Open Access Article Originally Published: October 11, 2003
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The Renault Kangoo Electric is the only roomy, five-seat, family-sized electric vehicle on the European market. Add to this the optional "range extender" with its "emergency power supply" and you have an excellent vehicle for transporting people and goods over short and medium range daily driving chores.
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This report covers our first five months and 10,000 miles of service.
First, let me describe the range extender. It is a small petrol engine (with catalyst) that produces approximately 10 KW electrical at a fixed number of revolutions. While this doesn't seem like a lot of power, with practice it is possible to drive the Kangoo on the 10kW output of the engine alone, minimizing the power drain on the battery. The tiny nine liter fuel tank is sufficient to take the car 200 km. The driver can select whether or not to use the range extender, a feature not offered any production electric vehicle. However, it's not possible to recharge the vehicle while its standing still using the RE engine.
The big advantage of the RE option is that it reduces the stress of the novice electric vehicle drivers who worry about running out of battery power. Although a warning light will come on when the pack reaches 10 percent SOC (state-of-charge), we've found that it is rarely needed in daily operation where most of our trips are between 60-80 km, well within the range of the battery-only mode. With careful driving, the Kangoo will consume only 25kWh/100km. Digital displays indicate remaining kilometers available at present power levels, as well as showing current consumption in kW/100kM.
That being said, if you choose to run the RE engine all the time, the fuel economy drops to a disappointing 7liters/100km. However, we have found that we need to use it only 10% of the time in which case economy improves to a much more responsible 3liters/100km.
One of the benefits of the RE engine is that it can be used to supplement the Kangoo's electric heat in winter. A nice feature is the ability to program the car to preheat during the winter, as long as it is plugged in. The on board 3.5kW charger enables the car to recharge from 0 to 95% SOC in just 4 hours. The charger also has a 2kW charge mode for smaller 10 amp circuits, however charging takes appreciably longer. [Note: normal household currents in Europe are 220 volts at 50 cycles compared to 120 volts at 60 cycles (Herz) in North America.] Renault has incorporated a "drive-off protection" system that prevents the car from moving while it is still plugged into the charger.
The first surprise after taking delivery from the Renault dealer in St-Louis is the speed of the RH model. The vehicle will do 120km/hr, nearly 20km/hr above the advertised speed in the dealer brochure, in part because of an "overdrive" system that aids acceleration and driving in snow, something we know a lot about here in Switzerland. In fact, it seems there are so many added features in this vehicle, that it appears that Renault technicians inserted more than their sales staff realized.
As would be expected, the Kangoo makes use of regenerative braking (Rekuperation) to help recapture some of the vehicle's kinetic energy, which is used to recharge the air-cooled, NiCad batteries. Despite the deadly heat wave of the summer of the 2003 in Europe, the car performed well. However, the batteries must be periodically watered every 5,000 kilometers. A warning light will come on saying it is time to refill the batteries and remain on until the car is taken into the dealership.
The Kangoo EV drives much like a car with an automatic transmission. Remove your foot from the brake and the car will begin to roll forward. Having driven electric cars for many years, it was a pleasure to find a highly-effective park gear. In most EVs you have to rely on the emergency brake only when parking on a steep inclines. I also enjoy being able to put the car in Neutral to bypass engagement of the regenerative braking system on easy downward gradients.
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Reader Comments
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12 comments so far...
07-Dec-2006
39518
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RE wind turbines on rooves;;;Afternoon chaps. Now then class pay attention There is no such thing a law in science, in fact to be very clever there is no such thing in australian constitutional law as a legally binding contract, for reasons that become self evident upon closer examination, but that is a story for another day. I digress.Anyhoo, Newton's second theory of motion is continually arguing with the so-called fundamental laws of thermo dynamics, that is why an infernal combustion engine, actually works, particularly, my big old 6 cyl truck, the flywheel does all the work.I had to explain this to a rather brilliant engineering friend the other day, who tried to convince me you can't get more energy out of a system than you put in however what needs to be mentioned is that the er um flywheel has a tendency to stay in motion etc. and my flywheel is er um very heavy, which probably explains why i can drive up 30 degree inclines in forth gear at about 70km/hri.e. with the engine at about 1200 rpm. Inertia beats thermodynamics frequently. newton was very bright, however dear students, keep in mind that he was part of a society that was emerging from a backward time in history, where missguided religious t-wits were attempting to control rather than understand so the so-called scientific language of his time reflected the legal - imaginary friend - scientific reductionist culture he was trying to escape from feel free to modernize nomenclature, e.g. 'theories of thermodynamics ' or second hypotheses of motion
Posted by: john dique
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03-Oct-2004
4932
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gee wally:
drag created by wind turbine > energy produced"
Posted by: x x
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15-Oct-2003
1122
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How can I get one of these in the U.S.? Import it privately? Very interesting article. Terence
Posted by: Terence Welch
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16-Oct-2003
1124
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Terence, even in Europ it is not so easy to get the E Kango.
In Belgium where I live ,renault is not selling it.
If you want more information, I suggest you go to
http://www.renault.com
and choose France as your home country; then you get access to the factory E kangoo information
(in the french language off course)
You will notice that for French people there is even goverment help to buy and to drive.
br
eric
Posted by: eric convents
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16-Oct-2003
1125
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Some more info on the kangoo hybrid..
http://www.emobil-info.de/kangoo/kangoo_hybrid.pdf
Posted by: Michael Eric Menk
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16-Oct-2003
1126
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Intriguing. For some reason, I couldn't get the PDF link to display; can somebody tell me if it accelerates better than Ranger and S-10 EVs?
Posted by: Hugh Webber
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17-Oct-2003
1127
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Hello Hugh,
as the owner of this site, I verified that the link is ok. Have you tried downloading the document and open it locally?
There's also a scan from the original french brochure, you can access the images at
http://www.emobil-info.de/kangoo/brochure1.jpg
to brochure5.jpg .
Renault Germany also refuses to sell the Elect'road because of "no demand" (only few hundered people in Germany know that this hybrid even exists!) and "missing infrastructure" (garage workers had to be trained not to kill themselves with those superdangerous battery voltages)-: .
BTW the Kangoo Elect'road accelerates from 0-50 km/h (31 mph) in 8 seconds.
Vehicle price is about 25.000 Euro excl. VAT.
Regards, Jens
Posted by: Jens Schacherl
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17-Oct-2003
1128
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You can find another french article on the kangoo:
go to:http://EV.starttips.com
and click the second kongoo item in the left colum
Posted by: eric convents
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02-Nov-2003
1143
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windpower can be used to recharge an electric car by putting a wind turbine on the roof of a car we can take advantage of the headwinds that are generated when the car moves along
Posted by: wally smith
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03-Feb-2004
1453
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Wally Smith, a wind generator on the roof of the car would be a net loss. The extra drag would cost more in terms of power than the device would produce. (this is a law of physics)
On the other hand, it could be charged by a stationary wind generator while parked."
Posted by: Doug Hart
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29-Mar-2004
2136
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please, can you sent me a catalogue named "revue technique automobile" with car "kangoo 1.9D"
Posted by: Lotfi Oudjedi Damerdji
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04-May-2008
61507
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Good day,
We would like to ask if the hybrid car can be bought in romania or serbia,amd how much it costs?
Posted by: TEREZ Benedek
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