Complete electronic failure

I have suffered from a very frightening vehicle failure. All of the electric systems on the 21 registered plate zs failed. I was left in a vehicle with no handbrake, no way of cutting the power, no abs, no power steering. The vehicle had to be left running and with bricks in front of the tyres to stop it moving.
The rac came but as the vehicle was running through the main high voltage battery were unable to do anything initially.
Their ems showed every system had failed.
As a last resort they pulled a multipin cable which was adjacent to the auxiliary battery cutting all systems.
3 weeks on and MG seem uninterested and the vehicle remains in a queue at the Huddersfield dealership still not having been seen due to a backlog of other breakdowns
I am very concerned that if this catastrophic failure had happened on a motorway it could have resulted in fatalities.

Hi, that sounds like an awful experience.
Can I ask why you called the RAC and not the free AA that comes with the car?

Jomarkh said:

Hi, that sounds like an awful experience.
Can I ask why you called the RAC and not the free AA that comes with the car?

Click to expand...

It is on a lease agreement so not sure it was covered by aa

@OP what happened exactly in terms of controlling the car in the moment? We're you still able to brake? You mentioned that in the highway there would be fatalities, can you expand on that? It's very worrying, glad you're OK mate

Well that looks like another one where many forum members say "must be a fabrication, its impossible".
Very worrying.
Where complicated software is in control, virtually nothing is impossible.

Malteser said:

@OP what happened exactly in terms of controlling the car in the moment? We're you still able to brake? You mentioned that in the highway there would be fatalities, can you expand on that? It's very worrying, glad you're OK mate

Click to expand...

Hello. Manual brake pedal worked and could get into neutral. Breakdown suggested finding flat spot to get to but where I live in Yorkshire this was not easy and the loss of power steering made things difficult. I think the sudden loss of power steering on a motorway could be a real problem along with failure of the abs. I know we take these for granted now but their deactivation would result in a car not performing as expected. This could lead to collisions.

Tim Green said:

Well that looks like another one where many forum members say "must be a fabrication, its impossible".
Very worrying.
Where complicated software is in control, virtually nothing is impossible.

Click to expand...

I have the rac report which shows every area of the ems was red. As you say there must be some software issue which needs remedying. I am not sure where best to post my concerns. I have had 2 brilliant carefree years with the car.

Tim Green said:

Well that looks like another one where many forum members say "must be a fabrication, its impossible".
Very worrying.
Where complicated software is in control, virtually nothing is impossible.

Click to expand...

Hi Tim, not sure where best to post. As you say, in these odd times some may doubt. But the rac report does support as would my 999 call. I was literally trapped in a running vehicle with no handbrake. I guess I need ideas on who best to report to as this really shouldn't happen. It would have been potentially even more terrifying for an older driver or perhaps a young parent with kids in the car.

This is an awful thing to experience. This hasn’t been suggested by any poster in this thread, but I just wanted to say that we need to be careful not to blame this sort of incident on a car being an EV as there is already more than enough scaremongering amongst the anti EV brigade. This sort of failure can happen with any modern car - in fact any car modern or not can lose power when driving be that power from an engine or a motor. The safest place, if there is a safe place, for this to happen is probably the motorway as everyone is travelling in the same direction and you can coast to the near side relatively safely. The hardest part is keeping a level head and not panicking too much when you lose speed, steering becomes very heavy, and braking is much harder. In many years of attending motorway accidents I have never been to one where loss of power caused a serious collision.

chris69 said:

This is an awful thing to experience. This hasn’t been suggested by any poster in this thread, but I just wanted to say that we need to be careful not to blame this sort of incident on a car being an EV as there is already more than enough scaremongering amongst the anti EV brigade. This sort of failure can happen with any modern car - in fact any car modern or not can lose power when driving be that power from an engine or a motor. The safest place, if there is a safe place, for this to happen is probably the motorway as everyone is travelling in the same direction and you can coast to the near side relatively safely. The hardest part is keeping a level head and not panicking too much when you lose speed, steering becomes very heavy, and braking is much harder. In many years of attending motorway accidents I have never been to one where loss of power caused a serious collision.

Click to expand...

Absolutely mate. It's important to keep calm and stop the car safely . My first 4 or 5 cars didn't have ABS or power steering and they still steered and stopped. Obviously modern cars were designed to rely on those features so it's not the same but still possible to stop them safely with the mechanical systems of the car

It happened to me in my first car, an Austin 1100, when one of the connectors on the ignition coil came loose. Fortunately I was on the inside lane of the M5 and so was able to pull onto the hard shoulder and fix the problem. So yes, it can happen to any car of any age.

Chris Millington said:

I have suffered from a very frightening vehicle failure. All of the electric systems on the 21 registered plate zs failed. I was left in a vehicle with no handbrake, no way of cutting the power, no abs, no power steering. The vehicle had to be left running and with bricks in front of the tyres to stop it moving.
The rac came but as the vehicle was running through the main high voltage battery were unable to do anything initially.
Their ems showed every system had failed.
As a last resort they pulled a multipin cable which was adjacent to the auxiliary battery cutting all systems.
3 weeks on and MG seem uninterested and the vehicle remains in a queue at the Huddersfield dealership still not having been seen due to a backlog of other breakdowns
I am very concerned that if this catastrophic failure had happened on a motorway it could have resulted in fatalities.

Click to expand...

Surely the car can be returned/ rejected as “unfit for purpose “ so glad you weren’t hurt that must have been frightening