At last, a very high mileage ZS EV under the microscpe

[John Sauve Rodd]

A 238,000 mile 2019 plate ZS, used as a taxi. We're used to seeing v high mileage Telas being analysed every which way, but this is one of our own (My first EV was a 2020 version of this car and since 2022 I've ahd the newer LR version and I am delighted with it)

 

[hmadsen]

A 238,000 mile 2019 plate ZS, used as a taxi. We're used to seeing v high mileage Telas being analysed every which way, but this is one of our own (My first EV was a 2020 version of this car and since 2022 I've ahd the newer LR version and I am delighted with it)

Great video...91% SoH is insane at that mileage and this being a Taxi, it has probably had most of its charges done at a fast-charger, which should be harder on the battery than AC charging at lower wattages.

Only caveat is....The 91% SoH seems to be what the car reports.....So you would have to trust the manufacturer completely, that they are not "cheating" and telling you sweet little lies about the battery SoH.

 

[salty]

Great video...91% SoH is insane at that mileage and this being a Taxi, it has probably had most of its charges done at a fast-charger, which should be harder on the battery than AC charging at lower wattages.

Only caveat is....The 91% SoH seems to be what the car reports.....So you would have to trust the manufacturer completely, that they are not "cheating" and telling you sweet little lies about the battery SoH.

Why would they tell Porkies?

 

[wattmatters]

Why would they tell Porkies?

Maybe ask VW.

Note that we have no validated information about how the internally reported SoH value is generated. There are no standards.

 

[salty]

I presume they put some sort of diagnostic device into the car. Pretty easy I would have thought. No reason why you couldn't watch them do it, on your own car. If you asked.

 

[wattmatters]

I presume they put some sort of diagnostic device into the car. Pretty easy I would have thought. No reason why you couldn't watch them do it, on your own car. If you asked.

The only way to reliably determine the SOH is for standardised testing of the drive battery. Anything else is just an algorithm inferring it.

 

[Coulomb]

A pretty reasonable test to me would be see if it can make roughly 91%, or whatever the claimed State Of Health is, of the stated new car range, under roughly Worldwide Harmonised Light vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) conditions. Running full battery to turtle, of course. You can't prove the last decimal place, but you should be able to rule out major porkies.

 

[John Sauve Rodd]

The easiest way to quickly determine battery SoH is to take it on a measured run. That apart, consider the wear and tear on the modern EV or hybrid: before Tesla, you could find on YouTube USA hybrids like the Prius running pretty much as they did new with 1/4, 1/3. 1/2 a million miles on the clock, suffering with worn interior trim but little else; and at the high end I remember one American owned Lexus hybrid with 250,000 miles being traded in for a new model and looking as good as new. As I had a neighbour at the time with one such Lexus of 90k I knew it could be done.

And I recently met a UK couple in Ashford where I live with a 164,000 mile Prius in near showroom condition.

SO MY POINT IS that it is no surprise that EVs last a lot of miles. Perhaps one of you enterprising forumists would research say Nissan Leafs in the UK for similar examples. Thus we form a body of knowledge to rebut the naysayers.

 

[wattmatters]

The easiest way to quickly determine battery SoH is to take it on a measured run.

How do you control for all the variables?

Temperature, barometric pressure, wind, rain, road surface conditions, tyre type, condition and pressure & alignment, total mass, onboard systems use, speed, driving style, driver aid settings. regen level, etc etc.

 

[John Sauve Rodd]

Oh, come on!

You drive it where you normally drive your own ZS EV and look at miles drive, the miles per KwH and percentage battery start and finish. If the many high mileage Tesla studies are relevant to other marques then at 238k miles the MG in question should have 85% of the original charge.

And you could ask MG. They must have thousands of high mileage examples in China to choose from.

 

[salty]

Agree, if MG told you, your very high milage EV, was say 90% SoH. After say 3 years for example. Why would you not believe them? What have they got to gain,
by telling Porkies.

 

[Tim Green]

Well my similar aged ZS Exclusive shows about 90% SoH after a tenth of that mileage.
(Taken from 5yr service record, from Waylands). Do I think it will decrease further?
Yes.
In day to day use it would be very hard to check actual SoH, as I would not want to really try to get the 165 miles claimed from new. Chances are I would be left at the side of the road.

 

[wattmatters]

What have they got to gain,
by telling Porkies

What did VW have to gain by telling porkies about emission testing?

Trust has to be earned, and to do that requires full transparency on how the SOH value is determined and how it can be independently validated. If neither of those exists, then frankly it's at best worthless, at worst misleading.

 

[wattmatters]

You drive it where you normally drive your own ZS EV and look at miles drive, the miles per KwH and percentage battery start and finish.

I have such drives with economy rates that can vary by 20% depending on the variables in play.

Here's the variability in my car's economy rate:

 

[salty]

The VW scandal is history, what's that got do with anything. The Thread is about, a high milage MG ZS EV.
I just drive me car, and enjoy it. I really don't think about, what SoH it might be in
3/4/5/6 years time. IMO to much thought goes into worrying about Battery SoH,
Charging, Range, Depreciation etc etc etc. It could drive you nuts. Just enjoy the bloody thing.

 

[Tim Green]

A remarkable data record Wattmaters, thank you. Some amazing highs and lows, how to explain them? Also this year seems much more stable, has your custom and practice changed, or what?
But Salty is also right, why worry about SoH when you cannot really do anything about it.

 

[wattmatters]

The VW scandal is history, what's that got do with anything.

Because someone brought up the issue of "why would a car company tell lies?". I gave an example - to make their cars appear to perform better than they actually do. Car companies try to pull the wool all the time. SAIC will be no different.

The Thread is about, a high milage MG ZS EV.

I'm not the one who brought up SoH.

Mind you, SoH (if measured/reported in a valid manner) is a relevant concern for a high mileage vehicle.

A remarkable data record Wattmaters, thank you. Some amazing highs and lows, how to explain them?

There are many reasons, I stated a whole stack of them earlier. My point is economy rates are highly variable depending on a range of factors. If one doesn't either control or account for those factors, then assessing economy/range is not necessarily going to provide a valid answer.

It's why there are testing standards for the economy rating of a car.

Is it too much to ask for a standard for testing the SoH of an EV battery? Would seem to be a sensible thing to have as a consumer protection/advisory.

 

[Gadget Geek]

The VW scandal is history, what's that got do with anything. The Thread is about, a high milage MG ZS EV.
I just drive me car, and enjoy it. I really don't think about, what SoH it might be in
3/4/5/6 years time. IMO to much thought goes into worrying about Battery SoH,
Charging, Range, Depreciation etc etc etc. It could drive you nuts. Just enjoy the bloody thing.

The only time I can see battery health being an issue is if you come to sell the car privately. The first question asked will be "what state is the battery in?". When my son bought his first car, a 9 year old Nissan LEAF, the first thing I did was plug in an OBD dongle and check the battery state of health, which was at an impressive 84%.

 

[salty]

The only time I can see battery health being an issue is if you come to sell the car privately. The first question asked will be "what state is the battery in?". When my son bought his first car, a 9 year old Nissan LEAF, the first thing I did was plug in an OBD dongle and check the battery state of health, which was at an impressive 84%.

So it's as easy as plugging in an OBD dongle, then. There you go, sorted.

 

[hmadsen]

Why would they tell Porkies?

Because if it gets to 70% within 8 years of 160.000 miles, they need to repair og replace the battery.

That's expensive and they would not want to do that i suspect.

Tesla was just caught fiddling with the odometer, some people have had their odometer jump from "below" to "just above" the warranty limit.

VW fiddled with their engine computers to make the car pass emissions when tested, but when it was driven on the road, it would pollute like hell (Cant give the costumer a lot of HP and acceleration while at the same time being enviromentally friendly.)