What 27,069 MOT tests in 2025 say about buying one used — and, just as important, what they cannot tell you.
Judged against every other electric car of the same age — aged 3 to 11 — this one passes at 77.9% against 82.3% for the electric fleet. That is 4.4 points worse with age already accounted for, so budget for the first test rather than assuming it will sail through. And whatever the MOT record says, it tells you nothing about the battery — no record does. Only a physical test measures that.
Battery warranty terms per model year — years, mileage cap, capacity-retention threshold, and whether it transfers to a second owner — have to be traced to the manufacturer’s own published documentation, row by row, and dated. That table has not been built.
We will not sell you a battery state-of-health figure we have not measured. Ours would be a guess, so we are not selling it. Where a physical test is worth its roughly £100, we will say so plainly.
By registration year, because that is how a buyer thinks about it. Mileage matters more on an electric car than a petrol one: it is both the main thing that ages a battery and the cap that ends the warranty.
| Registration year | Age in 2025 | Tests | Bottom quarter | Median | Top quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 11 | 767 | 41,250 | 53,750 | 66,250 |
| 2015 | 10 | 1,660 | 36,250 | 46,250 | 58,750 |
| 2016 | 9 | 1,477 | 31,250 | 41,250 | 53,750 |
| 2017 | 8 | 995 | 33,750 | 48,750 | 63,750 |
| 2018 | 7 | 1,791 | 28,750 | 41,250 | 56,250 |
| 2019 | 6 | 2,276 | 23,750 | 33,750 | 46,250 |
| 2020 | 5 | 6,044 | 21,250 | 28,750 | 41,250 |
| 2021 | 4 | 6,111 | 16,250 | 23,750 | 33,750 |
| 2022 | 3 | 5,578 | 13,750 | 18,750 | 26,250 |
A 2018 Zoe showing about 41,250 miles is dead average. One showing 56,250 or more is in the top quarter and has been worked harder than most — it will reach any mileage-capped warranty limit years sooner than the odometer alone suggests. Working out which cap expires first, for one specific registration, is what the check does.
| Age | Pass rate | Tests |
|---|---|---|
| 3 yrs | 88.9% | 17,743 |
| 4 yrs | 85.6% | 14,546 |
| 5 yrs | 79.2% | 10,208 |
| 6 yrs | 65.4% | 5,151 |
| 7 yrs | 65.8% | 4,380 |
| 8 yrs | 63.4% | 4,291 |
| 9 yrs | 61.5% | 4,055 |
| 10 yrs | 58.5% | 2,801 |
| 11 yrs | 61.5% | 1,084 |
The fall between 5 and 6 years is the one to notice. The pass rate drops from 79.2% to 65.4% in a single year of age — 13.8 points, the steepest step anywhere on the chart above. That is 10,208 tests against 5,151, so it is not a small-sample artefact.
Read it as a maintenance cliff rather than a design fault: it is the age at which the consumable parts on this model come due together. If you are looking at one approaching 6 years old, budget for it, or use it to negotiate.
| Advisory category | Items | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tyres | 12,499 | 53.7% |
| Brakes | 5,163 | 22.2% |
| Suspension | 1,923 | 8.3% |
| Non-component advisories | 1,641 | 7.0% |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 695 | 3.0% |
| Road Wheels | 652 | 2.8% |
Advisories are warnings. These are the items that actually failed a test — the ones that cost money before the car can be driven away.
| Failure category | Items | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Tyres | 3,280 | 30.3% |
| Suspension | 2,868 | 26.5% |
| Lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment | 2,221 | 20.5% |
| Brakes | 1,158 | 10.7% |
| Visibility | 784 | 7.2% |
| Steering | 185 | 1.7% |
| Seat belts and supplementary restraint systems | 110 | 1.0% |
| Body, chassis, structure | 88 | 0.8% |
You will read everywhere that electric cars destroy tyres — heavier, and all the torque at once. It is true of some and not others, and the only fair way to look is at cars of the same age.
At three to five years old, tyres are 58.8% of this model’s top advisory items. Petrol hatchbacks of the same age average 40.0%. So it is well above them.
| Model, aged 3–5 | Tyres as a share of top advisories |
|---|---|
| Zoe electric | 58.8% |
| Golf petrol | 51.4% |
| Fiesta petrol | 44.9% |
| Focus petrol | 43.7% |
| Astra petrol | 32.2% |
| Corsa petrol | 27.6% |
MOT data says how these cars behave. DVLA’s licensing figures say how many exist — and how many have been taken off the road without being scrapped. A car declared SORN is parked up. On an electric car that is often a pack nobody wants to replace.
| Registered | Zoe on the road | Zoe SORN | Petrol hatchbacks SORN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 286 | 9.5% | 3.7% |
| 2014 | 758 | 7.0% | 3.1% |
| 2015 | 1,603 | 5.1% | 2.1% |
| 2016 | 1,408 | 5.8% | 1.8% |
| 2017 | 943 | 4.7% | 1.6% |
| 2018 | 1,723 | 5.0% | 1.2% |
| 2019 | 2,140 | 2.4% | 0.9% |
| 2020 | 5,930 | 1.2% | 0.7% |
| 2021 | 5,321 | 1.3% | 0.7% |
| 2022 | 5,346 | 0.7% | 0.5% |
| 2023 | 1,080 | 0.6% | 0.9% |
Same registration year on both sides, so this is the cars and not their ages. Petrol benchmark: Fiesta, Corsa, Golf and Focus combined.
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