cars news 10: New Renault Zoe Paves the Way for Longer-Range Nissan Leaf

Chevy’s Bolt has Nissan playing catch-up in the affordable-EV range races, and alliance-partner Renault’s cheerful Zoe electric city car redesign just unveiled in Paris indicates Nissan’s likely response. The redesign upgrades the battery while remaining within the same exact packaging volume, but boosts range from 149 to 250 miles—that’s on the admittedly wildly optimistic European NEDC cycle. Nissan claims just 186 miles of real-world range for the Zoe city car. The battery chemistry and electrodes are revised (still using lithium-ion technology), and they incorporate more nickel now which has added some mass (48.5 pounds, up to a new total of 661). Total capacity is 43 kilowatt-hours, of which 41 are usable.

Renault worked with LG Chem to develop the current battery, whereas the Leaf was developed with the Automotive Energy Supply Corporation. What will this do for the Leaf? If the 107-mile EPA range of the 30-kWh Leaf gets the same range boost, that would be about 180 miles within the same identical packaging volume. But the Leaf is overdue for a redesign, so expanding the envelope to reach the magic Bolt-trumping 250 miles should be doable.

Another cool trick up Zoe’s sleeve: It can accommodate high-speed AC charging without an auxiliary power inverter. This is accomplished by using the same inverter that conditions DC battery power for use in the AC electric motor by essentially running it backwards. In the Zoe, it can handle up to 43 kW. That’s a faster rate than a lot of AC chargers can deliver, mid-20s is more normal, but at least in Europe much of the metering is by connection time, so if the Renault Zoe is sucking up electrons at double the rate of “normal” EVs, it’s getting those electrons for half-price. To be clear, this feature is only compatible with public charging stations, not charging at home.

Can we expect any of this to propagate throughout the Renault-Nissan Alliance? This question was put to CEO Carlos Ghosn during a Q&A session after the Zoe’s introduction, to which he replied: “This technology will be available in due time for all Nissan Products.” All righty then.