245 Mile Trip

[Dave]

I have a 245 miles round trip to do tomorrow in my LR ZS EV. I’ve charged the battery to 100% SOC on my home charger. Hopefully I should get there and back on a single charge.

 

[N2STY]

I would probably plug it back in and get heaters going be for you set off

 

[Mihir]

You will surely need a charging break. If your journey is going to use motorways and if you use the heaters, demistifiers etc, I think you are looking at about 225-230 miles. Eco mode will add another 8-10 miles if what we see here is the normal mode range. I saw you read my post on the 215 mile journey I performed. Hope some of the points there help you plan your journey. Do let us know how your journey was whenever you can.

 

[sha66ir]

Good luck Dave. When did you place your order on the car and when did you receive it? Thanks

 

[Lovemyev]

If you intend to use the heater on route, then I think you will need a small charge on the return leg.
Journey length of 245 with a potential predicted range of 264 ?????.
Less than 20 miles off redundancy is a little to tight for my likely Dave.
You could wipe out that 20 mile of “Fat” margin, as soon as you demand any heat for the cabin.
My gut reaction tells me you should plan in a charging stop.
I would really like to be proven wrong though.
I think it will do the trip EASY in the summer months.

 

[Merry]

I suspect you'll need to charge around the 200 mile mark if you're doing well. Even if you do make the whole trip you'll be very uncomfortable towards the end. You'll almost certainly be arriving in low power get you home mode.

 

[bwanamdevu]

No way mate! My wife starts to get agitated if the % ever goes below 50! Heaven knows what she would do on a journey like that as the % dropped close to single figures. Get in the real world and sort out somewhere to stick a bit of juice in when you’re down to about 50miles from your place.

 

[Deleted member 6627]

Not a chance. The efficiency is dreadful at 100% due to no regen. Then I doubt you will take it below 10%. Think you'll be lucky to get 215 miles.

 

[Dave]

Well, that was an uneventful drive

I actually ended up only having to do 218 miles

Trip was split into two parts.

1: 97 miles @ 4.1 miles/kWh

2: 121 miles @ 4.0 miles/kWh

I got back with 20% SOC remaining so well happy with that

As such, the 245 miles would have been easily achieved

I am completely happy with my MG ZS EV

I stopped at a Truck Stop on Watling Street near Rugby. Excellent place for a stop and bite to eat - no charger though. My phone signal with the 3 network was not very good. To check my emails I logged on to the internet using the WiFi hotspot in the MG. Fantastic feature !

Car back on charge now. As I won’t be doing a long trip tomorrow I have set the charging stop point at 80% SOC.

 

[Iain]

Well done! We will never learn the limits of our cars unless we are prepared to make real world journeys. (I managed to resist the temptation to say “go the extra mile”).

 

[Merry]

With what sort average speed/heater etc? Those numbers are pretty high compared to what I and a few others with an LR are achieving I suspect. Be interested to know if you're doing anything different.

Fair play you've obviously got some skill though. I'm just concerned that it's not something an average driver coming from an ICE will stand a chance getting near.

 

[Kithmo]

Well, that was an uneventful drive

I actually ended up only having to do 218 miles

Trip was split into two parts.

1: 97 miles @ 4.1 miles/kWh

2: 121 miles @ 4.0 miles/kWh

I got back with 20% SOC remaining so well happy with that

As such, the 245 miles would have been easily achieved

I am completely happy with my MG ZS EV

I stopped at a Truck Stop on Watling Street near Rugby. Excellent place for a stop and bite to eat - no charger though. My phone signal with the 3 network was not very good. To check my emails I logged on to the internet using the WiFi hotspot in the MG. Fantastic feature !

Car back on charge now. As I won’t be doing a long trip tomorrow I have set the charging stop point at 80% SOC.

Very reassuring.

 

[Dave]

With what sort average speed/heater etc? Those numbers are pretty high compared to what I and a few others with an LR are achieving I suspect. Be interested to know if you're doing anything different.

Fair play you've obviously got some skill though. I'm just concerned that it's not something an average driver coming from an ICE will stand a chance getting near.

I came from having the Plug In Prius many many years ago. You learned how to drive extremely efficiently to get the best out of the tiny battery.

I don’t drive any differently to how I drive my ICE car. Just very light and controlled use of throttle and brakes. Looking ahead to what is happening is very important. Late braking and hard acceleration absolutely decimates range in an EV. Negotiating roundabouts without stopping helps a lot as well, clearly this is not always possible especially when light controlled.

I try to stay off MWays if I can. Though this trip I was on the M6-M42-M5 for some of the trip. Normally I would have gone down the A46, but I thought I would give it a go. Not the best move I have ever made. The M42 from the M6 down to the M5 was almost stationary. MG Pilot is great for traffic jam conditions. I don’t use MG Pilot when driving if I need range. If range is not an issue I find MG Pilot makes for a much more relaxed drive.

I have the HVAC set to 21 degC with everything else in the HVAC on and set to Auto.

I used ABRP for planning and driving the route. It was about 10% optimistic on reported charge levels. I will have a look at the settings. I am thinking in the summer it would probably be about 10% pessimistic with the same settings.

 

[Nutnut]

Well, that was an uneventful drive

I actually ended up only having to do 218 miles

Trip was split into two parts.

1: 97 miles @ 4.1 miles/kWh

2: 121 miles @ 4.0 miles/kWh

I got back with 20% SOC remaining so well happy with that

As such, the 245 miles would have been easily achieved

I am completely happy with my MG ZS EV

I stopped at a Truck Stop on Watling Street near Rugby. Excellent place for a stop and bite to eat - no charger though. My phone signal with the 3 network was not very good. To check my emails I logged on to the internet using the WiFi hotspot in the MG. Fantastic feature !

Car back on charge now. As I won’t be doing a long trip tomorrow I have set the charging stop point at 80% SOC.

Great update! It's reassuring to read the miles/kWh that can potentially be achieved if I can get a good grip on driving EVs.

Also good to know that the hotspot was actually useful too. Have you given the in car Nav with live updates a go, or are you using Apple Carplay/Android auto?

 

[Mihir]

Well, that was an uneventful drive

I actually ended up only having to do 218 miles

Trip was split into two parts.

1: 97 miles @ 4.1 miles/kWh

2: 121 miles @ 4.0 miles/kWh

I got back with 20% SOC remaining so well happy with that

As such, the 245 miles would have been easily achieved

I am completely happy with my MG ZS EV

I stopped at a Truck Stop on Watling Street near Rugby. Excellent place for a stop and bite to eat - no charger though. My phone signal with the 3 network was not very good. To check my emails I logged on to the internet using the WiFi hotspot in the MG. Fantastic feature !

Car back on charge now. As I won’t be doing a long trip tomorrow I have set the charging stop point at 80% SOC.

Very reassuring and well put together. I think a lot depends on your driving style and experience of driving EVs/Plugins before. The experience sometimes is really invaluable.

 

[Lovemyev]

Very reassuring and well put together. I think a lot depends on your driving style and experience of driving EVs/Plugins before. The experience sometimes is really invaluable.

I totally agree.
We had a VW PHEV for over four years, before going full BEV with the ZS EV.
Having a really small HV battery in a PHEV, really makes you learn how to hang on to that precious range very carefully !.

 

[Lovemyev]

I came from having the Plug In Prius many many years ago. You learned how to drive extremely efficiently to get the best out of the tiny battery.

I don’t drive any differently to how I drive my ICE car. Just very light and controlled use of throttle and brakes. Looking ahead to what is happening is very important. Late braking and hard acceleration absolutely decimates range in an EV. Negotiating roundabouts without stopping helps a lot as well, clearly this is not always possible especially when light controlled.

I try to stay off MWays if I can. Though this trip I was on the M6-M42-M5 for some of the trip. Normally I would have gone down the A46, but I thought I would give it a go. Not the best move I have every made. The M42 from the M6 down to the M5 was almost stationary. MG Pilot is great for traffic jam conditions. I don’t use MG Pilot when driving if I need range. If range is not an issue I find MG Pilot makes for a much more relaxed drive.

I have the HVAC set to 21 degC with everything else in the HVAC on and set to Auto.

I used ABRP for planning and driving the route. It was about 10% optimistic on reported charge levels. I will have a look at the settings. I am thinking in the summer it would probably be about 10% pessimistic with the same settings.

Well done @Dave .
Your previous driving style in the PHEV Prius has totally paid off !.
You sure learn how to protect that precious range alright with a small battery.
We had a VW PHEV for four years before the ZS EV Gen 1.
I will avoid motorways if at all possible, apart from the fact they tent to consume EV range faster rate at around 70 Mph - I do find them pretty boring places to be.
I prefer to take the scenic route every time if possible.
May increase the journey time by a little, but who cares !.

 

[Merry]

I came from having the Plug In Prius many many years ago. You learned how to drive extremely efficiently to get the best out of the tiny battery.

I don’t drive any differently to how I drive my ICE car. Just very light and controlled use of throttle and brakes. Looking ahead to what is happening is very important. Late braking and hard acceleration absolutely decimates range in an EV. Negotiating roundabouts without stopping helps a lot as well, clearly this is not always possible especially when light controlled.

I try to stay off MWays if I can. Though this trip I was on the M6-M42-M5 for some of the trip. Normally I would have gone down the A46, but I thought I would give it a go. Not the best move I have ever made. The M42 from the M6 down to the M5 was almost stationary. MG Pilot is great for traffic jam conditions. I don’t use MG Pilot when driving if I need range. If range is not an issue I find MG Pilot makes for a much more relaxed drive.

I have the HVAC set to 21 degC with everything else in the HVAC on and set to Auto.

I used ABRP for planning and driving the route. It was about 10% optimistic on reported charge levels. I will have a look at the settings. I am thinking in the summer it would probably be about 10% pessimistic with the same settings.

Thanks for your reply, some good pointers for anyone new to the EV game there. I think the staying off the motorway bit and being stuck in slow traffic is key to getting that sort of efficiency on your trip, in addition to not using MG Pilot if you need the range.

Most of my higher efficiency journeys have been in slower traffic without using pilot. Its why I asked about average speed as it kind of illustrates just how efficient you've been. Its great to get high efficiency figures but if the average speed is 10mph it doesn't mean much to most!

Good work though, you've proved pretty much everyone in this thread wrong!

 

[Dave]

Good work though, you've proved pretty much everyone in this thread wrong!

Thanks for the comments. Rather than proving others on the thread wrong, I was trying to find out what is the possible range of what is an excellent BEV

I am pleased that it performs as well as I hoped.

As a complete BEV package there is nothing that comes close for the price (except the MG5). It is better than many that cost substantially more as well.

 

[Iain]

Lots of comments about avoiding motorways to increase range.
Surely it is not compulsory to drive at 70mph (plus) on motorways and by keeping a reasonable rate of progress a good range should be achievable.
After all you are avoiding the slowing/acceleration due to junctions, roundabouts etc that you have on minor roads.