MG4 X-Power waiting area

[Rolfe]

You'll love it. I made the decision to go EV in a huge hurry. I had already decided my next car would be an EV, but I had done nothing at all about researching the subject as I wasn't intending to change the Golf before next year. But then stuff happened.

I was told they wanted to write off the Golf on 31st March. I spent that evening watching YouTube EV porn and came to the conclusion that the MG4 SE SR was the stand-out no-brainer choice on that day. I got a test drive a week later and drove off in my new EV five days after that.

Watching YouTube reviews of the car (and EV topics in general) taught me an awful lot. I now know about LFP versus NMC batteries, type 2 versus CCS charging, auto-holds and ACCs and LKAs (boo!) and various regeneration modes and what happens if you drive your car down to a very low state of charge (and how scared to be).

This car really puts a smile on your face, and I would imagine that goes double for the X-Power. I had stars in my eyes at the end of the test drive and knew I was in no position to haggle on this one, I was too transparently smitten.

The other day I was given a Peugeot e208 as a courtesy car. The smile was noticeably absent from my face (apart from the fact that the radio was a lot better than the MG4's). So it's not all EVs that behave like this. I was so happy to get back behind the wheel of my own car again. I think you've made the right choice.

 

[Freeagain21]

what happens if you drive your car down to a very low state of charge (and how scared to be).

You can't leave me hanging now. What happens and how scared?

 

[siteguru]

Bjorn Nyland (Teslabjorn on YouTube) found that the MG4 with NMC battery would go for another 15 miles (might have been more) once the indicated state of charge reached 0%. That's usually enough to get you to a charge point.

64kWh battery pack; 61.7kWh normally usable capacity. That buffer effectively means you have some reserve.

 

[Rolfe]

You can't leave me hanging now. What happens and how scared?

What @siteguru said. Watch the videos where various EVs are driven until their batteries give out. Having watched these, I'm thinking of starting a thread to find out if there are ANY confirmed cases of EV drivers literally bricking their cars because the HV battery was out of juice. The car gives warnings that get increasingly frantic, and will at some point start to conserve power by crawling in "turtle" mode. Even once the battery is showing 0 miles practically all of them will crawl on for another 8 to 10 miles. When Bjorn tried it with a Trophy, it crawled on (round a car park) for 15 miles before giving up.

I drove mine down to 4% once. I had gone for a drive intending, on the way, to take advantage of some 25p rapid charging I knew about, but the charger in question was broken. There were type 2 chargers working on the other side of the car park, and on the way home I actually passed a motorway service station with lots of expensive Gridserve and Appegreen chargers. Then 11 miles from home there were some more type 2s. So I wasn't in any sort of trouble.

I could see that I had enough to get home on according to the GoM, so I decided to go for it, checking how I was doing at both the motorway services and the type 2 chargers. At about 10%-15% the car remarked that it was getting a bit low and did I want to engage power saving mode. I said no, because the GoM was showing more range than the distance between me and home. I just went on as normal. I "held back" to 70 mph on the motorway. When I was only about two or three miles from home at 5% charge I was on a straight stretch of A road and decided to pass a slowcoach in front of me. The car went up to 80 mph easily. So it was trusting me when I said it didn't need to go into economy.

By the time I got to the village there were several interesting warnings on the screen about "charge now" and the SoC indicator on the central screen was showing amber, at 4% and 8 miles range remaining. I wasn't aware of any power restriction, but the last mile was in a 20 mph zone so I might not have noticed. I didn't see a turtle, but it could only have been a matter of moments away. I did fancy I heard a sigh of relief when I pulled into the rapid charger at the end of my road and connected.

So it's quite reassuring that the car believes you when you say you don't need to restrict power. It would be very annoying if it pulled back to very low power ten miles from empty, when you know you're only seven miles from home. But there were a lot of warnings on the dashboard.

I think you'd have to be either an absolute idiot, or to have encountered about three broken chargers in succession, to be in any danger of actually bricking the car.

 

[WonkoTheSaneUK]

You can't leave me hanging now. What happens and how scared?

FYI - Instead of just turning on a little yellow LED that can be easily missed like most ICE cars, the MG4 Trophy interrupts the radio to tell you out loud that it wants charging at 20% & does it again at 10%.

 

[Rolfe]

Another great reason for buying the SE!

 

[bowfer]

Hi - first time posting to the group, although I've been following posts for a month now.

We've placed our first EV order and have opted for the X-Power (delivery end of September). We had a test drive yesterday, and then drove the Trophy LR for comparison purposes.

TBH, it was a toss-up between the X-Power and the Trophy ER, but have gone for the X-Power mainly because:
a) it's replacing my MX5 and it's a fun drive (but the speed is ridiculous);
b) AWD - the MX5 is a nightmare in the snow
c) as someone with recurrent lower back problems, I found the bucket seats more comfortable than the regular Trophy seats (IMHO), but then I'm used to the MX5 bucket seats, and my husband drives a Tyre R (also with bucket seats).

Not sure about the range though - I'm not looking forward to having to fill up more frequently than I might with the ER edition. But the salesman told us they're not sure of the sales potential with the ER, because they're not certain what need/market it fills - apart from older customers who want the added psychological reassurance of being able to drive a long distance without recharging. I probably fall into that category too, tbh!

Have we made the right decision, going for the X-Power? It's really difficult as this is our first venture into the EV world.

It really blows my mind that people opt for 4WD instead of just fitting all-season tyres to their 2WD cars.
Sledgehammer to crack a walnut

 

[Rolfe]

It really blows my mind that people opt for 4WD instead of just fitting all-season tyres to their 2WD cars.
I fitted all-season to my SE and it sailed through some pretty bloody awful snow up here in December.
4WD on summer tyres is far from infallible, I see it every year up here.
Four clogged up summer tyres spinning away….

Agree absolutely. My Golf was like Bambi on an ice rink on the VW-supplied summer tyres. Changing these for winter tyres turned it into a reasonable facsimile of a Land Rover.

And yet we see so much publicity about "don't go up here unless you have 4WD!" and so on. I'd say "don't go up here if you're wearing summer sandals, irrespective of how many feet you have!"

I'm the one that repeatedly replies to Traffic Scotland tweets about getting ready for winter with "WHY ON EARTH AREN'T YOU RECOMMENDING WINTER TYRES??!!" They're the single best thing you can do, and if you have them, you probably aren't going to need the rest of the precautions they go on about.

Interested that you went for all-season tyres on your SE. I think I'll go that route myself come November. I'll need to search the forum then for the best suggestions.

 

[Jonhklee]

In both cars? Or only in the X-Power model?

Only Xpower had vibrations

 

[Tight Git]

Just had 4 different 'hot' EVs go through our village on the North Yorks moors - lime green Fiat 500 Arbarth, a green XPower MG4 and a couple more following that I didn't pay attention to!

Wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't a road test for a magazine or other publication

 

[Rolfe]

Sounds likely! Something will emerge on YouTube I expect.

 

[Brettus]

Could be interesting to see how it compares. Around its price bracket at the moment I can imagine pretty decent but perhaps less so when compared to the e-tron GT or Taycan of course.

Essentially there’s always the caveat of “for the price…” but when MG are kicking the bottom out of the market pricing, it’s understandable.

 

[bowfer]

Just had 4 different 'hot' EVs go through our village on the North Yorks moors - lime green Fiat 500 Arbarth, a green XPower MG4 and a couple more following that I didn't pay attention to!

Wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't a road test for a magazine or other publication

Abarth Fiat really interests me, but the PCP prices were daft last time I looked.

 

[evmg1]

I can share a news that my AWD version will feel the vibration in the steering wheel at around 105km/h. Conventionally, we would consider it to be a dynamic balance problem with the front wheels. But it is not, and owners of other AWD versions in China have also reported this problem. We speculate that it may be a problem with the synchronization of the front and rear motors, because MG rarely uses synchronous motors at the front and rear, and hope that the problem can be solved through software updates in the future.

Hi, im new to the forum but want a Xpower but i've driven 2 now (Doncaster and Wakefield) and both have a slight wheel wobble at 70mph. The dealers cant explain it and its really putting me off.

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Jonhklee]

Hi, im new to the forum but want a Xpower but i've driven 2 now (Doncaster and Wakefield) and both have a slight wheel wobble at 70mph. The dealers cant explain it and its really putting me off.

Has anyone else experienced this?

My test drive, I experienced fine but obvious vibrations in the steering wheel at 70mph on butter smooth tarmac. Buzzing sort of feeling. Not present in the ER that I tested that same day.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

My test drive, I experienced fine but obvious vibrations in the steering wheel at 70mph on butter smooth tarmac. Buzzing sort of feeling. Not present in the ER that I tested that same day.

Did a member from China not say there was potentially an issue with the two motors synchronising that was causing it

 

[Jonhklee]

Did a member from China not say there was potentially an issue with the two motors synchronising that was causing it

Don’t see how that can cause vibrations in the steering….

 

[evmg1]

Don’t see how that can cause vibrations in the steering….

The motors are driven by a frequency drive thus able to to adjust the speed the motor turns. I've seen it on fixed plant in factories when the whole drive system hits a natural frequency causing vibration. Now you can program the drive to skip a frequency ie 32hz 33hz then 35hz, with 34hz being the problem, but a new car that is really getting pushed! Like I say I've been searching for issues on the mulan in china but can't find anything. This is a really worry as most roads around the world have a motorway speed in and around 70mph.

 

[Jonhklee]

The motors are driven by a frequency drive thus able to to adjust the speed the motor turns. I've seen it on fixed plant in factories when the whole drive system hits a natural frequency causing vibration. Now you can program the drive to skip a frequency ie 32hz 33hz then 35hz, with 34hz being the problem, but a new car that is really getting pushed! Like I say I've been searching for issues on the mulan in china but can't find anything. This is a really worry as most roads around the world have a motorway speed in and around 70mph.

Thanks for the explanation, but the issue is “from” 70mph, not just “at” 70mph. It doesn’t go away after that speed. So it’s not just a narrow frequency band that seems to be the problem.
I don’t think it’s a big issue, but just make sure folks to look out for it. I will prob find it annoying on long journeys with the steering buzzing constantly.

 

[Robf]

The motors are driven by a frequency drive thus able to to adjust the speed the motor turns. I've seen it on fixed plant in factories when the whole drive system hits a natural frequency causing vibration. Now you can program the drive to skip a frequency ie 32hz 33hz then 35hz, with 34hz being the problem, but a new car that is really getting pushed! Like I say I've been searching for issues on the mulan in china but can't find anything. This is a really worry as most roads around the world have a motorway speed in and around 70mph.

I disagree, once Giry Smartsees accepts responsibilty the following obviously applies

The Infinite Improbability Drive was a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances (and MG X Drive) in a mere nothingth of a second, without "tedious mucking about in hyperspace."

It was discovered by lucky chance and then developed into a governable form of propulsion by the Galactic Government's research centre on Damogran. As soon as the drive reaches infinite Improbability, it passes through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe simultaneously. An incredible range of highly improbable things can happen due to these effects.

The principle of generating small amounts of finite improbability by simply hooking the logic circuits of a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain to an atomic vector plotter suspended in a strong Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea) were well understood. It is said, by the Guide, that such generators were often used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left, in accordance with the theory of indeterminacy.

Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this, partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sorts of parties.