tl;dr – we are ‘fully’ electric again as a family.
Rather than just show the new car and explain our choice, I thought it would be interesting to look back at our first experience with full electric mobility, 17 years ago.
Back then, driving my TWIKE already made me a bit of an eccentric treehugger in the eyes of others.
Then our Volvo S80 suffered a catastrophic gearbox failure, and we needed a replacement.
I decided it was a good moment to go electric.
The market at that time offered very little. Most electric cars were either ICE conversions by small workshops, like adding a Zebra battery to a Renault Clio or Think City, and support disappeared if the workshop closed.
Batteries were heavy, so many cars could only carry four people. We, a family of five with a dog, needed full seating and roughly 80 km range for daily runs.
For longer trips, such as summer holidays to the sea, we would rent a conventional car.
Even with rentals, ownership was much cheaper than an ICE car. Road taxes were waived in our canton, and electricity was inexpensive.
The search was tough. Few established manufacturers offered EVs suitable for a family. Then I found the Kangoo Electri’cité.
It offered five seats, space for all our gear, a 13.2 kWh NiCd battery, and full Renault support.
There was one small problem, though: these cars were initially sold only to French public institutions. Renault had adapted the Kangoo into an EV for municipal use, powered by nickel–cadmium batteries, mainly for postal services, utilities, and local councils.
The restriction was due to state-backed programs, regulations, and a domestic NiCd recycling chain. Once leases expired, these vehicles were available through municipal auctions. We acquired the 349th car in the series. It was four years old, had only 4722 km, and the battery was almost pristine, having sat discharged in a garage for two years.
Bringing it to Switzerland and making it road-legal was a completely different challenge.
I had to navigate approval procedures almost as if I were a manufacturer. Few EVs existed in Switzerland then, so testers were unsure how to handle them. For example, I turned the key to start the car; the ready light came on. The engineer asked me to start the engine again. Explaining that a silent EV produces 0 dB of idle noise prompted a few laughs. There were many moments like this.
Eventually, the car was approved and registered. Over time, only 19 Kangoo Electri’cité were in Switzerland, and all owners knew each other.
One of the earliest pictures of our Kangoo:
Under the bonnet, the chassis was standard Kangoo without an engine, leaving much empty space.
All components were original Renault parts.
Underneath, two battery bays and accessible fuses made me realize that widespread use might expose vulnerabilities, like immobilization from a removed fuse by cheeky teenagers.
It usually parked next to my TWIKE.
The Marechal connector allowed combined AC and DC charging, rare at the time. Full AC charge took about 8 hours, rapid DC about 30 minutes. Very few DC chargers existed in France.
Inside, it was mostly identical to the ICE Kangoo.
A unique feature was the ability to ‘overcharge’ the water-based NiCd battery up to 110% capacity. This occasional long trickle charge equalized cells and temporarily increased capacity.
The car could start the heater while plugged in and via a timer. This was activated via a rotary knob marked with a ‘hot plug’ symbol.
The large battery packs were visible from the back of the car.
We were happy with it when it worked. Initially, Renault Switzerland congratulated me for choosing their brand, then informed me no garage could service it because it was a limited French series.
Renault later issued a recall for a battery design flaw. A friend in Norway had a fire due to this. Our car was collected for repairs, which took over two months, with a short 2-week rental car provided.
Other issues appeared over time, like a failing DCDC converter.
Support came from a few French enthusiasts and a direct contact at Renault who had worked on the Kangoo Electri’cité.
I did this hardcore DIY-style.
See this Flickr stream showing the DCDC converter I built from decommissioned Telco units.
It worked fairly well – I was getting into my Kangoo’s internals waaaay to far. I had a CLIP and a DDT2000 to dive into the ECU’s and flip bits.
This allowed me to also – from time to time – launch the special charging protocol necessary to then top-up the water in the batteries. This needed to be done every 6 months or 4000km!
A later issue was severe and led us to stop using the car:
Insurance covered the repairs by Renault, about CHF 15,000, without questions.
We sold the Kangoo to a gardening centre, which used it for another 10 years until the batteries reached their end-of-life… interestingly without any technical issues at all!
Here is a video I made when the Kangoo was fairly new.
The next entry will cover our brand new and shiny EV we’ve bought in March 2026!