Fluence ZE for under 40 grand?

The Renault Fluence ZE will start reaching right-hand drive markets next year and Renault has already announced the car's price in the UK.

The 'to-and-froms' will get hold of the small EV for £17,850 on-the-road, thanks to a British government subsidy of £5,000. Without the Plug-In Car Grant, the price of the Fluence ZE would be £22,850, which translates to AUD $34,250 based on the current exchange rate.

That sounds like a fair deal for a small car powered by a 70kW/226Nm electric motor — and that's 'small' in the VFACTS definition of the term, not a light-segment kei car like Mitsubishi's i-MiEV.

We know better than to guesstimate a car's price in Australia based on pricing overseas, but that $34K figure might not be so far adrift from reality, according to Renault Australia's Corporate Communications Coordinator, Emily Ambrosy.

"Renault's aim is to make electric vehicles a real possibility, a mass-market possibility; so total cost of ownership will be comparable to that of an ICE [internal-combustion engine] car," she informed motoring.com.au today.

"You'll buy the vehicle from Renault, but... you won't buy the battery... Better Place will own the battery and you'll take out a subscription with Better Place for both the battery and the energy charges.

"Because you won't be buying the battery up front, we will be able to significantly reduce the initial purchase price, compared to other electric vehicles."

Renault's UK press office announced in its press material for the Fluence ZE that the car's nett purchase price would undercut the Mitsubishi i-MiEV by £6140 — or AUD $9136. Deduct that amount from the i-MiEV's $48,800 purchase price here and the Fluence would be priced well below $40,000.

That kind of pricing is quite reasonable, assuming the spec level for the Australian-delivered car will match that of its British counterpart (16-inch alloys, auto lights and wipers, climate control, cruise control, ecoMeter and Carminat TomTom smart satellite navigation fitted as standard).

According to Ambrosy, echoing recent remarks from Renault Australia MD Justin Hocevar, the (retail) cost of the battery, as a component of the car is somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 — a considerable sum knocked off the purchase price of the car.

"We'd be much closer to the Pound Sterling exchange rate comparison [than the i-MiEV's price]," said Ambrosy, but 'closer' could mean $34,000, $39,000 or anywhere in between. Chances are that Renault Australia is still doing the sums, since the Fluence ZE is months away from reaching our shores.

"[The Fluence ZE] will be coming in quarter two next year, into Canberra, for some select customers with Better Place. General start of sales will be quarter four next year," Ambrosy said. Given the Fluence ZE's global launch won't take place before October of this year, she further advised against reading too much into pricing and specification of the Australian-delivered Fluence ZE from the preliminary British PR material.

"In the UK they do have a slightly different model to us. They're not working with Better Place, they have their own system. We can't do an exact comparison... we just need to be aware that they are [adopting] a slightly different model."

According to Ambrosy, Better Place has worked out deals with energy suppliers for the next 10 years and that energy will be 100 per cent renewable energy, suggesting negligible impact on pricing from the government's carbon tax. All of those considerations will benefit the consumer of course.

"Because you do have that ability to choose different subscription levels, the other advantage to customers is they'll be able to lock in the cost of their cars.

"At the moment, where you're very much subject to oil prices and the world economy — and petrol prices are going who knows where... most people agree 'up' — the advantage of the Renault/Better Place model is that Better Place will be able to lock in your subscription. So you'll be able to say 'well, I know that my car is going to cost me 'x' amount to run for the next three years'."

Renault and Better Place do seem to have zeroed in on the Australian public's current fixation with rising prices for utilities.

"Cost of living is certainly a concern for everyone at the moment;" says Ambrosy. "Everyone's very sensitive to prices in Australia... [The Fluence ZE is] also a big advantage for fleets; they'll be able to lock in how much their fleet is going to cost to run."

What will the market bear?
The information revealed about the Fluence ZE by Renault's UK arm is illuminating, but not strictly relevant to Australia, as Emily Ambrosy pointed out. Renault is likely to sell larger volumes of the Fluence ZE in Britain than in Australia — certainly in the shorter term — and shipping will cost less, plus there's no importation duty payable. Economies of scale and other elements exerting an influence on the cost of goods sold will favour a lower price for the Fluence ZE in the UK.

That's a view also supported by the price quoted in the Renault press release for the i-MiEV — £23,990 after the deduction of the Plug-in Car Grant. Without the grant, the i-MiEV would cost £28,990 to purchase. That amount converts to AUD $43,135, which is over $5000 less than Mitsubishi is charging for the car in Australia. Once again though, the comparison is not necessarily relevant — for much the same reasons already cited for the Fluence ZE.

As Ambrosy also explained, the battery swap service in the UK is not the same as the services Better Place will supply here. The subscription cost of £75 per month in Britain may actually be higher than one or more of the plans Better Place will offer Australian consumers. British subscribers may accept a higher price for the subscription service, since they're already paying more for petrol or diesel at the pump than we are paying in Australia.

So having warned you, the reader, of the risks in drawing conclusions from the UK press material, here's how the Fluence ZE could compare with conventional small-car running costs — presented purely as a ballpark exercise to satisfy curiosity.

The £75 payable per month in the UK is based on travelling 10,000km a year over a three-year period. That payment equates to AUD $112 a month on the current exchange rate. If you had a small, petrol-engined car that was getting no better than 10L/100km around town — and you were racking up about 10,000km a year too — you would most likely spend around $120 per month, based on $1.45 per litre of 91 RON petrol.

A car capable of a real-world fuel consumption figure as low as 8L/100km in the suburbs would cost you $97 a month to run — nearly $15 less per month than the British battery-swap subscription service.

Unleaded petrol at its lowest price in Britain converts to about $1.95 per litre, currently. The subscription price for battery swapping in the UK would be easier on the hip pocket by about $50 a month in Britain, comparing with a car using fuel at the rate of 10L/100km.

Even for a petrol-engined car capable of getting around the city and suburbs consuming as little as 8L/100km, the price difference would still favour the Fluence by around $18 a month.

For drivers travelling less than 10,000km a year in Australia — assuming Better Place won't offer a pre-paid/pay-as-you-go plan for the Fluence's battery swaps — it might be very hard to justify buying the Fluence, based on the British figures. It's likely a conventional small car would be cheaper to run here, until petrol hits about $2 a litre that is...

As we stress, until Better Place outline the fee structure for their subscription services, nothing's certain, but it seems at least one of those plans will need to be priced at around $100 a month to suit local consumers.

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