Renault Zoe review

The Renault Zoe sets out to resolve two of the most common complaints about electric cars: the high price and the often feeble range between charges.

This five-door, Ford Fiesta-sized hatchback can comfortably do almost 200 miles on a full charge, costs less to buy than most rivals and comes with plenty of standard equipment, including a wall-mounted 7kW charger installed at your home.

It's been around for almost a decade, but regular tweaks over the years have upped its interior quality and infotainment gadgetry, given it a longer range between charges, and boosted its performance, with two power outputs now available.

You can pay a bit extra for the ability to use rapid 50kW CCS charging points, which allow the Zoe to be charged from 0-80% in just over an hour. Without this option added, a regular 22kW public charger will give you a full charge in around three hours, while it'll take about 9.5 hours for a full charge using a home charging point.

The Renault Zoe's main rivals are the similar-sized Honda E, Mini Electric, Fiat 500 and Peugeot e-208, as well as the bigger but closely priced Volkswagen ID.3. So how does it stack up against those alternatives in the areas likely to matter most to electric car buyers? Read on over the next few pages and we'll tell you everything you could possibly want to know.

And once you've chosen which electric car you'd like to buy, or even if you decide it's too early to make the switch and end up buying a petrol or diesel model, use our New Car Buying service and you could save hundreds on a Zoe or dozens of other tempting cars.