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Those of you with Zoe's how good is the preheat? Looking at one as a station shuttle but really want to be able to preheat it while in the public car park before we arrive back at it. Can you do that?
As for how good it is, the heater is pathetic on eco mode and no better than acceptable in normal mode. You won't be driving in shirt sleeves when it's minus 20 outside like you can in a petrol car. The pre-heat lasts five minutes and then stops. On long trips in Winter we dress up like we did in an old T6 bus, drive on eco and just use the heater to keep the screen clear.
That doesn't sound great. Can you tell it to preheat in normal when not plugged in it is it eco only?
Not worried about keeping coat on as only a short trip. The big saving in time would be not having to de-ice or demist.
It heats on max on preheat, 2 x 5mins to de-ice, though obviously it depends on how thick the ice is and how cold it is. It's a lot faster than an ICE car because the heater works as well as it ever does from cold without having to wait for the engine to warm up.
I’m guessing you can pre-program them too? Our GTE is back into winter mode so it warms the car to 21C from 8am ready for my wife to leave at 8.15.
Does anyone know if there's a big picture audit / analysis of electric cars. I'm not saying that they're not an improvement on the internal combustion engine, clearly - I think - they are in terms of air pollution, but no-one ever seems to touch on:
- the environmental costs of producing / recycling batteries on a vast scale
- what is the lifespan of the batteries
- the fact that electrical cars still produce harmful tyre and brake pad particles
- the amount of additional electricity they will demand
- one electric car still uses metal, rubber, plastics etc at the same rate as petrol/diesel
- how on earth electric cars will work on northern terraced streets with multiple vehicles per house. Parking rage should acquire a whole new dimension.
So, we replace millions of petrol / diesel cars with millions of electric cars as if it somehow solves the problem at a stroke, but the reality seems a lot less clear. What we arguably should be doing is building a world where people have reliable public transport options, where walking and cycling are prioritised over car use and people no longer depend on owning a personal vehicle for day-to-day life.
It worries me that 'electric cars' have become a sort of political tick-box rather than a properly thought-through solution and at some point in the future we'll look back and wonder how we blithely exchanged one set of ecologically disastrous transport solutions for another.
Sorry, I know that's a bit of a tangent and the big answer is probably the economic / political power of the motor industry who want to go on building more and more cars regardless of what powers them and the answer is going to be state-led rather than personal action, but are we just embracing a different problem going forward?
What we arguably should be doing is building a world where people have reliable public transport options, where walking and cycling are prioritised over car use and people no longer depend on owning a personal vehicle for day-to-day life.
Good luck with that. In the meantime a workable solution (workable as in less localised pollution, better use of centralised power generation etc,.) is electric cars.
Good luck with that. In the meantime a workable solution (workable as in less localised pollution, better use of centralised power generation etc,.) is electric cars.
Yes I accept that, but it also worries me that there seems to be very limited discussion of the bigger picture partly because the focus on electric cars creates the impression that otherwise it's okay to just continue as we are, but powered by electricity rather than oil.
All of those question have been answered in multiple threads on this forum, Badlywireddog. There also a mass of information from reliable sources such as the Freuhofer institute which despite the filthy German electricity generation mix finds EVs les polluting over there life cycle.
EVs aren't perfect but one point seems to get lost in the anti-EV propaganda: ICE cars burn somewhere around 5 times their own weight in fuel over their lifetime, non of which is recycled and all of which contributes to local atmospheric pollution and climatic change.
Of course cycling, walking and well-thought-out public transport solutions would be better but try convincing people to walk, cyle or use public transport and not vote against any goverment that favours them at the next election.
As Macron has discovered, your enemy isn't the government or motor industry, it's the gilet jaune mentality which means peole invade the streets at the first hint of fiscal pressure to change. People consider the chepa private ICE car a God given right and any government that questions that has a reveolution on its hands.
How do you convince the people on STW that change is necessary and the change needed includes them?
https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/mid-life-crisis-car/page/4/
– the environmental costs of producing / recycling batteries on a vast scale
– what is the lifespan of the batteries
– the fact that electrical cars still produce harmful tyre and brake pad particles
– the amount of additional electricity they will demand
– one electric car still uses metal, rubber, plastics etc at the same rate as petrol/diesel
– how on earth electric cars will work on northern terraced streets with multiple vehicles per house. Parking rage should acquire a whole new dimension.
I'm sure someone has, but I haven't seen any reports.
I've been thinking about EVs for a long time, but haven't taken the plunge yet. My Wife's car is due for replacement soon though and would be the perfect case for an EV I think - she's a district nurse so it's lots of short journeys, but not much actually mileage per day.
I'm still not convinced it's the perfect solution and we've cracked all the issues of personal transportation pollution and all that, I think we shouldn't over look that fact that the most vocal people in the Motoring Industry are the Journos and they didn't get into the game because they want to save the world, frankly most of them still think the road is a race track, get a stiffy thinking about massive V12 Ferraris and think cars are sentient being with 'souls' - but even taking that into account, you can't escape the fact that EVs represent the best way to fuel your car in the most tax efficient way possible. Petrol / Diesel is 65% tax, home Electricity is 5%.
Anyway, that being said, here's my guesses based on the little research I've done.
what is the lifespan of the batteries
Varies massively, I've read a lot of early Nissan Leafs (10 years old now) are effectively write offs, there range falls down to 20 miles or so (worst case in Winter) whereas Teslas appear to drop to about 85% capacity after 3/4 years and stay there. TBH 10 year lifespan is becoming the norm for cars sadly.
the fact that electrical cars still produce harmful tyre and brake pad particles
Yes they do, but here's the thing, at worst they might produce a bit more from tyres because they weigh more, but less on brakes as they brake differently - but on balance 'no worse' and frankly consumers didn't know or care about this prior to EVs becoming a thing, I'm not saying it's a non-story but it's another "yeah but.." thing from the motoring press.
the amount of additional electricity they will demand
We've actually got a lot of headroom in energy production as we've been pushing towards renewables, it's not a non-issue, but where there is demand, there will be people ready to feed it.
one electric car still uses metal, rubber, plastics etc at the same rate as petrol/diesel
Higher actually, they weigh more, so they use more materials, but the car industry has been recycling as long as it existed and they're getting better and better at it.
how on earth electric cars will work on northern terraced streets with multiple vehicles per house. Parking rage should acquire a whole new dimension
It's a problem, but it's not that hard to fix. Consider all the things we take for granted, the national grid, the telephone network, Virgin's network, mains gas all these things required a huge national network to be created 'all' we have to do it work out how to shift power a few metres. Hell the mains probably runs under the pavement outside your house already.
On battery life I did a bit of thinking before ordering my next Zoé with a battery rather than battery rental. It's fast charging that reduces battery life and the early Leaf with 22kWh batteries and fast charging up to 50kW suffered. The Zoés with 22kW chargers seem to be holding up well as do Teslas which are limited to 120kW on their smaller batteries and 150kW on the long range 100KWH battery model S.
I'm hoping that if I keep the car 8 years when the 66% guarantee runs out there will be after market batteries avaiable to give it a second life. Better still lithium technology will be old hat by then and cars will have carbon nano fibre batteries of something that is cheap and widely available.
Thanks guys, some interesting stuff there.
Those of you with Zoe’s how good is the preheat?
Unlike Edukator we're perfectly happy with ours! The preheat is excellent, you can start it from the key or the app (although I believe the new ones it's just the app) and runs for five minutes. In most conditions this is fine; very occasionally I've given it a double blast when it's really icy, but normally just once is fine. Preheat works the same in eco or normal mode.
My biggest gripe about preheat is that it doesn't do the side mirrors, even though they do have heaters in. It doesn't do the rear window either, but the car warming up as a whole tends to do that enough anyway.
Over winter we use preheat all the time; with the key before leaving the house, then with the app a few minutes before getting back to the car when out and about.
The heater is a bit weedy in eco mode so we don't use eco mode in winter. I've got no complaints in normal mode though, I've never worn a coat in the car even when I haven't preheated it; it warms up pretty quickly anyway, as you can feel heat coming out of the vents in a matter of seconds on starting.
It can be a bit funny when it's a sort of middling temperature, not cold but not very warm either, when it seems to decide that you're happy being warmed up slowly rather than as soon as possible. I can't say it's been a problem though.
I'm not unhappy with it, I'm just being objective about the heater because claiming something is something it isn't doesn't help. The Pyrenees perhaps get a bit colder than where you live, I leave my ski jacket on after skiing anyhow. The heater on eco is pathetic, on normal it's no better than adequate and using it hammers the battery so if you're doing a long trip it's better to put a coat on and just use enough heat to keep the screen clear, on pre-heat it's fine - 2 x 5 mins. It's a known problem and feels like you're fighting voodoo coaxing heat out of it:
http://myrenaultzoe.com/index.php/2017/02/zoe-its-cold-outside-or-how-i-got-my-heating-working/
(although I believe the new ones it’s just the app)
I'll be unhappy if it won't work without the app because you have to pay a subscription for the "services connectés" after 3 years and I'll begrudge having to pay a subscription just to pre-heat the car. I never use any of the other distracting crap. 🙂
You have to pay extra to use a feature they sell the car with! FFS
You do not have to pay for connected services in the UK. Ours is now over 4 years old and we've paid nothing. You will probably just have to get it activated by Renault when you buy the car. Heater is fine, if it's not then something is wrong(not uncommon). Pre-heat will only work when either plugged in or with battery level above 40% on an older 22Kw car.
Getting used to my 2018 ZOE after just 10 days of 60 mile round commute but am actually loving it which surprised me coming from a fairly new Merc E class estate. It’s been really cold since and the heater seems to be a bit on an art as it’s a heat pump. Find that lower the fan speed the better, don’t go over 23 degrees and turn off the AC if needs be. Been fine at zero degrees outside. Love the peace and quiet and the free charge in the Park and Ride at the end of my commute - no fuel costs now.
To the OP do it, theres various elements that take a bit of time to get you head around, but that's mainly because over the years you "get" how to live with an ICE car. Once you get used to how EV works differently there's no looking back.