How often do you Fast charge / warranty?

sgalvin

Hi all,
Have been looking into an overall price including battery lease so am considering a fluence ze as a commuting hack. 15-20,000 km/yr.

Return commute is 70km at 50-90 km/h no traffic so range isn't an issue. I don't drive much else other than school run shops.
I have a driveway and plan to charge at home(night)work (9 hours) only where the car sits when not driving so can preheat as required.
We have a petrol family car for long range/other use.

For those if you that charge at home at night how often do you actually NEED a Fast charge.
Once/day/month/week

Separately does anyone know of an aftermarket warranty provider for motor/controller components in particular or even the whole car.

Many thanks in advance.
Ps I don't want this to become another battery lease Vs buyout post, there is enough already! I treat a car as an ongoing cost.

Benny_Cake

For my day to day use (local errands, going to and from work) I don't need to fast charge. I switched to night rate electricity and set the charging timer to kick in at 2am. I do have to make longer trips every so often and use fast chargers when needed - the Leaf is our only car so that won't be an issue for you.

cros13

sgalvin wrote: »

For those if you that charge at home at night how often do you actually NEED a Fast charge.
Once/day/month/week

You never need a rapid charge unless you are doing a journey beyond the range of the vehicle without other stops. A fluence can't rapid charge anyway. Minimum 0-100% charge time is around 9 hours vs. other EVs which can do 0-80% in 20 minutes.

sgalvin wrote: »

Separately does anyone know of an aftermarket warranty provider for motor/controller components in particular or even the whole car.

You have a 5 year unlimited mileage warranty on the Fluence. The battery is warrantied to 75% capacity indefinitely as part of the lease, however I've heard a number of stories of Renault saying the battery is fine when it isn't (the tool they use only checks for failed cells not even degradation of cells) and refusing to replace the battery. The lease also includes recovery. Here's the UK lease, the Irish one is basically the same: http://myrenaultzoe.com/Docs/BatteryHireLeaseAgreement.pdf

Don't know why you'd need an aftermarket warranty, there's no reason the motor & controller wouldn't keep going for millions of km. The only maintenance beyond checking nothing has rusted through is a lubricant replacement in the motor every 100,000km to 150,000km or 10 years and brake pads roughly every 100,000km (that's right all those zeros are in the right place). You do an annual "inspection" to keep up the warranty.

I would strongly advise against the fluence particularly as a first EV. It's poorly designed with a weak motor, massive weight, poor handling, poor controls, a battery with a design life (time to 75% capacity) under 5 years (vs 20Y on my EV) that also manages to impinge on the internal space. At the moment for a '12 registered fluence you'd need to get a purchase price of €4k or below for the trade offs to be worth it over a 3 year term.

Consider a 2nd hand Zoe or 2nd hand Leaf or wait a few years until they are in your price range.

cros13

You can get a Zoe for a little over €10k in the UK (remember VRT credit so nothing to pay on import, no issues transferring the battery lease) or a 2011/2012 Leaf for about €13.5k in Ireland/UK.

sgalvin

cros13 wrote: »

You never need a rapid charge unless you are doing a journey beyond the range of the vehicle without other stops. A fluence can't rapid charge anyway. Minimum 0-100% charge time is around 9 hours vs. other EVs which can do 0-80% in 20 minutes.



You have a 5 year unlimited mileage warranty on the Fluence. The battery is warrantied to 75% capacity indefinitely as part of the lease, however I've heard a number of stories of Renault saying the battery is fine when it isn't (the tool they use only checks for failed cells not even degradation of cells) and refusing to replace the battery. The lease also includes recovery. Here's the UK lease, the Irish one is basically the same:

Don't know why you'd need an aftermarket warranty, there's no reason the motor & controller wouldn't keep going for millions of km. The only maintenance beyond checking nothing has rusted through is a lubricant replacement in the motor every 100,000km to 150,000km or 10 years and brake pads roughly every 100,000km (that's right all those zeros are in the right place). You do an annual "inspection" to keep up the warranty.

I would strongly advise against the fluence particularly as a first EV. It's poorly designed with a weak motor, massive weight, poor handling, poor controls, a battery with a design life (time to 75% capacity) under 5 years (vs 20Y on my EV) that also manages to impinge on the internal space. At the moment for a '12 registered fluence you'd need to get a purchase price of €4k or below for the trade offs to be worth it over a 3 year term.

Consider a 2nd hand Zoe or 2nd hand Leaf or wait a few years until they are in your price range.

Hi thanks for your input

I understand that the only charge option is ~3kw, my question is whether people actually find that they need Fast Charge and how often


The curb weight of the fluence, leaf and Zoe are all within a few % of 1,500 kg
Motor power is similar between all three 65-80 kW. Zoe/fluence/kangoo motor are from continental and should as you say be maintenance free. 150,000 km is only about 3,000 hours use.
The battery cells used are the same as those in the leaf so life should be the same.
I have driven a diesel fluence and whilst not being a ball of file , it does what it says on the tin, soft suspension and reasonable passenger space. A battery in the back is the same weight as 2 guys and a tank of fuel and some luggage.

A 2012 leaf will have about 60,000km and is about €7-8k more to buy.
After 5 years and 100,000km more, the pack is at the end of its design life.
The 75% battery capacity warranty is the same argument with all.

The reason ask about warranty is the lack of second hand parts. If the engine in your car blew, you would probably buy a second hand unit and bolt it in. Cars sold in smaller volumes are more difficult to come by parts.

Roen

When you say a commuting hack do you mean that the Fluence is a temporary stop gap until you find/can afford something better? Or are you considering keeping it for a bit?
A hack is usually something cobbled together to get you out of a fix.
15-20,000km per year sounds like a car bought as a hack would get tiresome quick.

Apart from everything laid out above I test drove the Fluence when it first launched. I'd get a Leaf to be honest.

To answer your question. I have fast charged 6 times in 4 weeks of ownership. This will stay about the same once I move. Out of the 6, 5 of those would have been show stoppers if I couldn't. The other one was to show the girlfriend how it worked.

I echo cros's comments, don't buy a Fluence. A 2nd hand Leaf is many times better. The leaf also has a decent bit more power. what you don't pay up front for you'll end up paying in the battery lease.

If not fast charged to death then the Leaf 2011-late 2013 battery should last 160,000 Kms + before 75% it was a lot more sensitive to heat then the Current gen.

The Zoe is by for a much better EV than the fluence.

I couldn't imaging not having fast charging, I wouldn't even have the Leaf with less than 6.6 kw AC charging !

I fast charge once a day for about 5-15 mins, I travel 135 Kms daily, that 5-15 mins gets me home with 20-25% range left. Ideally I don't want to run it down below this daily.

After 16,500 Kms I have 97% battery. This varies a little and some days see 99% and sometimes 95% but the only way to really know is from day one drive until the car stops and then xxxx miles later do the same on the same road same seed etc.

I'm leasing the whole car so I don't care anyway.

The Renault battery lease is a farce, they leave it's worded in a way that gets them out of giving you a new battery if they choose. They will only repair it but that could be more difficult than it's worth because finding cells of similar age, internal resistance and capacity would be a bit of a headache, you can't repair a battery with new cells, Just won't work, it will only be as good as the weakest cells.

The fluence should have a good maximum range of about 60 miles , 100 Kms in winter on a new battery.

You got to be careful how you store these batteries and some fluence, and you don't know what condition a lot of these unused cars are kept in. If the car is in daily use I would prefer that.

Here's how to add 25kw AC- ChaDeMo to the Leaf ! Don't know if this can be done on a Fluence because there's no ChaDeMo in the first place but charging from our standard 22 Kw AC chargers would make life a lot easier for all us EV drivers, I know Zoe owners are laughing haha Dexter ! 45 mins -80 % from a non fast charger would be fantastic !

This is the controller.

http://www.emotorwerks.com/products/online-store/97-new-chademo-tm-compatible-charge-controller-for-emotorwerks-dc-chargers

And the charger they have various outputs up to 25 Kw.

http://www.emotorwerks.com/products/online-store/75-quickcharge-25000-hv-a-25kw-pfc-charger-for-higher-voltage-batteries

Anyway this just shows what can be done.