Renault Zoe Review

Pricing

Until recently, the Renault Zoe had one of the most confusing price lists of any car on sale. Now it has become beautifully simple and logical. The confusion came because Renault used to have a price for the car, but it didn’t include the battery. That had to be leased separately with a monthly fee which had to be paid for the life of the car. This was to remove worry about the powerpack failing over time, which was a real concern before electric cars became more common. Then it introduced an option to buy the battery along with the rest of the car, leading to two different prices for the same Zoe.

Now that batteries have been proven and those worries have disappeared, Renault has finally dropped the battery lease option and there are just two prices for the two models. They look reasonable value too, especially once you take the running costs into account. 

Look out for keen finance deals too - Renault often offers 0% on PCP and leasing brokers sometiimes have sub-£200/month contracts on Zoes.

Running costs

Once you’ve bought a Renault Zoe, the costs to run it will be minimal. Charge the battery at home and you’ll pay about 3.5p per mile in ‘fuel’ and Renault offers free servicing for the first three years. Road tax is free and insurance is relatively low too, with the Zoe in group 20 to 23. 

Now the Zoe is free of the battery lease complications, second hand values have improved too, so depreciation is pretty low. This will keep the cost of finance down – a monthly price of about £250 per month should be possible. That’s not too much more than a petrol car, and once the fuel and tax savings are taken into account, it's likely to be much cheaper to own.

The real savings will come if you run the Zoe as a company car though. Even compared to the relatively low cost of having a small hatch or van funded by the firm for personal use, the new rules around taxation and electric cars mean you could save thousands in tax by running a Zoe instead.