New Renault Zoe revealed: price, specs and release date

[olee]

Today’s Renault Zoe is one of the most affordable electric cars on sale, but its replacement brings additional tech, a more sophisticated interior and a 236-mile range...

On sale August Price from Around £22,000 (before gov’t grant)

When the current Renault Zoe was launched, it addressed two of the most common complaints about electric cars: the paltry range and high price. But with competition now a lot stiffer, this new version has to push up the former again while keeping down the latter.

Sure enough, while the battery is no larger to ensure it doesn’t eat into passenger space, its energy capacity is up from 41kWh to 52kWh. That results in a 20% improvement in official range, to 236 miles.

Putting that into perspective, the long-range, e+ version of Nissan’s Leaf can travel just three miles farther, despite costing almost £40k. And the upcoming Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e both manage only 211 miles.

A full charge of the new Zoe from a 7kW home wallbox takes nine hours and 25 minutes. Or if you’re out and about, 30 minutes plugged into a 50kW public charger gives enough juice for about 90 miles of driving.
 

As with the current car, you can have a 107bhp motor. However, Renault is also offering a 134bhp variant, which can get the Zoe from 0-62mph in less than 10 seconds. And whichever you choose, there a new B mode that is intended to make stop-start city driving easier.

This increases the regenerative braking that you get with all electric cars, where the energy that is usually lost when you lift off the accelerator is instead directed back into the battery, with the side effect that the car slows noticeably. So, when B mode is selected, you should barely need to touch the brake pedal at all.

You can also have a wide range of driver aids that are designed to improve safety, including automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance, traffic sign recognition and blindspot monitoring.

What’s more, the lights are now 100% LEDs no matter which spec you choose, for improved visibility, both in terms of allowing the driver to see and the car to be seen by other road users.