Zippy Zoe has lots to offer

RENA ULT IS getting into electric cars in a big way. In addition to the Fluence ZE, the strange and funky little Twizy and the Kangoo ZE van, there’s this: the Zoe.

The supermini has an 88bhp electric motor that takes you from a standstill to 62mph in 13.5 seconds and on to a top speed of 84mph.

That’s not terribly speedy but the better news is it zips up to in-town speeds in no time at all — nought to 30mph takes just four seconds.

The Zoe is priced at £17,993, which falls into a much more affordable sub-£14k price category once the government’s £5,000 electric car grant is taken into account.

That makes it cheaper than a lot of its rivals in the fledgling electric car market.

How have Renault managed to undercut the opposition? By sneakily making you lease the car’s batteries, at a cost of at least £70 a month.

That buys you up to 7,500 miles a year — go further and they’ll charge you more.

Some might be balking at this but it’s actually quite a clever way of doing things. The technology used is largely untested — at least in a motoring environment.

Will an electric car’s expensive battery still retain as much charge after five years of use as it does when new? Might range drop from 60-90 miles to 30? 20? 10?

Who knows? The point is that by leasing the battery you’re transferring this risk from yourself to Renault.

It’s charged via a home wall point that’s installed by British Gas before you take delivery of the car. The 7KW charger brings the batteries up to full in three to four hours.

Officially its range is up to 130 miles but Renault are smart enough to know that — as with “official” fuel economy — buyers are savvy enough to smell a rat. They advise that most drivers will get around 90 miles from a full charge during summertime.

In a Scottish winter, when the lights and heater will be on, and when the cold saps the battery, 60 miles is as far as you should look to travel in between plugging it in.

Because it’s electric there isn’t a fuel economy statistic as such, but cost-wise it works out roughly the same as getting 170mpg from an ordinary car — more if you top up the batteries using free public charge points.

So what’s it like to drive? For those who’ve never been in an electric car the most immediate — and pleasant — impression is one of serenity and peace.

You don’t notice just how much noise an internal combustion engine makes until it’s absent. The flipside of this is that wind and tyre noise become more noticeable, but it’s still a very quiet car indeed.

The weight of the batteries means it doesn’t handle nearly as tightly as a classleader like the Ford Fiesta.

So it isn’t a heap of fun to hustle through bends, although it grips well enough. But the single-gear nature of the transmission means power delivery is seamless and the suspension soaks up bumps quite nicely.

Inside it’s all very sci-fi, with an off-white colour scheme and plenty of LEDs along with a touchscreen monitor.

You sit high and there isn’t enough legroom for very tall drivers, but otherwise space isn’t bad. There’s a 338 litre boot, which will expand to 1,225 if you drop the rear seats.

Electric cars still have limitations — range being foremost — but the Zoe provides the best value/quality balance of the current crop.