Renault Zoe: lithium-ion batteries for more power and autonomy

Among the different possible options, stationary energy storage is the most relevant second -life scenario. Thus, when their level of service is no longer sufficient for automotive use, batteries can supply equipment from a house, a neighborhood or an industrial site.

What is the autonomy of the Renault Zoé ?

The new Renault Zoé was marketed in 2019 in a re-watered version and with a new R135 engine. The favorite electric city car is sold from 32,500 € in full purchase for the Zoé Life and up to 36,200 for the intense version. These new features are also accompanied by a more powerful battery, offering the new Renault Zoé a greater autonomy. But what is the autonomy of the Renault Zoé ?

The Renault Zoé battery

Zoé battery characteristics

The Renault Zoé battery offers a capacity of 52 kWh and a range of 395 km in WLTP cycle. In 8 years, Zoé batteries have more than doubled by capacity, going from 23.3 kWh to 41 kWh then 52 kWh. Autonomy was also revised upwards. It goes from 150 km real in 2012 to 395 km today in WLTP cycle.

The Zoé battery is made up of cells, connected to each other and controlled by the BMS (Battery Management System). The technology used is lithium-ion, which is the most common on the electric cars market, but the generic name of the Zoé battery is Li-NMC (Lithium-Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt).

Regarding battery purchase solutions offered by Renault, full purchase with included battery has only been possible since 2018. In addition, the brand in the diamond also offers since September 2020 to motorists who bought their zoé with battery rental, to buy their battery from the Diac.
Finally, Renault announced at the beginning of 2021 that its electric cars, including the Zoé, would no longer be offered with battery rental. So, if you want to acquire a Renault Zoé, You can only buy it entirely with the battery included (excluding LLD offers).

Zoé battery recharging

You can easily recharge your Renault Zoé at home. It is also possible to do it your workplace as well as on public charging stations (in town, in parking lots of large brands or on motorway networks).

Thanks to the Type 2 socket, you can recharge your Zoé at home by installing a Green’Up enhanced socket or a wallbox. With a 7.4 kW wallbox, you can recover more than 300 km of autonomy in 8 hours.

You can also recharge your Zoé outdoors. You can use ChargeMap to locate public charging stations. They can be in roads, in shopping centers, in the parking lots of supermarkets or department stores such as Ikea or Auchan, or in certain Renault dealerships (more than 400 sites in France). On these 22 kW public terminals, you can recover 100% autonomy in 3 hours.
There are also many charging networks on motorways, to allow motorists to make long journeys easily. If you choose a quick load, you can Recover up to 150 km of autonomy in 30 minutes. Be careful not to use the fast load too frequently. This can degrade the battery of your Renault Zoé faster.

The autonomy of the Renault Zoé

The factors that influence the autonomy of the Renault Zoé

If Renault announces at 395 km the autonomy of the Zoé, this does not reflect the real autonomy of the vehicle. Indeed, many parameters come into account when talking about autonomy for an electric car: speed, driving style, elevation gain of the road, type of journey (city or highway), storage conditions , the frequency of rapid loads, external temperatures ..

Renault thus offers an autonomy simulator which makes it possible to estimate the autonomy of the Zoé according to several factors: the driving speed (between 50 and 130 km/h), the weather report (between -15 ° C and 25 ° C), the activation or not of heating and some air conditioner, and the activation or not of Eco mode.
For example, the simulation estimates an autonomy of 452 km with a speed of 50km/h, a weather at 20 ° C, the heating and the air conditioning deactivated and Eco Active mode.
The weather conditions play a very important role in the autonomy of an electric car. Renault estimates that the autonomy of the Zoé falls 250 km in winter.

The aging of the Zoé battery

As with all electric cars, the Renault Zoé battery degrades over time. Therefore the vehicle is less efficient and has less autonomy.
We call this degration ” aging », And the factors mentioned above participate in the aging of the Zoé battery. Indeed, the battery degrades when using the vehicle: it is the cyclical aging. The battery also deteriorates when the electric car is at rest, this is the Calendar aging. To learn more about the aging of traction batteries, we invite you to read our dedicated article.

According to a study by Geotab, electric vehicles lose an average of 2.3% of autonomy and capacity per year. Thanks to the numerous battery analyzes that we have carried out at the beautiful battery, we can say that a Renault Zoé loses on average 1.9% of SOH (State of Health) per year. Therefore, the Zoé battery is growing slower than the average, making it a reliable and lasting vehicle.

Test the battery of your Renault Zoé

Simulators like Renault that allow you to estimate the autonomy of your Zoé. But this does not allow you to really know your autonomy and especially the real state of your battery.
Indeed, it is essential to know the state of health of his electric car. Especially if you plan to resell it on the second -hand market.

Moba certifies the state of health of the battery of your Renault Zoé

Moba thus offers a reliable and independent battery certificate, which allows you to have information on the condition of your battery and thus facilitate the resale of your used vehicle.
To get your certificate, simply order our kit and download the La Belle Battery application. You can then make the diagnosis of your battery simply and quickly from home, in just 5 minutes.

You will receive your certificate a few days later comprising:
– The Soh of your Zoé : state of health expressed in percentage
– The number of BMS re-programming And The date of the last re-programming
– A Estimation of the autonomy of your vehicle. Depending on the wear of the battery, the weather and the type of journey (urban cycle, highway and mixed).

Our battery certificate is compatible for the moment with the 22 kWh and 41 kWh Zoé. We are currently working on the 52 kWh version, stay informed to be kept informed of its availability.

Renault Zoe: lithium-ion batteries for more power and autonomy

Since its launch, Zoe has been at the best level of its category in terms of autonomy. After 3 years of marketing, Zoe doubled his autonomy with the Z battery.E.40. The third generation goes even further. Decryption.

Since 2012, the Renault group electric vehicles have been powered by lithium-ion batteries. These batteries – safe and proven – have imposed themselves over the years as the reference in the world of electric vehicles. But their functioning may still seem abstract.

How are the batteries of an electric vehicle ?

They present themselves as cells, which are connected to each other and supervised by an electronic circuit (the battery management system or BMS). Their number, size and the way they are arranged determine the amount of energy that the battery is able to store. In other words, in the automotive world, all of this determines Battery capacity Electric vehicles, which is expressed in kilowatt hours (kWh).

But the batteries are not all based on the same technology. The most common today, the one used by Zoe, is the lithium-ion battery.

If the lithium-ion battery is today as the reference technology in the automotive world, it is distinguished from other types of electric vehicle batteries. And in particular rechargeable metal hydride battery (Ni-MH), which-as the most economical technology in the early 2000s-has long dominated the hybrid vehicle market. This technology nevertheless presents some gaps, such as a low load yield (lower than that of the lithium battery).

The lithium-ion battery, which is today the favorite ally of the electric car, has as main advantages an elongated lifespan and an energy density much higher than that of all competing technologies.

Zoe’s Ni-NMC battery

Lithium-ion battery is a family that brings together several technologies. The one who feeds Zoe is known as the generic name of LI-NMC (Lithium-Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt). This name comes from the metals that are used on the battery side of the battery, the cathode. As in all rechargeable batteries, it is provided with an anode, a cathode and an electrolyte liquid through which the ions move from one electrode to another.

A capacity multiplied by two in favor of autonomy

In the space of just eight years, Renault engineering has more than doubled the capacity of ZOE batteries, from 23.3 kWh to 41kWh then finally at 52 kWh.

How ? By optimizing the design of electrodes and energy management. More particularly by optimizing the chemistry of its electrodes, to allow them to store more energy. And all this without having to increase the volume of the battery.

This dramatically improves Zoe’s autonomy: 150 km real in 2012, 300 km WLTP in 2016 (Z battery.E. 40) and 395 km WLTP today (Z battery.E. 50). Thanks to this, ZOE is the benchmark versatile electrical city car on the market. This is also what, as a number 1 and sale, contributes to its commercial success.

The second life of Zoe’s batteries

If the performance of these batteries still end up deteriorating over time, this does not mean that they are at the end of life. So how are Zoe’s lithium-ion batteries reused, after their 8 to 10 years on average of good and loyal service ?

Among the different possible options, stationary energy storage is the most relevant second -life scenario. Thus, when their level of service is no longer sufficient for automotive use, batteries can supply equipment from a house, a neighborhood or an industrial site.

The Renault group has already developed several stationary energy storage experiments from Zoe batteries, in Porto Santo or at Belle-Ile-en-Mer. A logic that the manufacturer has envisaged very large scale, with the project ” Advanced Battery Storage »Available to build the largest stationary electricity storage device ever designed from electric vehicle batteries in Europe. These batteries can also supply other engines, such as those of electric boats such as The Black Swan of the company Seine Alliance.

Copyrights: Jean-Brice Lemal (planimoner), PageCran