.000 kms clocked. Still, one can disagree about the 10% per year rule, but EUR 8750 (inc VAT), is not an unreasonable number for a 22 kWh battery pack (not just cells) in 2013.
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I think RCI are being unrealistic about the residual value of the battery and they should have depreciated it at a greater rate. If you took that 6 year old 22kWh battery (26kWh total capacity) which has done 100,000 km out of your car and tried to sell it to someone for energy storage how much is it worth? A new 26 kWh battery built with cells today costing under $150 / kWh at pack level would be $3900 or EUR 3500, I doubt if Renault could sell the used one to an energy storage company for EUR 1500 so why would a car owner want to pay much more than that. At the end of the day second hand goods are only worth what the market will pay. By not selling batteries or putting an extraordinary high second hand value on them suits Renault as they can then justify renting the batteries at high rates.
When Renault started selling the ZE40 with rented batteries they decided to charge higher rental rates for driving the same distance. As the batteries in older cars have degraded can they still justify charging the same rent for the batteries on an asset that is clearly not worth as much?
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Well, not that I am defending it or even liking it but obviously, yes they can. At least up to and including the ZE40. If I had to speculate
- the price point was not unreasonable at the time. Batteries have come down, but are expensive, and were mightily expensive. The 9 K EUR is about right
- the 10 years linear depreciation was probably set to make it all affordable. They seem to have approached it from a purely financial point of view and had a fairly good idea that the technical deprecation would go faster than the economical one. There is a reason why we are more or less locked in to our contracts until we buy a new Renault. Again, like it or not, seems like they did their risk analysis and game theory stuff.
All in all, I think most people are too harsh on Renault re. battery rent. Nobody trusted battery longevity in 2013-2015 and were happy to pay the insurance policy for that. Renault took up that risk (caveat: they knew the actual risk much better than the public of course). Also, most are crying foul now because they insist on current technical value of a 2013 build battery. TBH, I don't think I have payed off the value of the battery yet. Yes, I want to buy mine for 1500. I also want a Ferrari.
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I accept the battery lease, owning the battery wasn't an option when I purchased the car. Having said that if battery owned had been an option when I purchased the car I would have taken it. I think the issue for me was that they relented and allowed the sale of cars with batteries but didn't extend that to allow a buy out of leased batteries, although I believe they made a route for dealers to buy out the lease to allow easier sale. The result seems to be leased battery second hand cars appear to have a lot lower value. There's real uncertainty about what happens to the lease going forward. There are problems for Fluence owners, it would be a shame if Renault persist with their policies and do the same to Zoe owners. It's something that works for PCP owners who have no intention of purchasing the car at the end of the term but not for subsequent owners or those keeping the cars for longer.
There's always this discussion about leasing and not leasing and until a while ago it's true one could not buy the battery, only lease it. But since 2018 Renault allows you to buy the battery, on the condition that you buy it when you purchase the vehicle new; makes sense to me, it's like saying "well I want to try out for 4 years and then see if I want to buy the battery".
I was told the following:
easyelectriclife.groupe.renault.com
Mind you, my current Zoe has the 22kWh battery after 4 years with 96% capacity, so degrdation is not that bad. Whichever makes you feel more comfortable, go for it. I must say that due to the poor infrastructure, I had to use the failure assistance a few times in my journeys; and it was worth knowing I don't have a surprise balloon payment on a Saturday evening.
I'm thinking of keeping the just ordered Zoe ZE52 for more than 8 years, so I'll go wit the battery lease option. Why?
Because if the chassis is still fairly usable after 8 years, I can sell the chassis with a guarantee on the battery capacity; the focus will be on the quality of chassis. If I buy the battery and then sell the car after 8 years, the condition of the battery could potentially reduce the value of the chassis overall, as the buyer could say "well I have no certainty of the condition of the battery in the future, so you may just as well sell me an empty chassis that I will have to dispose of".
But hey, everyone should make their own calculations and... take some risk
I was told the following:
- on lease: 75% capacity guaranteed, battery is never out of warranty, unlimited failure assistance (incl. running out of electrons)
- on purchase: 8 years/100k miles warranty on battery, 66% guaranteed only during the warranty period, failure assistance (incl. running out of electrons) limited to first 2 years of ownership
The Renault ZOE battery warranty: what you should know - Easy Electric Life
Whether you choose to buy or lease your battery, Renault guarantees optimal performance and a high recharge capacity for your Renault ZOE.
easyelectriclife.groupe.renault.com
Mind you, my current Zoe has the 22kWh battery after 4 years with 96% capacity, so degrdation is not that bad. Whichever makes you feel more comfortable, go for it. I must say that due to the poor infrastructure, I had to use the failure assistance a few times in my journeys; and it was worth knowing I don't have a surprise balloon payment on a Saturday evening.
I'm thinking of keeping the just ordered Zoe ZE52 for more than 8 years, so I'll go wit the battery lease option. Why?
Because if the chassis is still fairly usable after 8 years, I can sell the chassis with a guarantee on the battery capacity; the focus will be on the quality of chassis. If I buy the battery and then sell the car after 8 years, the condition of the battery could potentially reduce the value of the chassis overall, as the buyer could say "well I have no certainty of the condition of the battery in the future, so you may just as well sell me an empty chassis that I will have to dispose of".
But hey, everyone should make their own calculations and... take some risk
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Kinda makes it worse for all those with earlier cars (before battery ownership model released) tied into hire. Renault really aught to follow Nissan in allowing "flex" buyout. You don't have to, but if you do want to the option is there.No battery lease for UK though so no choice here
I think overall Renault has a real problem with the price of the new Zoe. It is just too expensive when there is more competition arriving. The battery lease would have allowed them to bring the headline price down. Over £30k is just bonkers money for what is a small car.
I suspect it will come back once they don't get enough sales.No battery lease for UK though so no choice here
My best Carwow quote for ZE50 GT Line with heated seats, rapid, etc. was over £28K. For a Zoe
PCP was spookingly expensive too.In some ways I hope they don't do battery rental on ZE50 as value of my ZE40 Signature (battery rental) will increase. At (say) £14K a buyer could pay rental for 5 years and still save £10K vs. a comparable new Zoe.
Zoes have only been sold in the UK since 2013. So no, no-one has ever had a 10 year old Zoe.
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1. its 10% reduction in value (in year 2 onwards) - so by year 10 you've still got a ton of value on the pack. You'll never get it for free.
2. 2012 Q4 there was 1 Zoe registered in the UK. One of the first built, so no one anywhere has a 10 year old production Zoe.
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