Friend of a family member has a 3yr 3mth Renault EV that has died just out of warranty. Dealer does not want to know. $30,000 to replace. Lets all go EV. Great savings with your motoring costs.
bigfatmat1,
Jan 29, 2:08am
they should press the dealer more. Try and get some goodwill. Or take it to disputes tribunal.
tamarillo,
Jan 29, 3:40am
Zoe has a 5 year warranty on its battery in NZ (8 yrs in UK) so something not right here. Plus it’s massive seller in Europe so maybe ask one of the folk importing them second hand and specialists in battery rejuvenation. There will always be occasional failures, such as the ranger that had a 25k head job done under 20’000 km. There’s one hell of a lot less buts to go wrong on electric.
bitsy_boffin,
Jan 29, 4:01am
CGA
onl_148,
Jan 29, 4:16am
Gee $30,000 for a replacement battery sort of takes the shine off owning an "economical EV" There is not much that could go wrong with a ICE car that would need $30,000 to repair ! I would expect / hope that the $30,000 to supply and fit a replacement battery is the full retail / Renault supplied / Renault dealer install of the brand new battery and another 3 year warranty on it. I would want to do a bit of market research to perhaps find an after market or perhaps refrub'ed one. Is the battery only lasting 39 months the sort of normal / expect lifespan for this make and model of battery or is it definitely defective / faulty ? If you could prove that 39 months is completely ab-normal then your case for Renault / dealer to come to the party and chip in something towards the cost would be better. It is that whole question of how long "should" a particular type of equipment last. there are generally accepted life spans for thing like fridges, toasters, TV's etc etc based on typical usage and the purchase cost. perhaps it is still a bit early in the EV world to have these sorts of "typical / normal / expect" lifespan figures.
intrade,
Jan 29, 4:18am
yea and we have all the dreamers on here who think there battery last 20 years the hybrid battery. The hybrid battery is usually the same thing just a smaller version then a EV has . So based on less cells less chance for one to go wrong. and nothing to go wrong if you dont have non of the battery to start with.
nice_lady,
Jan 29, 4:23am
CGA should cover that. Warranty periods are not really that relevant now.
franc123,
Jan 29, 4:29am
+1, DT will tell them to replace it at their cost it's not of merchantable quality. A mechanical or electrical fault which renders a vehicle unusable at that age is grounds for refund/replacement of the entire vehicle or repair.
kazbanz,
Jan 29, 4:49am
Just to clarify. The Battery pack in a full EV has totally stopped working ?
intrade,
Jan 29, 5:10am
it takes 1 bad cell to bring the whole pack to its knees. You should watch the videos i posted from dr john kelly They all work like this the leaf just has no active cooling on top to kill the pack faster. weber auto is the youtube watch the reassembly of the leaf battery its all explained . They all work the same in principle. Refurbishing is basically just removal of the bad cell and replacing it with a other same secondhand cell as the rest of the pack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYQJatWpBXY
loose.unit8,
Jan 29, 5:59am
+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 for Consumer Guarantees Act unless the customer has damaged it I'd expect it to be fully covered.
Warrantee period is irrelevant really.
onl_148,
Jan 29, 6:21am
If it is decided 39 months is not long enough for the battery to last. how long should it last or be expected to last ? I think we can all agree that its usable life is indeed finite, so what in years / months is the "magic" number.
nice_lady,
Jan 29, 6:38am
I don't really know but the GCA demands 'reasonable' life span and 'must be of acceptable quality', (bearing in mind the price of the item), - and had a reasonable buyer known before purchase of the potential issue/fault would they have bought. I'd suggest a battery, ( an integral component of the car without which the car actually entirely ceases to be useable as it's designed to be), failing after a mere 3 years and 3 months would be of unnacepable quality.
macman26,
Jan 29, 7:01am
Electric car. Battery 4-5 years no problems. Reduced capacity possibly for the next 5-15 years. A manufacturer should cover for at least 8 years with a pro rata for next 5-8 years.
jmma,
Jan 29, 7:06am
Can you take the battery out and fit a good ole V8 :o)
ACTUALLY --given an electric car is an appliance like a fridge or a cellphone I would expect the same cover Vodafone offer on the I 6 about now.
gblack,
Jan 29, 9:09am
Remember this is somebody claiming that a 'friend of a friend' (sorry, I mean friend of family member *claims* that a Renault Zoe just over 3 year old has had battery failure and the cost of replacement would be $30k.
Carjam shows only about 6 of these registered in any given year though about 50 sold in 2017/2018. Quick look online and 54KW battery pack replacements are ~€8000 - NZ$13K. So $30k NZ? There are specialized places that can fix or upgrade battery packs for Leaf's for well under $10k, so that $30 seems like might have got a little exaggerated in the retelling. Has the family friend taken the story to the media or Renault NZ if the dealer is not playing ball?
There are plenty of EV haters who pile on, and while there will always be the odd lemon, would like to see the OP tell us the number plate.
It sounds unbelievable that a 3 yr old car supposedly fails with no liability on the dealer. I just checked Renault NZ website and they have * 5-year warranty on battery* on these EV's. So maybe a bit more to the story?
Note - assume this has to be a Zoe; EV Kangaroos are even rarer beasts.
loose.unit8,
Jan 29, 9:25am
The 'magic number' is usually defined by applicable case law but 3 years is ridiculous
loose.unit8,
Jan 29, 9:28am
An EV a *far* more expensive product and CGA judgements base the time on many things but expense is one of them.
nice_lady,
Jan 29, 9:41am
You didn't see the FairGo article about the little old lady who got quoted $120,000 to replace her Nissan Leaf battery, (think that was the car type), by the dealership? They later claimed that was a 'mistake' but only after FairGo got involved. Not sure what the outcome was.
lythande1,
Jan 29, 9:59am
Yep. And toss that battery into the landfill, some kid will be mining more lithium anyway.
tygertung,
Jan 29, 10:03am
I remember that there was a problem with Mitsubishi Lancer sedans in the 90s which had corrosion problems in the roof, they were fixed by Mitsubishi, could this be a similar case?
curlcrown,
Jan 29, 11:21am
The CGA should help. A brand new car should not suffer a major falure in that abount of time, however thare are many factors that come into play. Have the batteries actually failed or are they just not as good as new? If it has not done a huge mileage, and has been used as a private vehicle and looked after properly I think it is resonable to expect assistance with it. Has it been confirmed that the battery is faulty or could it be something else? Also $30000 seems like a lot.
s_nz,
Jan 29, 11:34am
OP, can you provide more info?
Year of car, model & sub model? What country the car is in etc?
Note that the battery on the Rental EV's are lithem ion, a completly different type to the Ni-MH batteries on the toyota feilder hybrid discussed on the other thread.
Non plug in hybrid battered is operated only in the mid state of charge ranges (less hard on the cells), so not directly comparable to a pure electric vehicle which uses (nearly) the entire capacity of the pack.
Also there it is extremely unlikely this failure is age / cycle life related. The Zoe (assuming it is one of those) has a pretty good reputation for the battery running to high km's.
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