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NEWS
Renault's EV plans for Oz
Baby steps, starting with Australia Post trial of Kangoo ZENo one can dispute Renault's determination to be at the forefront of electric vehicle commercialisation in Australia. But the importer has had its fingers burnt with the failure of Better Place in Australia early last year.
That resulted in the premature demise of the Fluence ZE, despite the electric sedan shaping up as a genuinely rational alternative to conventional cars. What killed the Fluence ZE was its reliance on battery-swap technology – and Better Place was the chosen partner for Renault in Australia.
Renault's business case for the Fluence ZE fell in a heap once the importer was faced with the prospect of building the cost of the battery into the purchase price of the car – rather than passing that cost to Better Place, which would charge vehicle owners a subscription to swap out the battery for a new, fully charged unit. Renault's alternative to that would have been securing the services of some other high-tech company with the vision and the capital to establish battery-swap stations throughout Australia.
But the dispiriting experience with the Fluence and Better Place has not deterred Renault – but it is proceeding slower in its plans to bring electric vehicles (EVs) to Australia, as Emily Fadeyev, Renault Australia's Corporate Communications Manager told motoring.com.au earlier in the week. Establishing how much of a market exists in this country for Renault EVs will begin with a trial of the battery/electric version of the Kangoo van.
"We have kicked off a trial last month – with Australia Post, [running] the Kangoo ZE in Melbourne," she said. "[They're] our first registered [electric] vehicles, on the road, in a trial capacity with an existing fleet partner.
"We've done it in order to assess the real-world viability for the vehicles in Australia; we know that the Kangoo ZE is a success overseas, and it's been well integrated into other fleets. We want to get that data as to how it can be integrated in an existing fleet in Australia.
"What we need to do, based on those results – and that's a year-long trial – is look at those, understand if the business case exists for Kangoo, amongst other data as well... and then that will in turn determine how we move with that vehicle."
From that understanding of the market will come a decision whether to import the Zoe – a light segment EV that could be priced under $40,000 in Australia.
"Zoe is a fantastic vehicle, it's a ground-up electric car, it's got a 210km range on the NEDC cycle, and we're very interested in it, but we do need to take electric vehicles one step at a time," Ms Fadeyev replied, when asked about the prospects for the electric hatch reaching the Australian market.
The Renault exec agreed that there was a premium payable on top of the purchase price of a new car if that car should be an EV. Without the Better Place battery-swap business model, any Renault EV sold here will be a challenge to price competitively against conventional rivals. Ms Fadeyev wouldn't be drawn on the subject of pricing – admitting that the importer isn't locked into any particular business model for the Kangoo ZE, let alone the Zoe. Selling the van to commercial fleets is easier than selling the Zoe to individual customers in dribs and drabs. Fleet managers are more likely to be swayed by rational argument, in the form of cost/benefits analysis. Renault will be hoping that seeing – without hearing – electric Kangoos delivering the mail will help break down that anti-EV sentiment in Australia.
That antipathy is based on a number of perceptions – some misguided. EVs are supposed to be dirtier than conventional cars, for instance, due to Australia's brown coal-fired power generation, and production and disposal of lithium-ion batteries entails a larger impact on the environment than conventional vehicle production and scrapping.
But purchase price is the major stumbling block... albeit one that could be diminished with support from the federal government.
"Electric vehicles – as a purchase price with the battery – are at a premium compared with an ICE [Internal Combustion Engine] vehicle at this stage, because we don't have any of those government incentives in Australia," Ms Fadeyev observed.
Battery swapping is a fast-fading dream, and the Fluence was the only Renault model developed that would have benefited from the concept.
"Neither the Kangoo... nor the Zoe are developed with battery-swap technology," Ms Fadeyev said. It means that Renault is effectively locked into supplying the car and the battery together for the foreseeable future, but it doesn't mean that Renault couldn't lease the whole package to a customer – as opposed to just the battery. For businesses or user choosers that may be a more cost-effective way to get behind the wheel of an EV.
In other markets, Ms Fadeyev explained, it's possible to purchase the car and lease the battery, even without the battery-swap technology.
"In the UK and in France, it is a lease agreement for the battery and ownership of the vehicle. They actually do that for the Zoe, Twizy and other electric vehicles as well."
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Written byKen Gratton
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