Perhaps it is time for Renault to stop making 'cars with batteries' and move to 'batteries with cars' where you buy a battery and rent a car to go with it.

 

Would work well for home storage, have a 40KWh battery and rent a big car to go on holiday with when the need arises.

 

I saw a cat d rebuilt Zoe, so I asked if that then meant the battery was still on lease, or meant the car was a total loss, ergo, now battery owned. Didn't get a reply. Asked twice, no reply. I suspect the vendor didn't actually know!

 

I think the battery must either be returned or paid for if a car is written off. So it would be owned. Best to check with RCI just in-case.

 

I believe if the car is written off but pack is OK then insurance should pay for removal and shipping back to Renault. Knowing most insurance firms, this is too much like hard work, so they pay Renault the value. But as the pack is still in working order I guess Renault are within their power to demand it back??

 

So this car is definitely not battery lease? But it could either be battery owned or owned by RCI?
2015 Renault ZOE Dynamique Intens 5dr Electric Car Black (No Battery Lease) CATD | eBay
Assuming the battery is owned, what's the value of a similar non-CatD car?
While I like the way a Zoe 40 could do 95% of my driving, if it's possible to get into a battery owned Zoe 22 (that could do 85% of my trips) for 6 grand and nothing more, that sounds like a good deal.
Cheers
Duncan

 

So this car is definitely not battery lease? But it could either be battery owned or owned by RCI?
2015 Renault ZOE Dynamique Intens 5dr Electric Car Black (No Battery Lease) CATD | eBay
Assuming the battery is owned, what's the value of a similar non-CatD car?
While I like the way a Zoe 40 could do 95% of my driving, if it's possible to get into a battery owned Zoe 22 (that could do 85% of my trips) for 6 grand and nothing more, that sounds like a good deal.
Cheers
Duncan

All battery lease cars from Nissan or Renault have the battery owned by RCI.

 

Once they've claimed the value and the insurance have paid for the pack RCI haven legal ownership of the pack, it belongs to the insurance firm. I believe RCI demand it's cubed, but again as they no longer own the pack at that point they've got no claim on want happens. Insurance firm can do what they like.

If RCI wanted to be pissy they could remotely block the battery but then I'm sure they have no right to do this either.

 

RCI might well start quoting health & safety and say they have to prevent charging of a written off battery until fully checked by Renault EV specialist at a cost of £ (insert ludicrous figure here)

Or it might all be fine.......

If RCI wanted to be pissy they could remotely block the battery but then I'm sure they have no right to do this either.

 

They could quote health and safety all they like, the pack once written off and paid for has nothing to do with them lol

I'm fairly sure there are other competent firms who could check.

 

Needless to say, if anyone has knowledge of a soon-to-be-cubed ZOE battery, I'm interested.

The remote disabling disables charging. I needs at least a TCU in working order, which can be a challenge in itself ;-) I am reasonably be sure thought that the TCU reports the serial number of the battery pack, so if push would come to shove, either you're taking a risk, or (IMHO the better option) rip out the TCU when you're knee deep into something like this. I know I would. Coming to think of it, since I had all my subscriptions lapse and hardly ever use the app, I might disconnect it anyway, no need to spy on me.

What would be really interesting is: suppose the charging is disabled, reverting that might be riddled with crypto stuff. Not easy.

 

My Fluence suffered front end damage in March 2014 when some (colour blind) low life ran a red light.

Relatively minor panel damage but, primarily due to potential elongated waiting times for parts, the car was written off.

Ignore the fiasco with Aviva, who initially told me as my car was electric, it had been modified and I was not covered .

About a year after the incident we took my wife's Zoe to EH Sheffield and got talking to the service guy, who advised my Fluence had actually been taken there after the accident, with both RUK and Aviva videoing the removal of the battery pack which was being sent to France for testing following the damage.

Remember - minor front end damage, battery pack not touched.

I never got to find out the end result, but it left me thinking why insurers would want to touch EV's with a barge pole!

 

I think they do, in the case the battery is theirs (I personally have no problem with that, as long as it is done in an extremely prudent and careful way, including a "number to call" when things go south, intentionally or by accident), but they cannot force you to keep the equipment to do that on-line.

I am 99% sure the battery does not need the TCU to operate; there is no "regular phone home to keep it alive". Disabling the battery seems to be an active action, initiated through the TCU.

Legally there might be a few grey areas, but that's not my profession.

 

I am 99% sure the battery does not need the TCU to operate;

I believe @Mike Schooling has experience with this, I was under the impression from him without the TCU or a disable TCU you have an expensive paperweight.

 

My co-developer has a ZOE with it's TCU dysfunctional for about two years now. He doesn't care about it and doesn't like spied upon. He's happily driving along, so I'd be interested in a counter-story. Then we had more than a few defective TCU's here in the country (it is a tad of a weak component) and I have not heard about someone getting stranded.

 

When my original TCU was "updated" to fix it, causing it to fail entirely all my online services were off, no remote access etc. The car drove and charged fine for the couple of weeks it took for the new unit to arrive.