I do have Zoe ZE50. Main mistake from renault part is, that SW does not allow limiting SOC limit and charges to 100%. Battery in ZOE degrade faster, the longer it is fully charged. I added choice to my home automation to stop charging after SOC of Zoes battery reach preset % (50,60,70,80,90,100). I have to pull state of charge from internet, but I may add there ODB2-WiFi adapter after my reanault link subscription expires.
Agree, when I charge the car I always put the car on a charging schedule, so charging stops after a certain time. So the car does not unnecessarily charge too high SoC. And when the car is stationary for a long time I leave it at 50% SoC.
My Jun 2020 Zoe ZE50 has done 23000 miles and SOH stands at 96.4%. I have been measuring the SOH at regular intervals and plotting against Miles driven shows a nearly linear relationship ATM. I do most of my charging at home (85%) but rapid charge on long trips. If this continues at same pace then would be around 85% at 100,000 miles (0.15%/1k miles) or about 13 years at current usage.
It seems like calendar aging has a bigger effect than cycling. I had a march 2020 zoe ze50 that i sold ahead to a family member, and at 110k km iirc it read exactly the same soh as yours.
@@kosiranze Interesting. Did you do anything specific to preserve SOH. I try not to charge to 100% too much only when going on a trip. About 15% of my journeys involve rapid public charging.
@@philipbroggio9315 dc charging was only about 4% according to tronity. Most charging was done on 3 phase 11 and 22kw chargers and seldomly to 100% soc. It seems like the reported soh number has quite big steps though of 1.2% so i would not be surprised if mine had at the time up to a 1% morendegrafation as yours.
You are right about one thing YT videos are often too long.Too many people are jumping on the bandwagon and it has become a lucrative way to make money for some.The trouble is there are far to many people posting videos that dont really say much
Yes I agree, EVs are an emotive subject, and this does cause a bandwagon effect. I will be trying to limit myself to posting useful information, as the motivation for my channel is not money. A video that isn't useful to people was a waste of my free time!
Following my previous comment I will say your presentation in this video is excellent.I have always wondered why the ZOE 's dont suffer the same level of battery degradation as the Leaf considering they originate from the same era and the same Nissan Renault group
Thanks David. Yes, it is a surprise to me that the LEAF and ZOE were not built on the same, shared platform, despite the alliance that was in place at the time. It is good news for us ZOE owners that they did not, because ZOEs seem to fair much better. I think most cars in the future will feature a liquid cooling system, but I am pretty confident they will all have active cooling.
I agree with all of your comments and conclusion. The advantage that water cooling can bring, say in a Tesla, is that relatively thin cooling tubes can carry away a lot of heat whereas you would need to space cells further apart and take great care with air flows to achieve the same effect cooling with air. Ideally we would like to see the temperature distribution throughout each type of pack to judge the efficiency of a given design, whether using air or liquid to carry away heat. Also important to appreciate that all lithium cells of a given chemistry will lose some capacity with age whether they get hot or not and the reality that we can see the relatively good performance of the Zoe design after ~10 years is a tremendously positive factor.
I think you are right, water cooling makes for a much denser pack design. It will also allow for better control during rapid charging in a wide range of conditions. I think it is unlikely we will see many more cars with air cooling - perhaps only very basic, budget-oriented cars, if any
I have an Ioniq 28, like the Zoe it is also air cooled. It is now 150000km/6 years and still runs great. It can do 70kW fast charging. The battery degradation is minimal (4%). These are nice cars to keep long term.
Oh, interesting. I know the Ioniq with the slightly bigger battery has liquid cooling - because there was a recall to change the coolant. It surprises me that the 28kWh didn't use the same system. I'm glad you are enjoying it. They do seem to be an overlooked car; the efficiency is extraordinary
@@theelectrictransition Yes it is different as the chemistry of the battery is different. Also the Ioniq with the bigger battery will fast charge much slower than the original Ioniq.
My 10-year-old Zoe is still running very well on the original battery, has seen temperatures as low as -31C here in northern Sweden, amazing car! Heat pump works like a dream in the mornings so you never have to scrape ice off of the windows and can get into a warm car from anywhere.
That's great, I'm glad it has done you so well. -31 - wow, that's properly cold! What is your rough odometer reading now? I ask because I know that there are a lot of people who have done, and continue to do, very long roadtrips in their 22kW ZOE, which must add to the distance travelled.
@@theelectrictransition Only about 73000km, other examples have driven much more than this one, but it was barely driven early on in its life so it's only now that it's starting to accrue some decent numbers on the odometer. Have seen plenty of cars with well over twice or three times that on the original battery though.
my 2013 chevy volt is at 200,000 km and it has NMC lipo pouch cells, very similar to the leaf battery cells. it gets 45 miles of range, and new it got around 36 miles lol. because its a PHEV and doesnt have DC charging, and also doesnt let the battery discharge in the cold and has a very over built battery cooling system, it basically has no noticeable degradation over the entire life of the vehicle. despite what people will tell you, most large batteries that are built well will outlive the life of the car. several examples of chevy volts getting to 500k+ miles (~1million km) with no noticeable degradation.
I think degradation measurement is very difficult and only an approximation is possible and I will propose another method: If you charge your car 20 to 80% say five times which makes 300% over the period (assuming you've zeroed the consumption at the beginning) now read your car's total (drive and accessories ie a/c etc. - Megane Etech seperates these two so you need to add) consumption meter then divide by 3 for our example case you would get a better battery capacity measure; I think. What is your thoughts ? Brgds from Istanbul
Yes, that might also be an interesting figure to calculate. I went with the approach in the video because I wanted to minimise the figures I used from the car. Some people might accuse the manufacturers of adjusting the figures in their favour - and scandals like dieselgate certainly suggest some caution is appropriate in using manufacturer-provided data.
My daughter’s Oct 2020 ZE50 has a battery SOH @ 88%. It’s done 6000 miles. I’ll admit I was a bit disappointed with that when I tested it. It does two weeks between charges (80%~20%) for her commute though so we aren’t too worried. EVM also mentioned that Renault can do a BMS update on the Zoe to get an improved SOH number so I may ask about that when it goes for it’s first MOT in a month or so.
Oh yes, that's a bit disappointing. It sounds like you are taking good care of it, keeping it at sensible charge levels, so I'm surprised at that. Yes, I had heard of a software update, although I confess I had assumed it would be preinstalled on a 2020 model - but I don't actually know when it was released. I'd be really interested to hear any updates as and when you speak to a dealer.
Hi my June 2020 ZE50 started showing very low SOH after winter 2020-21 at around 88% . I had the BMS update done in June 21 at first service and the SOH then went up to around 98.8% and after a further two years has dropped to 96.4%. You definitely need to get the BMS update done. To diagnose if it is needed check the versions of LBC/LBC2 you have and if they are 521/521 then the update has not been applied (you can check them if you use CanZe and an OB2 dongle). The Actis Code of the BMS update is 64453 and a second one 62073 which should be updated. For completeness I also had an update to the infotainment system/Energy Calculations Actis Code 64756/64273 carried out at same time. This was all done under warrenty. Hope that helps.
@@philipbroggio9315Yes thank you very much for taking the time to reply, much appreciated. I will definitely ask when it goes for its first MOT in September if they can do those updates at the same time. I have copy/pasted your reply for future reference.
Thanks for that superb, detailed comment! Much appreciated. Whilst I'd like to pin it, I'm not sure I can pin a reply. Shame. I may put this detail in a video so that other people can more easily find it, as that's really valuable for them to know. Thanks again :-)
My 2020 Zoe capacity was down to 43.7 kw from full to 0 which driving eco mode equalled to about 165/170 miles I tried a couple of suggestions from you tube to reset the BMS in the hope that the range would improve to no avail but after watching a range test on you tube gave me an idea, using the energy flow screen I have been able to improve the capacity to 50.75 kw and the range 205 miles in normal mode.
No! Your on to something here. I'm a evm fan, and lots of others. I'm a semi retired Ford engineer, I try to push management into ev, before renault got first. I've enjoyed your video s because you just explain. I've a 2020 zoe gt. And love putting manners on ice at the lights.😂 I've an idea for you. Mg4 or proven zoe. I'm thing of an update. Omg not a VW. Good luck.
Oh wow. Well, Ford seem to be doing good things now under Jim Farley; let's hope that continues (although that may not be the level of management that were blocking it. Yes, MG4 seems highly rated for sure. Thanks for the idea, I'll add that to the list. Keep showing them ICE cars what real acceleration looks like! Hehehe
@@theelectrictransition You definitely can check SOH with CanZe and an OB2 dongle. I have been using that to measure SOH since 2021. I have readings from June 2021 98.8% (post BMS update) to last week 96.4% .
Thanks for your video very helpful, I’m now into my 4th year (2024) of owning a new Zoe 50kWh GT line with rapid charging option. Here in Somerset I would often see 230-240 mile range in summer but in the winter drop to 180-190 mile range. So often puzzled about the BM system keeping the battery cool in the summer which it must be doing well in my case but the winter range drops by 20% I guess it’s using energy to keep warm, correct me if I’m wrong, although it’s kept in an insulated garage. I was thinking of getting one of those gadgets (OBD link MX+) that plugs into the diagnostic port to record the battery efficiency in the coming years , is that a good idea? Please comment , but every time I look the price keeps rising, gone about £125 to now £169 in 6 months. In 2022 when did a road trip from south of Bath to John o ‘Groats about 2000 miles round trip using a combination of public and destination charging. At one public charger in Fort Augustus when I got back to a fully charged car it said I had 263 mile range, can anyone explain that? It was a (Scottish) hot sunny day. The holiday was great without any range anxiety, with B&B charging points along the way. And of course coming home we must have saved lots energy as everyone knows it’s down hill all way from Scotland (lol). As a retired couple we can go out for the day in the summer months do about 180 mile round trips costing between £0.00 - £0.70. 95% of the time we home charge and with we our solar / battery system trips can cost nothing. The big cost these days is paying for Parking.
Hi Malcolm, From what I understand, there are several causes for the reduction in range in the winter. Firstly, there is a bit of heating of the battery and the cabin; that makes a bit of a difference. Next is air density - I have seen figures suggesting that air density increases by 1% for every 3 degrees the temperature reduces. As air resistance is a major contributor to the energy used to propel the car at higher speeds, this is a small but significant difference. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the amount of energy that the battery can release reduces as its temperature drops. I think this is partially because its internal resistance increases and therefore heat losses within the battery increase, although there is a bit more to it than that. Maybe have a watch of Dr Euan McTurk's video on that subject, which talks about the chemistry of it in more detail: ua-cam.com/video/CY8QN2p9Tk8/v-deo.html Your point about the car being kept in a heated garage is interesting. Do you see reduced range on the dash as you leave the garage, or does it reduce faster than normal as you drive? I suppose it is possible that the car uses online sources of weather data in its range prediction - there will certainly be an adjustment for temperature, although I confess I had assumed it was done off a temperature sensor on the outside of the car. If you are a user of an Android phone, you might try the CanZE app and a cheap OBD dongle before spending on the more expensive diagnostic device that you mention (of which I haven't heard specifically.) OBD dongles are really quite cheap now - about £10-£15 on Amazon for example, although you will of course want to choose one that works. I can't recommend one at the moment as a friend bought me the one I have a few years ago, and I haven't tried it on my ZOE yet. I do intend to try it, but I'm not sure I will get to do so this week. I wonder if Jonathan Porterfield or Nick Raimo might be able to recommend one for you in the meantime? I believe CanZE was removed from the Apple app store a while ago, so it's only available for Android now, as far as I know. I am glad to hear you are getting on well with your car, and took on the huge road trip. That's fantastic! Your comment on it being downhill made me chuckle, thanks. :-)
I've had 4x Renault Zoes as I buy & sell EV's.. 2018 ZE40 with a SOH between 80% to 90% and a mileage of 110,000km..(Can't remember exact SOH) 2018 ZE40 with 86,000 miles was a ex uk car and the SOH was 86%.. 2020 ZE50 with 32,000 miles was a ex uk car and had a SOH of 91.6%.. 2020 ZE50 with 22,000 miles was a ex uk car and SOH of 90%.. In my experience Renault Zoes don't give any battery trouble..
I read somewhere that Renault are monitoring a Zoe, still on the road, which has allegedly done a million kilometres on the same battery. Unfortunately I can't find the link to where I read it. So, if anyone has it I would be grateful.
Oh wow, that's amazing. Thanks, I'll go looking for that too - thanks for the tip. And yes, if any viewer has that, please share it with everyone here, that would be most appreciated!
My wife has a 2019 Zoe ZE40 - it's the perfect car for her. She has chronic technophobia and hates gimmicks and gadgets, so the Zoe is perfect as it behaves exactly like an automatic ICE - you don't need to "think EV" to drive it. For her, it's just a car that goes from A to B, with the bonus that she can plug it in when she gets home with no visits to the petrol station! She looks at me and my Kia Niro EV and you can clearly see that she has no idea what all the bells and whistles do! 🤣
I'm glad it's to her liking. Your wife's situation is a very valid reminder for sure; we have to take everyone with us. So far, EVs have had to cater to the market. In general, early adopters have often been into technology, so the cars often fit that profile. I'm glad to hear you are a two EV household. As you will see from this week's video, I haven't quite managed to kick oil completely - although the smart is rarely used, and even then, only to keep it going.
Another thing the Zoe probably doesn't experience that the Leaf does is very hot climates. People would be stuck in traffic in Arizona, USA in a Leaf with a pavement temp as high as 180°F just baking the battery on their daily commute. Leaf batteries by me in upstate NY last a long time because it just doesn't get that hot in the summer. I know a number of people with 2013 leafs that are only 1 bar down after 11 years.
That's very true. The LEAF is available in MANY more countries than the ZOE, perhaps due to its greater size. Having said that, the LEAF can suffer quite bad degradation even here in the UK, which is a bit more temperate than Arizona. A bit of thermal management goes quite a long way in most climates, it seems. But liquid cooling is the gold standard, and that's what I expect to be the norm for the future. We live and learn.
I have tested other EV's for long time ago (I don't make video about that car) Hyundai Ioniq 28 kWh, air cooling and air heated battery. Charging speed over 70 kW. Checked that car with OBD2 Tools no degraded at all after 180 000 km. The fabriq app says SoH 100% and full battery with buffer on by specs is 30,5 kWh. Tested Zoe ZE50 many times, some "degraded" need only BMS update. Newest Renault Zoe as only comes out to europe will have 60 kWh battery and take up to 100 kW rapid charging speed. Need to find out what is the difference. That car model don't comes to Norway where I living.
Thanks for the information. I am not aware of a 60kWh Zoe; might that be the slightly bigger Renault Megane? Produxtion of the Zoe is expected to end next year, so I would be surprised if they did another update at this late stage in its life
@@theelectrictransition ZE60 comes out in 2024. It's the latest model. Claims usable battery on 60 kWh. Was on news in Norway but will not come to Norway becouse we have IT powergrid (no neutral wire) as rest of europe. 230V between phases and 115V between local ground and phases.
@@EVLarsisnt the zoe getting completely ditched and geting replaced by bot the megane e tech and the renault 5? At least in slovenia, zoe is not being sold new any more
The first generation Renault zoe does in fact have active battery cooling via A/C and heating via ptc. This is why most first generation leaf have 60% percent soh and most zoes have over 80.
Yes, absolutely. I didn't discuss heating, but my intention was to explain that there is active cooling, with heat being the thing that causes permanent battery degradation - reduction in range due to the cold is real, but temporary. Whilst it has active cooling, it uses air as its cooling medium, which is what makes it fairly unusual. The air crosses the chiller - a part of the heat pump system as you mention, before heading through the pack.
Here we regularly get over 38° C (100 ° F) and I pay particular attention to the cooling system on any EV I'm looking into. Air cooled, even actively cooled, would not be for me.
I totally agree. I don't think we will see anything bigger than a quadricycle do air cooling again. The ZOE was built to a budget that was really tough to achieve all those years ago, and cooling was a corner they cut that seems not to have had too detrimental an effect, but other people are unlikely to risk. In the book Inside the Machine one of the lead engineers talks of the alliance with Nissan. He says that Nissan designers realised they had made mistakes that they were too late to correct. He doesn't say what, but I wonder if the fact that ZOE has ANY active cooling might have been down to recommendations from Nissan
I do not care at all about air cooling, so far I think it has been used on one occasion. Better battery heating (at least longer) would be a great improvement on cold snowy winter mornings... So I can rather safely assume we live in rather different climate zones. 38° C I hardly get even inside the car when parked in the sun during summer...
I have a May 2020 Zoe ZE50 which is almost at 70,000 miles. The battery is absolutely fine. There must be some battery degradation as all batteries degrade over time, but nothing I have noticed. I am sure the battery will easily outlive the car.
70,000 miles is quite a lot on a 3 year old car. That's been well used, that's good to hear! Out of interest, have you had any suspension component changes? Early cars seem to suffer from worn drop links causing noise - a cheap fix as long as the labour charges are reasonable, I think. I don't know if they revised the front suspension as part of the ZE50 refresh
Today the Renault dealer checked my ZOE R135 battery SOH. The car is from 2021/1 and with 74.000 km. Now it has 94%. Last year I made 32.000 km and It went from 96% to 94%. That is 2% down. What do you think?
Interesting numbers. Figures vary, but the rule of thumb I have seen suggested is that a car might lose about 2% in year 1 and about 1% in each subsequent year. Since your car is coming up to 3 years old, I would expect it to be at 96%, or maybe a bit less. One of the problems with the figures is the rounding/truncation taking place. It might be that your car scores just under 95% and gets truncated rather than rounded, down to 94%. I would not be overly worried about your score, it seems roughly in line with that rule of thumb. It would be lovely to have no degradation, but in reality, there will always be a bit, and we have to be mindful that the figures we are given are either rounded or truncated to a whole number. You might only have lost a little over 1% this year, but have it show as 2% because of the limited accuracy when reporting whole figures, or if there is a small variation in the accuracy of the measurement technique.
I believe that Renault Zoe and Nissan LEAF even at the time of their launch belonged to the same alliance Renault-Nissan thus might have had common engineering elements and maybe ever related battery chemistry. However it looks like Zoe is better designed according to your video. It was never available on North American car market so I am not quite familiar with that car. Both cars are quite good if used as pre-owned EVs at low price for intraurban commute provided the owner is aware of their limitations, does not need to rapid charge them, has the ability to charge them overnight, does not try to use them for long road tripping.
Yes, absolutely right, the alliance was strong at the time, yet the Leaf and Zoe do not appear to share the underpinnings, which I have always found strange. I agree, different cars suit different use cases. In the UK the latest Zoe and Leaf are good for most people most of the time in my opinion, as road trips here are in the order of hundreds of miles, not thousands. We're a much smaller country, so we think about driving very differently. Driving to the continent happens, but even then there are relatively few people who would consider driving several thousand miles, as seems to be reasonably common in North America, mainly I think because of the sheer size of the country.
My May 2020 ZE50 is at 96.4% SoH and has been driven 126,000 km now. It is rather strange that a lot of cars show 96.4 SoH. That is so strange that I feel something strange is going on. Is Renault cheating? Now when it is sub-zero Celsius the maximum charge that I can get is about 46.5 kWh of charge, but it still states 96.4% SoH. And when the battery was warm 4 months ago it stated a total of 52.4 kWh charge totally. So the maximum charge level is separated from the SoH (I doubt that my battery has gone that bad in just 4 months...) And regarding air cooling, so far I have never needed air cooling... But an improved battery heating system would be something that would be great. The puny 1kW electric heating PTC for the battery is just not enough in cold climates. And if I could preheat the battery before charging during a trip it would be fantastic. A proper battery preheat (1 to 2h before starting a trip) AND separated from cabin preheat (for cabin preheat is 30+10 min enough). This would also be a huge energy saver and improvement of range (and it is "just" a software update (that does not exist)). Basically, I think I only have started one long trip in the last 110.000 km at temperatures above 20 C. Most trips start at as highest temp of 15 C. My range is reduced to cold battery and my charging speed during trips is limited by low battery temperature...
Ooh, lots of juicy details, thanks for the comment. In my opinion, a really top notch SoH calculation should not be affected by temperature. The reduction in a battery's usable capacity due to cold temperatures is a temporary reduction; this is quite different from the permanent reduction caused by degradation. I would hope that the SoH is intended to be a reflection of the usable capacity in ideal conditions - the best case scenario - and not affected by temperature. However, I think your concern about whether it is calculated correctly is a valid one. It must be very hard to measure SoH when the battery's capacity IS so affected by temperature, even if that aspect is only a temporary effect. So I too wonder just how Renault are making their calculation, and whether it is truly correct. There is, after all, a benefit to the manufacturer if their cars stay away from the SoH figure that would trigger a warranty claim. I hadn't heard that a lot of cars are reporting the same value. That does sounds a bit suspicious, doesn't it? The good news is that, in your case, it sounds like you have a very healthy battery. That total capacity figure in warm temperatures of 52.4 kWh sounds fantastic - and hopefully more difficult to game, as it is used in (and can be verified by) range calculations. It can also be checked by measuring the total energy fed to the car when charging from a very low state of charge. There will be some energy losses during charging, which does make measuring the total energy into the battery a bit more complex without using any of the car's data to measure it - but it should be possible nonetheless. I agree with your point with regards battery conditioning in cold weather - both before a journey and before a rapid charging session. That would be a fantastic feature, and the latter at least is now offered by a few manufacturers. My car displayed a "limited regen" message in the dash in cold weather in February, after sitting for a couple of days at -5C. Maximum lift-off regen is also noticeably reducing now that we head into late autumn - only by about 4 kW so far, but it makes a difference to how the car drives.
@@theelectrictransition Now it is summertime. If the battery is at 20C when starting I get about 25% more real usable range and about 10% lower consumption at the same speed. But this is a strange difference. I now get a SoH at 94% but still around 49.6kWh of usable energy. It does not make any sense. And my car has now passed 165,000km.
How often do you do a journey of 500 miles? If you have easy access to overnight charging then having more range than you actually use is a bit irrelevant.
@@theelectrictransition We just drove from the Black Sea coast to Halkidiki. These are not uncommon trips for us. We have the ability and space to spend 1500 quid on a charging point at home, but why would we? We travel back and forth across Europe in the Focus or Dacia Duster diesel. Life's too short and stressful enough without all the farting about with an EV. In January we were in Bansko and there was a Tesla with Bucharest license plates parked next to our car. It was - 14 C and we got home on half a tank of petrol in a nice, warm car. How many stops would sparky have to have made on the journey to Romania? Too bloody many, thank you very much.
There are quite a few EVs from 2011 listed on Autotrader at the moment, so it looks like the batteries last OK. There weren't many EVs sold in those early days, so for there still to be plenty around seems to suggest they are holding up well. Car manufacturers use a number of tricks to make them last - tricks not used in most early mobile phones. Phone batteries fail for sure, it is easy to be put off by those, but its not such a problem for cars, because the batteries are so well managed.
Why would you even bother with a zoe, if it degrades and cheaper ice cars never do, now having longer term experience in the market place of EV's. Ice cars have the same range at the end as they do when they are new. Electric cars are just not fit for purpose, as my 2016 30 kwhr leaf with 33% degredation and 4 out of 12 battery bars missing after 7 1/2 years and 39 k miles shows. I will never buy another EV, ever !
Ah, that's unlucky. The Leaf doesn't have active thermal management and can therefore suffer worse degradation than anything else. The 30kWh pack also used a chemistry that suffered worse degradation, unlike later cars. Add both of those together and you will get the worst possible. ICE cars do suffer some range loss as well, because their compression reduces a bit as they wear. But it's not a lot, and a smaller percentage. I would suggest you not rule out the tech completely because of a single bad implementation - but I do understand how your trust in it would be shaken by your experience.
our ze50 is doing great....no loss of battery and has kept the original range after 3 years daily use.
That's great to hear
My 2013 Zoe has 88% SOH, original battery with 62000 Km. Summer range today is still a decent 120Km!
That's great. That's a very early car, I'm glad to hear it's still going strong. Have you had it from new, or did you buy it secondhand?
So about 74 miles then, my diesels can go just a little bit further but to be fair I still get range anxiety at around 550 miles
I do have Zoe ZE50. Main mistake from renault part is, that SW does not allow limiting SOC limit and charges to 100%. Battery in ZOE degrade faster, the longer it is fully charged. I added choice to my home automation to stop charging after SOC of Zoes battery reach preset % (50,60,70,80,90,100). I have to pull state of charge from internet, but I may add there ODB2-WiFi adapter after my reanault link subscription expires.
I agree, it was an odd choice not to allow people to set a charge limit
Agree, when I charge the car I always put the car on a charging schedule, so charging stops after a certain time. So the car does not unnecessarily charge too high SoC. And when the car is stationary for a long time I leave it at 50% SoC.
Love the Zoe 🧡
Lots of them here in Sweden 🇸🇪
Oh great! Shout out to Sweden!
Thank you for that very informative video. As a Zoe owner it was very reassuring.
Thanks, I'm glad it's useful
My Jun 2020 Zoe ZE50 has done 23000 miles and SOH stands at 96.4%. I have been measuring the SOH at regular intervals and plotting against Miles driven shows a nearly linear relationship ATM. I do most of my charging at home (85%) but rapid charge on long trips. If this continues at same pace then would be around 85% at 100,000 miles (0.15%/1k miles) or about 13 years at current usage.
That's great. Thanks for the information
It seems like calendar aging has a bigger effect than cycling. I had a march 2020 zoe ze50 that i sold ahead to a family member, and at 110k km iirc it read exactly the same soh as yours.
@@kosiranze Interesting. Did you do anything specific to preserve SOH. I try not to charge to 100% too much only when going on a trip. About 15% of my journeys involve rapid public charging.
@@philipbroggio9315 dc charging was only about 4% according to tronity. Most charging was done on 3 phase 11 and 22kw chargers and seldomly to 100% soc. It seems like the reported soh number has quite big steps though of 1.2% so i would not be surprised if mine had at the time up to a 1% morendegrafation as yours.
Very thoughtful, informative and balanced…thank you for this…👍🏻
Thanks very much; much appreciated :-)
You are right about one thing YT videos are often too long.Too many people are jumping on the bandwagon and it has become a lucrative way to make money for some.The trouble is there are far to many people posting videos that dont really say much
Yes I agree, EVs are an emotive subject, and this does cause a bandwagon effect. I will be trying to limit myself to posting useful information, as the motivation for my channel is not money. A video that isn't useful to people was a waste of my free time!
Following my previous comment I will say your presentation in this video is excellent.I have always wondered why the ZOE 's dont suffer the same level of battery degradation as the Leaf considering they originate from the same era and the same Nissan Renault group
Thanks David. Yes, it is a surprise to me that the LEAF and ZOE were not built on the same, shared platform, despite the alliance that was in place at the time. It is good news for us ZOE owners that they did not, because ZOEs seem to fair much better.
I think most cars in the future will feature a liquid cooling system, but I am pretty confident they will all have active cooling.
I agree with all of your comments and conclusion. The advantage that water cooling can bring, say in a Tesla, is that relatively thin cooling tubes can carry away a lot of heat whereas you would need to space cells further apart and take great care with air flows to achieve the same effect cooling with air. Ideally we would like to see the temperature distribution throughout each type of pack to judge the efficiency of a given design, whether using air or liquid to carry away heat. Also important to appreciate that all lithium cells of a given chemistry will lose some capacity with age whether they get hot or not and the reality that we can see the relatively good performance of the Zoe design after ~10 years is a tremendously positive factor.
I think you are right, water cooling makes for a much denser pack design. It will also allow for better control during rapid charging in a wide range of conditions.
I think it is unlikely we will see many more cars with air cooling - perhaps only very basic, budget-oriented cars, if any
I have an Ioniq 28, like the Zoe it is also air cooled. It is now 150000km/6 years and still runs great. It can do 70kW fast charging. The battery degradation is minimal (4%).
These are nice cars to keep long term.
Oh, interesting. I know the Ioniq with the slightly bigger battery has liquid cooling - because there was a recall to change the coolant. It surprises me that the 28kWh didn't use the same system.
I'm glad you are enjoying it. They do seem to be an overlooked car; the efficiency is extraordinary
@@theelectrictransition Yes it is different as the chemistry of the battery is different.
Also the Ioniq with the bigger battery will fast charge much slower than the original Ioniq.
My 10-year-old Zoe is still running very well on the original battery, has seen temperatures as low as -31C here in northern Sweden, amazing car!
Heat pump works like a dream in the mornings so you never have to scrape ice off of the windows and can get into a warm car from anywhere.
That's great, I'm glad it has done you so well. -31 - wow, that's properly cold! What is your rough odometer reading now? I ask because I know that there are a lot of people who have done, and continue to do, very long roadtrips in their 22kW ZOE, which must add to the distance travelled.
@@theelectrictransition Only about 73000km, other examples have driven much more than this one, but it was barely driven early on in its life so it's only now that it's starting to accrue some decent numbers on the odometer. Have seen plenty of cars with well over twice or three times that on the original battery though.
Great video. Very clear and credible.
Thank you 😊
Thanks for the information
My pleasure
my 2013 chevy volt is at 200,000 km and it has NMC lipo pouch cells, very similar to the leaf battery cells. it gets 45 miles of range, and new it got around 36 miles lol. because its a PHEV and doesnt have DC charging, and also doesnt let the battery discharge in the cold and has a very over built battery cooling system, it basically has no noticeable degradation over the entire life of the vehicle. despite what people will tell you, most large batteries that are built well will outlive the life of the car. several examples of chevy volts getting to 500k+ miles (~1million km) with no noticeable degradation.
That's great, real-world detail, thanks. I'm glad the Volt is serving you so well
I think degradation measurement is very difficult and only an approximation is possible and I will propose another method:
If you charge your car 20 to 80% say five times which makes 300% over the period (assuming you've zeroed the consumption at the beginning) now read your car's total (drive and accessories ie a/c etc. - Megane Etech seperates these two so you need to add) consumption meter then divide by 3 for our example case you would get a better battery capacity measure; I think. What is your thoughts ?
Brgds from Istanbul
Yes, that might also be an interesting figure to calculate. I went with the approach in the video because I wanted to minimise the figures I used from the car. Some people might accuse the manufacturers of adjusting the figures in their favour - and scandals like dieselgate certainly suggest some caution is appropriate in using manufacturer-provided data.
Top info and presentation, thanks
Thank you
My daughter’s Oct 2020 ZE50 has a battery SOH @ 88%. It’s done 6000 miles. I’ll admit I was a bit disappointed with that when I tested it. It does two weeks between charges (80%~20%) for her commute though so we aren’t too worried. EVM also mentioned that Renault can do a BMS update on the Zoe to get an improved SOH number so I may ask about that when it goes for it’s first MOT in a month or so.
Oh yes, that's a bit disappointing. It sounds like you are taking good care of it, keeping it at sensible charge levels, so I'm surprised at that.
Yes, I had heard of a software update, although I confess I had assumed it would be preinstalled on a 2020 model - but I don't actually know when it was released.
I'd be really interested to hear any updates as and when you speak to a dealer.
I would speak to the dealer and see if its due the BMS update, that does seem like too much degradation for a 2020 car.
Hi my June 2020 ZE50 started showing very low SOH after winter 2020-21 at around 88% . I had the BMS update done in June 21 at first service and the SOH then went up to around 98.8% and after a further two years has dropped to 96.4%. You definitely need to get the BMS update done. To diagnose if it is needed check the versions of LBC/LBC2 you have and if they are 521/521 then the update has not been applied (you can check them if you use CanZe and an OB2 dongle). The Actis Code of the BMS update is 64453 and a second one 62073 which should be updated. For completeness I also had an update to the infotainment system/Energy Calculations Actis Code 64756/64273 carried out at same time. This was all done under warrenty. Hope that helps.
@@philipbroggio9315Yes thank you very much for taking the time to reply, much appreciated. I will definitely ask when it goes for its first MOT in September if they can do those updates at the same time. I have copy/pasted your reply for future reference.
Thanks for that superb, detailed comment! Much appreciated. Whilst I'd like to pin it, I'm not sure I can pin a reply. Shame. I may put this detail in a video so that other people can more easily find it, as that's really valuable for them to know. Thanks again :-)
My 2020 Zoe capacity was down to 43.7 kw from full to 0 which driving eco mode equalled to about 165/170 miles I tried a couple of suggestions from you tube to reset the BMS in the hope that the range would improve to no avail but after watching a range test on you tube gave me an idea, using the energy flow screen I have been able to improve the capacity to 50.75 kw and the range 205 miles in normal mode.
Wow, that's a big difference, that's great news. What did you do using the energy flow screen to make such an improvement?
No! Your on to something here.
I'm a evm fan, and lots of others. I'm a semi retired Ford engineer, I try to push management into ev, before renault got first. I've enjoyed your video s because you just explain. I've a 2020 zoe gt. And love putting manners on ice at the lights.😂
I've an idea for you. Mg4 or proven zoe. I'm thing of an update. Omg not a VW. Good luck.
Oh wow. Well, Ford seem to be doing good things now under Jim Farley; let's hope that continues (although that may not be the level of management that were blocking it.
Yes, MG4 seems highly rated for sure. Thanks for the idea, I'll add that to the list. Keep showing them ICE cars what real acceleration looks like! Hehehe
When i had a Zoe i didn't notice any battery degradation
Out of interest did you ever try out CanZE? It's not something I have fired up yet - but then my car is still very new
@theelectrictransition yes, but I didn't ever check battery SoH with it, not sure you can, but with Car Scanner you definitely can.
@@theelectrictransition You definitely can check SOH with CanZe and an OB2 dongle. I have been using that to measure SOH since 2021. I have readings from June 2021 98.8% (post BMS update) to last week 96.4% .
Very informative my ze50 at 98% at 18500 miles
Thanks for your stats. That's a useful extra data point
I love my £14K ze50. It has done 28K miles and I can get over 200 miles on a charge. 180 miles on the motorway. It's perfect ❤
That's great! I'm glad you are enjoying it
Thanks for your video very helpful, I’m now into my 4th year (2024) of owning a new Zoe 50kWh GT line with rapid charging option. Here in Somerset I would often see 230-240 mile range in summer but in the winter drop to 180-190 mile range. So often puzzled about the BM system keeping the battery cool in the summer which it must be doing well in my case but the winter range drops by 20% I guess it’s using energy to keep warm, correct me if I’m wrong, although it’s kept in an insulated garage. I was thinking of getting one of those gadgets (OBD link MX+) that plugs into the diagnostic port to record the battery efficiency in the coming years , is that a good idea? Please comment , but every time I look the price keeps rising, gone about £125 to now £169 in 6 months.
In 2022 when did a road trip from south of Bath to John o ‘Groats about 2000 miles round trip using a combination of public and destination charging. At one public charger in Fort Augustus when I got back to a fully charged car it said I had 263 mile range, can anyone explain that? It was a (Scottish) hot sunny day. The holiday was great without any range anxiety, with B&B charging points along the way. And of course coming home we must have saved lots energy as everyone knows it’s down hill all way from Scotland (lol). As a retired couple we can go out for the day in the summer months do about 180 mile round trips costing between £0.00 - £0.70. 95% of the time we home charge and with we our solar / battery system trips can cost nothing. The big cost these days is paying for Parking.
Hi Malcolm,
From what I understand, there are several causes for the reduction in range in the winter. Firstly, there is a bit of heating of the battery and the cabin; that makes a bit of a difference. Next is air density - I have seen figures suggesting that air density increases by 1% for every 3 degrees the temperature reduces. As air resistance is a major contributor to the energy used to propel the car at higher speeds, this is a small but significant difference. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the amount of energy that the battery can release reduces as its temperature drops. I think this is partially because its internal resistance increases and therefore heat losses within the battery increase, although there is a bit more to it than that. Maybe have a watch of Dr Euan McTurk's video on that subject, which talks about the chemistry of it in more detail: ua-cam.com/video/CY8QN2p9Tk8/v-deo.html
Your point about the car being kept in a heated garage is interesting. Do you see reduced range on the dash as you leave the garage, or does it reduce faster than normal as you drive? I suppose it is possible that the car uses online sources of weather data in its range prediction - there will certainly be an adjustment for temperature, although I confess I had assumed it was done off a temperature sensor on the outside of the car.
If you are a user of an Android phone, you might try the CanZE app and a cheap OBD dongle before spending on the more expensive diagnostic device that you mention (of which I haven't heard specifically.) OBD dongles are really quite cheap now - about £10-£15 on Amazon for example, although you will of course want to choose one that works. I can't recommend one at the moment as a friend bought me the one I have a few years ago, and I haven't tried it on my ZOE yet. I do intend to try it, but I'm not sure I will get to do so this week. I wonder if Jonathan Porterfield or Nick Raimo might be able to recommend one for you in the meantime?
I believe CanZE was removed from the Apple app store a while ago, so it's only available for Android now, as far as I know.
I am glad to hear you are getting on well with your car, and took on the huge road trip. That's fantastic! Your comment on it being downhill made me chuckle, thanks. :-)
I've had 4x Renault Zoes as I buy & sell EV's..
2018 ZE40 with a SOH between 80% to 90% and a mileage of 110,000km..(Can't remember exact SOH)
2018 ZE40 with 86,000 miles was a ex uk car and the SOH was 86%..
2020 ZE50 with 32,000 miles was a ex uk car and had a SOH of 91.6%..
2020 ZE50 with 22,000 miles was a ex uk car and SOH of 90%..
In my experience Renault Zoes don't give any battery trouble..
That's really useful information, thanks.
Hallo, my Zoe 11/18 with 193000 km Battery has 86% !!!! The summerrange is 270 km.
Ooh, you've certainly covered some distance! That's fantastic. Thanks for the extra data point. Am I right in thinking your car would be a ZE40?
I read somewhere that Renault are monitoring a Zoe, still on the road, which has allegedly done a million kilometres on the same battery. Unfortunately I can't find the link to where I read it. So, if anyone has it I would be grateful.
Oh wow, that's amazing. Thanks, I'll go looking for that too - thanks for the tip. And yes, if any viewer has that, please share it with everyone here, that would be most appreciated!
My wife has a 2019 Zoe ZE40 - it's the perfect car for her. She has chronic technophobia and hates gimmicks and gadgets, so the Zoe is perfect as it behaves exactly like an automatic ICE - you don't need to "think EV" to drive it. For her, it's just a car that goes from A to B, with the bonus that she can plug it in when she gets home with no visits to the petrol station! She looks at me and my Kia Niro EV and you can clearly see that she has no idea what all the bells and whistles do! 🤣
I'm glad it's to her liking. Your wife's situation is a very valid reminder for sure; we have to take everyone with us.
So far, EVs have had to cater to the market. In general, early adopters have often been into technology, so the cars often fit that profile.
I'm glad to hear you are a two EV household. As you will see from this week's video, I haven't quite managed to kick oil completely - although the smart is rarely used, and even then, only to keep it going.
Another thing the Zoe probably doesn't experience that the Leaf does is very hot climates. People would be stuck in traffic in Arizona, USA in a Leaf with a pavement temp as high as 180°F just baking the battery on their daily commute. Leaf batteries by me in upstate NY last a long time because it just doesn't get that hot in the summer. I know a number of people with 2013 leafs that are only 1 bar down after 11 years.
That's very true. The LEAF is available in MANY more countries than the ZOE, perhaps due to its greater size. Having said that, the LEAF can suffer quite bad degradation even here in the UK, which is a bit more temperate than Arizona. A bit of thermal management goes quite a long way in most climates, it seems. But liquid cooling is the gold standard, and that's what I expect to be the norm for the future. We live and learn.
I have tested other EV's for long time ago (I don't make video about that car) Hyundai Ioniq 28 kWh, air cooling and air heated battery. Charging speed over 70 kW. Checked that car with OBD2 Tools no degraded at all after 180 000 km. The fabriq app says SoH 100% and full battery with buffer on by specs is 30,5 kWh.
Tested Zoe ZE50 many times, some "degraded" need only BMS update.
Newest Renault Zoe as only comes out to europe will have 60 kWh battery and take up to 100 kW rapid charging speed. Need to find out what is the difference. That car model don't comes to Norway where I living.
Thanks for the information.
I am not aware of a 60kWh Zoe; might that be the slightly bigger Renault Megane? Produxtion of the Zoe is expected to end next year, so I would be surprised if they did another update at this late stage in its life
@@theelectrictransition ZE60 comes out in 2024. It's the latest model. Claims usable battery on 60 kWh. Was on news in Norway but will not come to Norway becouse we have IT powergrid (no neutral wire) as rest of europe. 230V between phases and 115V between local ground and phases.
@@EVLarsisnt the zoe getting completely ditched and geting replaced by bot the megane e tech and the renault 5?
At least in slovenia, zoe is not being sold new any more
The first generation Renault zoe does in fact have active battery cooling via A/C and heating via ptc. This is why most first generation leaf have 60% percent soh and most zoes have over 80.
Yes, absolutely. I didn't discuss heating, but my intention was to explain that there is active cooling, with heat being the thing that causes permanent battery degradation - reduction in range due to the cold is real, but temporary.
Whilst it has active cooling, it uses air as its cooling medium, which is what makes it fairly unusual. The air crosses the chiller - a part of the heat pump system as you mention, before heading through the pack.
Here we regularly get over 38° C (100 ° F) and I pay particular attention to the cooling system on any EV I'm looking into. Air cooled, even actively cooled, would not be for me.
I totally agree. I don't think we will see anything bigger than a quadricycle do air cooling again. The ZOE was built to a budget that was really tough to achieve all those years ago, and cooling was a corner they cut that seems not to have had too detrimental an effect, but other people are unlikely to risk.
In the book Inside the Machine one of the lead engineers talks of the alliance with Nissan. He says that Nissan designers realised they had made mistakes that they were too late to correct. He doesn't say what, but I wonder if the fact that ZOE has ANY active cooling might have been down to recommendations from Nissan
I do not care at all about air cooling, so far I think it has been used on one occasion. Better battery heating (at least longer) would be a great improvement on cold snowy winter mornings...
So I can rather safely assume we live in rather different climate zones. 38° C I hardly get even inside the car when parked in the sun during summer...
I have a May 2020 Zoe ZE50 which is almost at 70,000 miles. The battery is absolutely fine. There must be some battery degradation as all batteries degrade over time, but nothing I have noticed. I am sure the battery will easily outlive the car.
70,000 miles is quite a lot on a 3 year old car. That's been well used, that's good to hear! Out of interest, have you had any suspension component changes? Early cars seem to suffer from worn drop links causing noise - a cheap fix as long as the labour charges are reasonable, I think. I don't know if they revised the front suspension as part of the ZE50 refresh
Today the Renault dealer checked my ZOE R135 battery SOH. The car is from 2021/1 and with 74.000 km. Now it has 94%. Last year I made 32.000 km and It went from 96% to 94%. That is 2% down. What do you think?
Interesting numbers. Figures vary, but the rule of thumb I have seen suggested is that a car might lose about 2% in year 1 and about 1% in each subsequent year. Since your car is coming up to 3 years old, I would expect it to be at 96%, or maybe a bit less.
One of the problems with the figures is the rounding/truncation taking place. It might be that your car scores just under 95% and gets truncated rather than rounded, down to 94%.
I would not be overly worried about your score, it seems roughly in line with that rule of thumb. It would be lovely to have no degradation, but in reality, there will always be a bit, and we have to be mindful that the figures we are given are either rounded or truncated to a whole number. You might only have lost a little over 1% this year, but have it show as 2% because of the limited accuracy when reporting whole figures, or if there is a small variation in the accuracy of the measurement technique.
I believe that Renault Zoe and Nissan LEAF even at the time of their launch belonged to the same alliance Renault-Nissan thus might have had common engineering elements and maybe ever related battery chemistry. However it looks like Zoe is better designed according to your video. It was never available on North American car market so I am not quite familiar with that car.
Both cars are quite good if used as pre-owned EVs at low price for intraurban commute provided the owner is aware of their limitations, does not need to rapid charge them, has the ability to charge them overnight, does not try to use them for long road tripping.
Yes, absolutely right, the alliance was strong at the time, yet the Leaf and Zoe do not appear to share the underpinnings, which I have always found strange.
I agree, different cars suit different use cases. In the UK the latest Zoe and Leaf are good for most people most of the time in my opinion, as road trips here are in the order of hundreds of miles, not thousands. We're a much smaller country, so we think about driving very differently. Driving to the continent happens, but even then there are relatively few people who would consider driving several thousand miles, as seems to be reasonably common in North America, mainly I think because of the sheer size of the country.
My May 2020 ZE50 is at 96.4% SoH and has been driven 126,000 km now.
It is rather strange that a lot of cars show 96.4 SoH. That is so strange that I feel something strange is going on. Is Renault cheating?
Now when it is sub-zero Celsius the maximum charge that I can get is about 46.5 kWh of charge, but it still states 96.4% SoH. And when the battery was warm 4 months ago it stated a total of 52.4 kWh charge totally. So the maximum charge level is separated from the SoH (I doubt that my battery has gone that bad in just 4 months...)
And regarding air cooling, so far I have never needed air cooling... But an improved battery heating system would be something that would be great. The puny 1kW electric heating PTC for the battery is just not enough in cold climates. And if I could preheat the battery before charging during a trip it would be fantastic. A proper battery preheat (1 to 2h before starting a trip) AND separated from cabin preheat (for cabin preheat is 30+10 min enough). This would also be a huge energy saver and improvement of range (and it is "just" a software update (that does not exist)). Basically, I think I only have started one long trip in the last 110.000 km at temperatures above 20 C. Most trips start at as highest temp of 15 C. My range is reduced to cold battery and my charging speed during trips is limited by low battery temperature...
Ooh, lots of juicy details, thanks for the comment.
In my opinion, a really top notch SoH calculation should not be affected by temperature. The reduction in a battery's usable capacity due to cold temperatures is a temporary reduction; this is quite different from the permanent reduction caused by degradation.
I would hope that the SoH is intended to be a reflection of the usable capacity in ideal conditions - the best case scenario - and not affected by temperature. However, I think your concern about whether it is calculated correctly is a valid one. It must be very hard to measure SoH when the battery's capacity IS so affected by temperature, even if that aspect is only a temporary effect. So I too wonder just how Renault are making their calculation, and whether it is truly correct. There is, after all, a benefit to the manufacturer if their cars stay away from the SoH figure that would trigger a warranty claim.
I hadn't heard that a lot of cars are reporting the same value. That does sounds a bit suspicious, doesn't it?
The good news is that, in your case, it sounds like you have a very healthy battery. That total capacity figure in warm temperatures of 52.4 kWh sounds fantastic - and hopefully more difficult to game, as it is used in (and can be verified by) range calculations. It can also be checked by measuring the total energy fed to the car when charging from a very low state of charge. There will be some energy losses during charging, which does make measuring the total energy into the battery a bit more complex without using any of the car's data to measure it - but it should be possible nonetheless.
I agree with your point with regards battery conditioning in cold weather - both before a journey and before a rapid charging session. That would be a fantastic feature, and the latter at least is now offered by a few manufacturers. My car displayed a "limited regen" message in the dash in cold weather in February, after sitting for a couple of days at -5C. Maximum lift-off regen is also noticeably reducing now that we head into late autumn - only by about 4 kW so far, but it makes a difference to how the car drives.
@@theelectrictransition Now it is summertime. If the battery is at 20C when starting I get about 25% more real usable range and about 10% lower consumption at the same speed. But this is a strange difference. I now get a SoH at 94% but still around 49.6kWh of usable energy. It does not make any sense. And my car has now passed 165,000km.
is this video filmed near "beachy head" ?
No, it's not - I'm about 100 miles from the coast. Don't worry, there is no danger of me falling over the edge ;-)
Interesting, but I’ll keep my 2009 Ford Focus that can do 500 miles on a tankful of good, old fashioned petrol.
How often do you do a journey of 500 miles? If you have easy access to overnight charging then having more range than you actually use is a bit irrelevant.
@@theelectrictransition We just drove from the Black Sea coast to Halkidiki. These are not uncommon trips for us.
We have the ability and space to spend 1500 quid on a charging point at home, but why would we?
We travel back and forth across Europe in the Focus or Dacia Duster diesel.
Life's too short and stressful enough without all the farting about with an EV.
In January we were in Bansko and there was a Tesla with Bucharest license plates parked next to our car.
It was - 14 C and we got home on half a tank of petrol in a nice, warm car.
How many stops would sparky have to have made on the journey to Romania?
Too bloody many, thank you very much.
Battery s never last battery warranty should be for atleast 12 years
There are quite a few EVs from 2011 listed on Autotrader at the moment, so it looks like the batteries last OK. There weren't many EVs sold in those early days, so for there still to be plenty around seems to suggest they are holding up well.
Car manufacturers use a number of tricks to make them last - tricks not used in most early mobile phones. Phone batteries fail for sure, it is easy to be put off by those, but its not such a problem for cars, because the batteries are so well managed.
@@theelectrictransition 1 tesla owner on u tube .third replacement batteries
Why would you even bother with a zoe, if it degrades and cheaper ice cars never do, now having longer term experience in the market place of EV's. Ice cars have the same range at the end as they do when they are new. Electric cars are just not fit for purpose, as my 2016 30 kwhr leaf with 33% degredation and 4 out of 12 battery bars missing after 7 1/2 years and 39 k miles shows. I will never buy another EV, ever !
Ah, that's unlucky. The Leaf doesn't have active thermal management and can therefore suffer worse degradation than anything else. The 30kWh pack also used a chemistry that suffered worse degradation, unlike later cars. Add both of those together and you will get the worst possible.
ICE cars do suffer some range loss as well, because their compression reduces a bit as they wear. But it's not a lot, and a smaller percentage.
I would suggest you not rule out the tech completely because of a single bad implementation - but I do understand how your trust in it would be shaken by your experience.