200 Club

Not yet did about 173 miles today and came home with about 155 miles shown on the GOM....dammed free charging points when I see them I like to keep topping up and make the most of them got a free 19.7 kWh today with Pod-Point at Premiere Inn and some more, don’t know how much at one of my work sites...happy days I love this new EV world that I’m in....??
Problem is it screws all my what have I done on one charge...not to worry.
 
Hmm... well how did I get on...

I've found out lots of things, most of them quite funny, as a result of this test! :ROFLMAO:

I've tested the AA's MG Assistance, which is quite prompt but knows nothing at all about EV's!

I've discovered I can cover 0.9 miles in 10 minutes on foot!

The car can't do maths!

And I've discovered you can't drive even half a mile when the turtle appears!

So to elaborate, I can only drive 196 miles from full until my car stops with my own personal driving routes when driving very carefully, (to the point of getting in the way of and annoying other road users slightly!) I did have to put up with some wind and rain, so it might have been just possible in perfect, calm, hot weather. I'm not trying again as it's too much hassle, and I don't want to stress my battery, so no 200 mile club for me. :(

According to the car, it was achieving 4.8 miles per kWh, so assuming 42.5kWh is actually useable from the battery, I should have got 204 miles, but we stopped at 196! So either the 4.8 figure is off, or useable capacity is slightly less. I did notice the voltage was still at 376 when we stopped, I thought this odd, as back in winter I'd seen it well below this at low states of charge, so I'm not sure how it decides it's empty? About 3 miles from stopping, the car warned me to stop safely as soon as possible, at this point I was 4 miles from home, so continued slowly. One and a half miles from home, the turtle actually came on and limited the power, only half a mile later, we stopped and about half that was coasting to a halt, so Mr Turtle gives you almost nothing! Don't want to see him again, ever.

I Called AA's MG rescue and they came out to me in about 25 minutes, which was nice. The AA man told me how although EV's were inevitable, the infrastructure was no good and he was going to buy an ICE just before they were banned and keep it for another ten years, so he wouldn't have to get an EV until at least 2042! I couldn't be bothered to counter his comments. He did also tell me the AA are not even starting to get up to speed with EV's yet, he knew nothing about them, and no AA vans have got generators for charging! He was a nice enough guy though and put the front wheels up on a dolly set and took the car the 0.9 miles to home for me. Due to Covid though, I wasn't allowed in the van and had to jog home!

10 minutes with granny at the road side outside the house got everything powered back up, and I could then drive up to my charge point at the end of the drive.

Anyway, learned a few things on a sunny day!

IMG_20200728_170425 (1).jpg
 
Bloody hell you pushed it to the limit then..so when it gets to limp home mode it’s pointless, you won’t limp any where...
 
Mark Holmes said:
Bloody hell you pushed it to the limit then..so when it gets to limp home mode it’s pointless, you won’t limp any where...
Click to expand...

Yes, the last useful indicator is a red warning that tells you to to stop as soon as possible as the battery is depleted, I got about 3 miles after this, there is no power reduction at this point.

The turtle is just too late to the party! It cuts power severely, to almost nothing too, I incorrectly thought I'd be able to limp a mile steadily at this point, but I think it really means you need to stop immediately! and gives you just about enough power to get off the road and park up safely.
 
Chrispydoc said:
An interesting exercise..well done....nearly made it home then.
Click to expand...

lol! Very nearly made it. I really didn't expect to need recovery though and wouldn't have proceeded if I'd expected this might happen! The figures indicated I should have had a margin over 200.

I felt a right Muppet getting towed home and then trailing extension leads into the road to power up to be able to drive up to the house! Don't think it did much to promote the EV cause today with the neighbours!
 
Well, I am always for something practical in our everyday use of the ZS EV.
MG's own information states 210miles for City WLTP cycle. In my opinion it is not practical trying to achieve this.
So far as I am aware no one in UK expect one couple who use their ZS EV only for local shopping have been able to achieve this. Apparently even the few City taxis that are ZS EV are not able to achieve this.
What is practical is optimising range to reduce cost.
If increasing range is an attempt to reduce cost, then the way to go about this is actually not to achieve over 200 on one charge but rather to ensure miles/kWh is as close to 4.8 as possible(i.e efficient driving) and use public free chargers to the maximum while maintaining all the comforts you need such as AC etc when required.

I guess for most 'range seekers' it is range for the sake of range irrespective of how impractical so.... nothing much one can say.
 
For me it's nothing to do with costs. It's like trying to climb a mountain, or walk more miles than you've ever done before.....its a self imposed challenge. It's what makes us human......striving to achieve the difficult. Anyone can sit back and do easy.........no challenge in that.
 
@Chrispydoc,
Very interesting you are not attempting this futile activity yourself. It is really not like climbing a mountain is it?
I guess you are the easy one and have felt if for those who are not easy to try it on.
No one sits back to do easy on this forum. We all strive for the best from the little we have. As with all things in life it is more difficult to to the practical and sensible and easy to do the impractical and foolish.
It is same with owning an EV.
One should really not waste time and space for the impractical.
 
Chrispydoc said:
For me it's nothing to do with costs. It's like trying to climb a mountain, or walk more miles than you've ever done before.....its a self imposed challenge. It's what makes us human......striving to achieve the difficult. Anyone can sit back and do easy.........no challenge in that.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! It was just a fun challenge. Certainly nothing to do with reducing costs as we're literally talking a saving of a few pence at the expence of more travel time and a more stressful journey.

We've also learned some useful things about the car. I like knowing that when the display drops from 10 miles left to --- you really do have just over 10 miles left at this point, so note your mileage and plan accordingly when or if this happens. We also learned that the final useful warning is the red battery depleted, stop as soon as possible warning at about 3 miles left, and if you do ever get Mr Turtle, you need to immediately get off the road to a safe stopping place.

I'll resume normal driving now, as usual without worrying about range, back to my safe 150 miles or so before charging. ;)

These guys in India managed to get 350 miles to one charge!! An official world record! It's worth a watch, high temperatures obviously helped a bit, the poor guy did the test without any aircon in the Indian heat!

 
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@Paulie68

My hero!! For 2 reasons.
1) for actually putting yourself through all that for the sake of science and the Team!
2) telling us about it. I had a similar disaster on my Day 1 of ZS ownership coming back to Inverness from picking up the cat in South Shields, but I have only told very sanitised versions of that day's events. Much respect for sharing so openly!!

It's actually great that we learn jointly from these updates.

Just completed my planning for my North Coast 500 trip for end of August (26th, 27th& 28th). Will keep you all updated as I undertake that, with my two snearing 'ICE till we die' brothers!!
 
Well said Paulie and Dave....;)... I certainly learned stuff as well, so the time and space wasted wasted.?
 
The Indian guy's attempt demonstrates the impractical nonsensical state of the range for sake of range issue. It serves absolutely no purpose and gives us no useful information.
As to what to do when the alarms come up the manufacturer give useful sensible information which is what one should follow and there is abundant additional sensible and practical advice on the Web from more well informed respected reviewers.
But well each man to his own.
Mine is the practical and sensible.
 
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