Renault Zoe EV Getting Range Boost Via New Motor
The Renault ZOE 100% electric vehicle will be getting its range boosted pretty substantially via the use of a new lighter, more-efficient motor, according to recent reports.
The new “more compact” motor (10% less volume) will reportedly increase the range of the ZOE by around 8% — roughly 20 km or 12.5 miles. It’s currently slated to appear in the upcoming version of the popular EV in the European market.
Here’s some of the specifics of the engine (coming to us via IHS Technology):
The synchronous electric motor with wound rotor develops 65kW and peak torque of 220Nm. The motor features an integrated Chameleon charger. The automaker paid attention to three crucial areas: integration, miniaturization and simplification. In integration, the engineers switched from macro-module stacking to fully integrated modules.
Also, the engineers designed smaller modules leaving less space between the modules by removing external power supply cables. The junction box, power electronics and Chameleon charger are contained in a single system called Power Electronic Controller, thus reducing the size of this group to 25%. Attention has been paid to keep the system simple by switching to air cooling for the electric motor. That said, only the Power Electronic Controller is continuously cooled by water. The designers have improved the electronic management of the charging process to reduce charging times using low-power infrastructure. The new EV motor is expected to be manufactured at the automaker’s Cléon plant in France.
Given the good success of the Renault ZOE to date, this range extension should go over well and perhaps help to make adoption of the model even more widespread. As it stands, the ZOE possesses a range of 210 km (130.5 miles), so with the 20 km extension, the range of the new model should rest somewhere around 230 km (143 miles). Not a bad improvement. 🙂
There’s no word yet if any related vehicles — the Nissan LEAF, Renault Kangoo ZE, or Renault Twizy — will receive a similar upgrade.
Image Credit: Renault
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