News Link: Renault takes on Range Anxiety
Steve Tomlin, who runs a Renault dealership in Britain, says sales of the Zoe small electric car have shot up this year.
The revamped model, which has accounted for a third of Tomlin’s sales for a couple of months this year, has a range of 400 km (249-mile). By contrast the previous model, which drew much lower sales, offered 300 km when fully charged.
“Range anxiety has gone away and once you explain how easy it is to live day to day with an electric vehicle, that has a big impact on sales,” said Tomlin.
UK sales of the Zoe had more than doubled this year, and that in France its zero-emission cars had outsold its diesel models this year through to the end of September – 19% versus 18% – in a significant milestone.
The company said it had trained 30,000 dealer staff across Europe on electric-vehicle technology.
“At the beginning, we were facing some psychological barrier linked to autonomy, am I going to have a breakdown, I won’t have any more electricity,” said Denis le Vot, Renault’s head of sales. “We learned these lessons very well.”
Yet there’s a hard road ahead, and range and staff training is not enough. High battery costs and lack of manufacturing scale mean electric vehicles (EVs) are still more expensive than conventional vehicles – often in the region of 20-30% more.
This means Renault and other automakers rely on government subsidies to support demand, but such aid is patchy across Europe.
Battery costs are, however, expected to fall further, meaning some EVs should cost the same as or less than combustion-engine models around the middle of this decade, according to industry experts.
Compiled by – MK (Editor)
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News Link: Renault takes on Range Anxiety
News Link: Renault takes on ‘Range Anxiety’
