Contemplating an MG3 Hybrid

[JonboyMG3Hybrid]

You need to talk to bev owners. Charging point issues are long gone. Even in Cornwall where I live, charging is not an issue. Unless you can't charge at home or work then it would make a bev less attractive.
I was totting up the number of rapid chargers in Exeter last week and it's around 150 with countless slow charging points as well.
We frequently travel from the UK to Europe covering hundreds of miles, electric works fine.

LOL funny, BEV owners are always moaning about no charging points when they go anywhere, or the cost or the fact that they can not sue them, not working, or any other number of issues. Europe is a way better place to be, so I ignore your comments on that, the UK is shockingly bad, even the government says so, and they know a lot about being shockingly bad !

 

[Archev]

Ok if you can get charging points, no good in remote places

I don’t agree.

 

[Archev]

But not in the Highlands of Scotland, I've seen countless takes of stranded cars run out of charge

Where? I haven’t seen a single one.

 

[Archev]

And don't get me wrong either, there are hardly any charging points in some areas of Scotland and where they are us always a queue. Why people think that waiting an hour to charge a car when touring beats me. Electric is great but hybrids give you the freedom. Let's leave it at that, you won't change my views, even if you think they are rubbish and and I have no intention in trying to change yours

I’ve been driving pure EV’s all over Scotland for around four and a half years. MG ZS ev then an MG 5 and now a Citroen e Berlingo. I’ve not encountered the queues you talk about. And it’s improving as time goes on. I think any problems must be down to poor planning. I’ve never run out of charge, I’ve very rarely waited much at all to plug in, and I’ve certainly never seen any of these cars that have “run out of charge” parked up on the roadside.

 

[Data]

I don't own the MG3 (I'm a ZS EV owner) but I had an MG3 courtesy car for 3 weeks a few months ago while my ZS had some warranty work carried out to it's paintwork. The MG3 is a marvelous car I thought, initially. But then the second week we had the car we started to get slightly annoyed by the constant petrol engine noise as it kicked in & out & droned on & on. Now don't get me wrong, it's a noise that many petrol heads would be used to. As EV drivers we found it intrusive. It was ok at motorway speeds though. Nice & smooth & pretty quiet.

But then after enquiring about service costs on the car, it totally turned me off the idea of having one as a second car. The costs are enormous with one service (the 3rd or 4th irc) is over £1,250! Other services were £250, £340, £540. And some of those costs have since gone up I'm told by my dealer. To be fair other hybrids cost just as much to service. This appears to be because you need two technicians/skill sets to service the cars. BEV's tend to be a lot cheaper to service.

If the running costs don't bother you then it's a great car if you can get used to the noise. Just my opinion.

 

[Data]

I’ve been driving pure EV’s all over Scotland for around four and a half years. MG ZS ev then an MG 5 and now a Citroen e Berlingo. I’ve not encountered the queues you talk about. And it’s improving as time goes on. I think any problems must be down to poor planning. I’ve never run out of charge, I’ve very rarely waited much at all to plug in, and I’ve certainly never seen any of these cars that have “run out of charge” parked up on the roadside.

You raise an interesting point Archev. Poor planning. Talking to an AA technician a few weeks ago, he tells me overall EV's are very reliable with few problems.They usually only ever get called out to one when it runs out of charge or the 12v battery fails. Other than that they don't see the plethora of problems ICE cars suffer. Interestingly, when a driver has run out of charge it's nearly always due to the driver being a bit silly & ignoring the car asking for a charge. They'll keep pressing on thinking they can get to the next charging station however many miles away that is! They think this because they have read the battery has a "special reserve" that the car uses in circumstances like this!! Yes, this is what broken down EV'ers actually sometimes say. This is in addition to some of them saying they have no idea where the next charging station is! Really!!

Where I live we have charging stations coming out of our ears, if you see what I mean. Virtually no need to do any planning around the east of England. However, I still do plan for a charge if it's a long run. It's sensible to do so.

 

[Archev]

I don't own the MG3 (I'm a ZS EV owner) but I had an MG3 courtesy car for 3 weeks a few months ago while my ZS had some warranty work carried out to it's paintwork. The MG3 is a marvelous car I thought, initially. But then the second week we had the car we started to get slightly annoyed by the constant petrol engine noise as it kicked in & out & droned on & on. Now don't get me wrong, it's a noise that many petrol heads would be used to. As EV drivers we found it intrusive. It was ok at motorway speeds though. Nice & smooth & pretty quiet.

But then after enquiring about service costs on the car, it totally turned me off the idea of having one as a second car. The costs are enormous with one service (the 3rd or 4th irc) is over £1,250! Other services were £250, £340, £540. To be fair other hybrids cost just as much to service. This appears to be because you need two technicians/skill sets to service the cars. BEV's tend to be a lot cheaper to service.

If the running costs don't bother you then it's a great car if you can get used to the noise. Just my opinion.

Wow I just added up those service cost numbers to 238000 pennies. I’m running my Citroen e Berlingo for just under 2p per mile when charging at home. That’s 117000 miles of motoring paid for from not servicing a hybrid’s engine. Yes I’ve still got to service my car but my service costs and the first two MOT’s were included in the cost of the car. But also yes is that the hybrid needs petrol to power it for those 117000 miles between servicing. I don’t know how many mpg’s it gets nor really how much the petrol costs these days but it’s going to leave an awful lot in the kitty to fuel Berlingo if I need a charge when I’m way out beyond the 214 mile range of those two pennies per mile from home.
If I go to the Tesco’s in Queensferry it’s an 18 mile round trip costing less than 36p.