Renault Zoe Review 2024

If the Renault Zoe is physically big enough to accommodate you and your life then it comes down to a matter of range and purchase price. With early models offering a realistic range of around 100 miles it would only really suit someone who takes long trips rarely (or never), but city dwellers can potentially enjoy better access to charging points and reduced costs where congestion charges apply. 

Later models have longer range making them more viable for longer commutes, thought the range is still less compared to a conventional petrol or diesel car of a similar size.

Range is rarely a consideration when choosing a petrol or diesel car, but it is a huge factor when it comes to buying electric. If you’re buying new, and plan to keep the car for a long time, you may not need the most power or the fastest charging options. 

However, on the used market these factors will be a big draw, so you should choose the biggest battery, the most powerful motor and the quickest charging option your budget will allow.

Early Renault Zoes are well-equipped, with even the Expression model getting climate control, sat-nav with Bluetooth and cruise control. The most recent 2019-on models delete the navigation on the basic Play models, but it is standard on Iconic and GT Line trims. Sat-nav is a useful thing to have when driving an electric car, as they can usually locate charging stations on your route and guide you depending on your remaining range.

If you want a small electric car, then the obvious rivals to the Zoe are the retro inspired Fiat 500 Electric and the Honda e along with perhaps the MINI Electric.

The Nissan Leaf is another rival for the Renault Zoe, especially as it has been around for many years. It’s a bigger car than the Zoe, but is one of the few other cars designed from the ground up as an electric car, and is all the better for it.

Many of the rivals closer to the Zoe’s size are based on conventional vehicles, such as the SEAT Mii Electric, Skoda Citigo-e iV and Smart EQ Forfour while bigger hatchbacks like the latest Peugeot 208 are also available in pure electric form.

Small cars are generally cheaper than bigger cars, but those rules don’t apply in the same way when it comes to an electric car. You’d normally expect high performance or a premium badge when dropping £25k on a car this size, so the Renault Zoe has to claw back some of the costs of the electric powertrain by penny-pinching elsewhere.

In early cars it’s not immediately obvious, as the bright colours, big infotainment screen and simple design distract the eye, but there are quite a few areas of cheap plastics in here. Although they will probably hold together for many years, it’s a little disappointing. It’s less obvious in the later generation Zoe, helped by the recycled seat material on higher spec cars which looks and feels a lot better than it sounds, and it’s a lot closer to looking plush than the earlier cars. 

A further boost for the later Zoes is a smart 10-inch digital instrument display, which increases the feeling of expense, and is a significant improvement on the monochrome digital strip display in the earliest examples.

Go for an early used Renault Zoe and you do well whichever specification you choose. In the basic Expression trim you get a 7-inch touchscreen with TomTom sat-nav, voice control, USB input and an SD card slot, which should be more than adequate for most buyers. Dynamique Intens and Dynamique Zen models upgrade this to a more powerful Arkamys system, but this was available as an option on Expression models too. 

The TomTom navigation works well and it’s an easy system to use, although it may require a subscription depending on the age of the system.

Later generation Renault Zoes also have a 7-inch touchscreen system that includes DAB, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Sat-nav isn’t included as standard, which matters less as you can use your smartphone, but native systems work better with electric cars as they can show you charge points more easily. Iconic models have the same system but with navigation included, while top-spec GT Line models got a bigger 9.3-inch screen with the same functionality. 

All versions are slick in their operation, and the portrait-oriented screen feels more intuitive than landscape once you get used to it. 

The Renault Zoe is certainly a small car, but it’s a little larger than it might first appear; at 4084mm in length it’s a fraction longer than a Ford Fiesta and the Clio, but the extra height of the body fools you into thinking it’s smaller than a conventional Supermini. The raised roof is an essential aspect of the design, as the floor is higher than a normal car thanks to the stack of batteries stashed beneath it.

Climb into the front seats - it’s almost a step up depending on how tall you are - there is generous space for most adults. Legroom should be sufficient for people over six-feet tall and headroom is almost as good, although you should try before you buy if you are at the taller end of the scale due to that high-set driving position. Shoulder room is competitive for a car of this size too.

Space in the rear is a little more restricted, with how much legroom you have dependent on the height of the person sat in front of you. If those seats are in the rearmost position, adults in the back may find their legs are lacking the freedom to move around.

Boot space is good however. There’s 338 litres available with the rear seats in place, almost as much as the first generation of the much-larger Nissan Leaf, which can be expanded to 1225 litres with the rear seats folded. The boot lip is relatively high, but once inside it’s easy to get your luggage packed into place.

In the cabin there are a number of storage areas for stashing your stuff. The later Zoes have a couple of trays dotted around as well as a glovebox and storage bins, but it’s very much a conventional hatchback rather than a mini-MPV in this respect.

It’s worth remembering that you need to keep at least one charge cable with you at all times. Public charge points should have their own dedicated cables, but it’s always good to have a back up. You can store these below the false boot floor in the Zoe, although this will reduce the amount of total space available.

With several motor and battery options to choose from, it’s important to take the time to consider your needs and how the Zoe will be used in order to determine what will suit you best.

The earliest Zoes with the 90PS electric motor might be the most humble in terms of power output, but you still feel all the benefits of pure EV power. Acceleration from low speeds is impressively strong; 220Nm of torque is available from zero revs, so it sprints away from the lights with playful ease. The downside of the early cars is that it runs out of puff more quickly, and as you approach motorway speeds it does struggle.

The later 109PS version is an improvement on this, although the torque output is almost identical, so it is at higher speeds where the benefit is felt. The high-power 136PS version is the pick of the bunch in terms of performance, although it is still not as fast as some of its other pure electric rivals.

Electric cars generally benefit from the lack of a combustion engine banging away whenever the car is in motion, and the Zoe is actually better the slower you go as you benefit from the lack of an engine note. 

At low speeds and in traffic, you start to notice the sounds around you rather than those that your own car is making. This genuinely contributes to making the Zoe a relaxing car to be in, especially in traffic. This also makes it easier to talk to your passengers and to hear the audio system at lower volumes.

What spoils the silence a little is when you get up to speed. It's then that the Zoe reveals it is a little short on refinement elsewhere, with wind and tyre noise becoming apparent even at modest speeds. It is important to note these sounds are more apparent because of the lack of engine noise, but even allowing for that, the Zoe is less refined than some of its key rivals, which is also not helped by its age compared to fresher offerings.

Renault has a strong track record when it comes to safety, and has spent billions in ensuring a strong performance from all of its cars. While the original Zoe scored a full five stars when it was crash-tested by Euro NCAP in 2013, standards have moved on a bit since then and the updated Zoe was retested with damning results. 

Experts complained about the removal of a seat-mounted side airbag, and added that the revised Zoe "offers poor protection in crashes overall, poor vulnerable road user protection and lacks meaningful crash avoidance technology." As a result, the Renault Zoe was awarded a shocking zero stars by NCAP.

As standard, newer Zoes are fitted with ESP, front and rear parking sensors as well as a reverse parking camera, a tyre pressure monitoring system, and emergency brake assist.

There are front, side and curtain airbags for the driver and passenger, with Isofix mountings for the front passenger and rear seats, as well as airbag deactivation in the front. There are no safety options available for the Zoe. All Zoes are fitted with a tyre repair kit as standard, and there is no option to add a space saver or full-size spare wheel. 

If the earliest 22kWh battery and its 100-mile-ish range is good enough for you then that’s great news, as these versions are the cheapest to buy. However, the later 41kWh option increases the range to almost 200 miles, which for most people will turn the Zoe into a genuine everyday car. If you can stretch to the top-spec version, then close to 250 miles of range is yours.

The downside of the Zoe’s price and electric status is that the insurance groups are a little higher than similarly-sized petrol or diesel superminis. Many models fall into group 15E or 16E, but the more expensive GT Line versions go as high as group 22E, putting them almost halfway up the insurance scale.

New drivers may well find that the Zoe is too expensive for them to insure - if the car itself isn’t too expensive in the first place - but this should be less a problem for more experienced drivers with a few years of no-claims bonus to help cut the premium back.

The best news about the Zoe in terms of running costs is VED, and as much as the rules change more frequently than the interpretation of VAR, zero-emission pure electric vehicles will remain at the zero rate for the foreseeable future. The Zoe also wasn’t sufficiently expensive to be hobbled by the £40,000-plus rate for new cars in the first year.

For older Zoes, the entry specification Expression is a sensible choice, with the essential R-Link system with navigation and Bluetooth. It also features climate control and cruise control, so there’s not a great deal of sense in shelling out for a higher specification.

The Dynamique Zen and Intens versions gained remote battery charging and air conditioning activation, rear parking sensors, automatic lights and wipers, keyless entry, and an improved stereo system.

For the later versions of the Zoe, trading up from the basic Play trim to the Iconic is a sensible choice, if only to get you the EasyLink 7-inch infotainment system that adds satellite navigation, which can be a lifesaver in an electric car. It also adds alloy wheels and rear parking sensors for a reasonable premium of around £1,500 compared to the Play model.

Towards the end of its life, the Zoe was offered in Techno and Iconic trims. The Techno has the 9.3-inch touchscreen infotainment, climate control, heated front seats, and 16-inch alloy wheels, so you don't want for much. The Iconic version added 17-inch wheels, and a faster charging CCS socket.