Later this year you’ll be able to upgrade your old ZOE’s battery to the new ZE 40.

For customers that are currently leasing the battery the upgrade will cost 3.500 € and a new leasing contract with higher monthly fees has to be signed, however for those who already own the battery the upgrade will cost 9.900 €.

While the battery upgrades for current ZOE’s owners will start in the second semester this year, there isn’t an official date yet. This uncertainty can be related to the LG Chem battery plant in Poland that will start production also in the second semester.

Renault has a clear interest of delaying the battery upgrades and prioritize the selling of new ZOEs.

As equally – or even more – important as the battery upgrade would be if Renault allowed its customers to simply outright purchase the batteries and end the lease if they wanted to.

Currently the only way to do it isn’t very straight forward. It consists in stop paying the monthly battery rental when the contract ends and fully pay what Renault Crédit International (RCI) considers to be the battery’s value. In both 22 and 41 kWh batteries, RCI considers the value to be 7.000 € (without VAT) when new, and they lose 10 % of their value per year.

For example if you have been renting the battery for 3 years, you would have to pay 5.103 € (7.000 € x 0,9 x 0,9 x 0,9) plus VAT to terminate the battery lease contract and keep the battery. I just wished that Renault would make this process simpler. However I’m sure that some friendlier Renault dealers already help you in this process if you need to.

While Renault representatives keep saying that people prefer the battery leasing scheme, we know that this isn’t true, as it suggests a poll that toke place at the French Automobile Propre forum, where only 10 % of the inquired said to prefer the battery rental scheme…

In Portugal for example, Renault gives higher discounts for ZOEs sold with battery rental than with battery included.

Source: PushEVs