Charging to 100 % on 7 kW home charger.

[rotorhead]

Hello folks,
Does anyone know how much the 3pin 13amp charger that came with car gives out, I asked the dealer and he said he didn't know, or wouldn't tell me in case it put me off.
It seems to happily charge from 30-60% to 100% overnight in about 10 hours.
Since I've been using the charger from Aug 2nd, not every night, my electric bill has gone up by about £22, I'm with Sainsbury's Energy(Part of E-on Next) and they don't have any usage plans, and I submit my meter readings every 10th of the month.

 

[Jomarkh]

The granny is about 10A 2.2kW.
How many miles to you do a week?

 

[smokie]

Me? Extremely rarely.

 

[Gomev]

If you ask 20 EV drivers the best way to charge you will get 25 different answers.

See what I mean........this thread is perfect evidence.

 

[Lovemyev]

@rotorhead Yeah - How many miles have you covered ?.
What ever it is, maybe worth considering this.
£22 will not buy you many miles in a ICE car at almost £10 a gallon ?.

 

[rotorhead]

 

[rotorhead]

I took possession on Mon 1st Aug @ 18:00, drove from Hessle(Hull) along the A63 onto M62 then M18 to M180 onto Scunthorpe, the salesman didn't tell me the bloody thing steers itself, quite unnerving really, anyway got that crap turned off eventually.
Since then we've travelled quite a bit really, and mostly enjoyed it until Thursday last, I needed to go early to Leicester, but there was only 65-75% charge available due to late putting on charge previous night, on the way back up the M1 the leaderboards showed M18 Jn4-5 10mins delay, a bit further on it changed to 20mins, so diverted off at the Worksop(Chesterfield) junction, that's when I started getting worried about battery reserve, found a free 7kWh PodPoint charger at Tesco Worksop,so went into their cafe for an hour and a half, when we came out we found the charger had stopped charging and we had no more than when went in, accessed the SatNav for shortest way home, it gave us 24miles distance, we had 54miles range so went for it, got home with 22miles left and 9% battery, but it proved that the figures on the clock are realistic, and convinced me that I'd made a good decision to get the MG5.
As can be seen, we've done a fair amount for couple of crinklies, in the fortnight we've had it, and pleased with it too.

 

[Jomarkh]

Hi, on the free PodPoint did you 'confirm' the charge on the app before the 15 minutes was up?

 

[rotorhead]

Hi there, yep downloaded the app and signed up there and then, even put in a £30 topup, pressed 'Confirm' but to the wrong point, then did 'Confirm' the correct point, whilst in the cafe I did check if there might be any progress, I may have mistakenly pressed 'Confirm' again, but cannot really remember.

 

[rotorhead]

@rotorhead Yeah - How many miles have you covered ?.
What ever it is, maybe worth considering this.
£22 will not buy you many miles in a ICE car at almost £10 a gallon ?.

My previous car was a 2008 Peugeot 308, it did very good fuel mileage on the whole, worked out at 10miles/litre, £99 gave us 50.5 litres and we did on average 500miles.
Since using the MG5, my eyes have been opened very wide to the electric advantages.

 

[Deleted member 7316]

I don't do long journeys on a regular basis so am quite happy to leave it several days until down to 40-60%. Then charge it up to 100% every time.

As we have solar panels this means I can leave it for a better forecast even in the winter which keeps costs down. Never used a rapid charger in 3 years driving electric which obviously comes down to our circumstances.

Life is too short to get too stressed about it.

 

[Frank]

It's all very well saying you've been doing it all the time with no problem but as I understand it the issues arise as the car ages - after 5 years, or 7 years or whatever. And it won't necessarily be that serious at first but continually charging to 100% on rapids might well hasten the aging process in batteries.

So while I am of the opinion that the car will most likely have built-in limiters and whatnot to prevent damage, I tend to play it safe and only charge to 80%-ish on rapids, as for me this car is most likely a keeper. 100% at home though.

Hi,
About the only thing experts can agree on is that charging using a Rapid Charger is the worst thing for battery degradation. There are two reasons why we don't normally charge your car past 80% on a Rapid Charger came about , they are :-

a. Manufacturer's all use 10% - 80% charging times on a Rapid not because you can't/shouldn't charge to 100% but because it they used 10%-100% charging times it would be unpalatable to the consumer as the BMS on ALL EVs slows the charging so much (to protect the battery (rapid charging is not good for the battery)) that charging times would be unacceptable to them. People have latched on to this as you shouldn't charge past 80%.

b. As the BMS slows the charging rates so much (charging from 80%-100% in most cars takes longer than charging from 10%-80%) that a charging etiquette has arisen that it is deemed inconsiderate to do so. Note: If you are on a Rapid Charger and feel you need/want to charge to 100% then do so (as long as there is no-one waiting to use the charger) and even if there is its still your choice after all you are paying for the use of the charger and if you really need the 100% than crack on.


If possible avoid using rapid chargers and only use AC chargers (3-7kwh), your battery will thank you for it. If you are a long distance driver (by this I mean you regularly do journeys greater than the round trip range of your car) than its a bit of a bugger but that's life. Even though I love EVs (now on my fourth) if I couldn't charge at home and I was regularly doing long distance I would stick to petrol/diesel cars and not just because I don't want to use Rapid chargers but because I couldn't put up with the inconvenience of charging using the public charging system which is still not really fit for purpose.

 

[manictomb]

It is like people with ice cars how meny miles per gallon then after some time just fill up when need to and not worry how menus miles did I do so why not the same with ev's just use it fill up when need to and enjoy the car for the great they are ???

 

[Deleted member 7316]

It is like people with ice cars how meny miles per gallon then after some time just fill up when need to and not worry how menus miles did I do so why not the same with ev's just use it fill up when need to and enjoy the car for the great they are ???

Comparison with ICE doesn't work as with them to fill up takes 5-10 minutes with thousands of places to choose from in a region compared with a minimum of 1 hour and very few places within a practical radius.

Switching to EV takes careful consideration to ensure it fits how you use the car. In my case it took very small changes to accommodate the particular requirements, I can see for many it is not viable

If it requires a lot of stress making it work it may not be the best option.

My son lives in the West Country and would require 2 stops to visit him with all the issues over working and useable charge points. My 20 year old Transit Motor Home can get me there in the same time door to door and no worries on the way.

For the once or twice a year I go I use the Transit.

Because of the charge times the 10-80% is a marketing con. Otherwise the 250mile range should be quoted as 175miles useable range.

 

[smokie]

One of the problems with EVs seems to be that people have sometimes not done adequate research before switching so are having some surprises. Come winter I'm sure we will see a new raft of people saying their range has dropped.

 

[Jomarkh]

One of the problems with EVs seems to be that people have sometimes not done adequate research before switching so are having some surprises. Come winter I'm sure we will see a new raft of people saying their range has dropped.

My range dropped by about a third during the winter. I get about 4.3m/kWh in the summer and 3.3m/kWh in the winter.

 

[emmrecs]

Just returning to the original question...!!!

My Rolec Home Charger (7kW) using the ev.energy app cannot be set for any "charge percentage" other than 100%! i.e., there is no setting that can be changed to automatically turn off the charge at any capacity below "full".

Over the nearly 5 months of my ownership of the car I have used a Rapid Charger once (when away from home, it "stopped" at about 90%), the granny charger once (again, at home, just to "test it out") and my Rolec every other time. I have seen, so far, absolutely no reduction in expected range; indeed, after one charging session, the car told me I had enough power for nearly 290 miles. (Unfortunately, I can't remember how many of those 290 I actually achieved!)

So, @Saulionas based on my experience I would not worry at all about charging to 100% on your 7kW home charger.

 

[Lovemyev]

Just returning to the original question...!!!

My Rolec Home Charger (7kW) using the ev.energy app cannot be set for any "charge percentage" other than 100%! i.e., there is no setting that can be changed to automatically turn off the charge at any capacity below "full".

Over the nearly 5 months of my ownership of the car I have used a Rapid Charger once (when away from home, it "stopped" at about 90%), the granny charger once (again, at home, just to "test it out") and my Rolec every other time. I have seen, so far, absolutely no reduction in expected range; indeed, after one charging session, the car told me I had enough power for nearly 290 miles. (Unfortunately, I can't remember how many of those 290 I actually achieved!)

So, @Saulionas based on my experience I would not worry at all about charging to 100% on your 7kW home charger.

We have one of the older “Dumb” type Rolec chargers that was installed in about 2016.
I used it to charge ( our then ) VW Golf PHEV.
The car had an inbuilt delay charge facility.
When we bought the first ZS EV ( Gen 1 ) this did not offer delayed charging.
This was important as I wanted to take advantage of our cheaper “Off Peak” rate.
Also, I wanted control of how much ( in percentage terms ) on the level of charge I required.
Therefore, I installed a Wi-Fi relay into the wall box and used a free third party App on my phone, to control it.
I used this function for the two years when we had the Gen1 ZS EV.
Now because we have the Gen2 facelift with a built in option, it is not required any more.
I have therefore disabled it.
I am pretty sure the smart Rolec could be controlled in the similar manner, with a relay, if it was important too you.
It was fantastic when we needed it, because I did not want to be charging on the more expensive day time tariff of course.
It has become massively important now, given the huge hike in energy prices.
My day time tariff is crazy expensive but the night tariff is super cheap at 4.5p/KWh.
We are locked into a fix until April 2024.
With the estimated 88% rise in energy prices due in Oct / Nov 22 - it was a gamble worth taking I think now.
Oh …… The relay was less than £20 to buy, so money well spent I think !.

 

[emmrecs]

@Lovemyev

The ev.energy app charges the car using "cheaper" electricity, i.e. it selects the "best" times to actually send power to the car - the only setting I can change is the time of day by which the car is "ready", i.e., fully charged. So, looking at the data from the app I see that sometimes charging occurs in the early evening for a few hours and then resumes later in the night.

I don't have either solar power or a "cheaper" night-time tariff so it is at a (reasonable) fixed price throughout the 24 hours. The app looks, apparently, at our house usage of electricity (via our smart meter) alongside the minute-by-minute availability of "lower-carbon-generated" power and switches itself on or off as appropriate. (At least that's the theory, and I have no reason to question how well it actually achieves this!) It also "knows" which supplier and tariff we are on and adjusts accordingly.

Thanks for the heads-up re that WiFi relay. In practice, so far at least, I am quite happy that any charge via my home charger is always to 100%.

 

[Glen Tindall]

Hi, just joined the MG community, and look forward to your experiences.
I bought a MG Phev two months ago, and have used the home charger supplied to charge to 100%, then run down to zero before recharging. The overnight charging suits me, but I see posts that say the battery should run between 30 and 80%. Am I doing damage to the battery?
The dealer said it was ok, but I'm not sure of their opinion.
Also, what does the small yellow triangle on the lhs of the driver screen mean? My dealer said it was due to the car being confused about the speed limit. Is that correct?