Please note the following with Regards to charging EV (basically covers ALL EV,s). There are there three different categories of charging speeds (ie how quickly you can get your battery up to a full charge (or whatever you need to complete a journey, ie how much fuel you need to go a certain distance. Electricity is just a fuel like Diesel or Petrol, if you need to travel x distance then you need x amount of Electricity, Petrol or Diesel to go a certain distance.
I have digressed a bit, the three categories are: Slow, Fast and Rapid. There are no others. The output of a charger is expressed in Kwh(or Kw, I can't remember or care really) and the higher the figure the quicker you can charge the battery. It means kilowatt per hour. EV come in different battery sizes (just like Petrol or Diesel cars have different size fuel tanks. You need to know what size battery you have to determine how long to charge it will take. The MG ZS has a 44 kwh battery. So simple maths. If empty it will take over 11 hours to fully charge if using a Slow Charger (44 divided by 3) you get the gist.
These are approximate figures, but up to 3 Kwh/Kw output is Slow and will take on average over 13 hours to charge a battery from empty to full so in summary forget Slow chargers they are as much use as a chocolate fire guard. An example of a slow charger is the charger that plugs into ANY plug socket. These chargers come with most EV and are only designed to be used if you have not got access to a Fast or Rapid Charger, commonly called Granny Chargers (but offensive to Grannys as I know a lot of Grannys who are anything but slow)
Fast chargers run at about 7Kwh and the best example is a home charger and it connects to the main circuit board. It will take about 6 hours to charge your MG ZS from empty to full.
Rapid chargers are basically anything above 7Kwh and can to up to outputs of nearly 300Kwh. Rapid chargers are mainly only found outside on the public charging infrastructure. They can be fitted in domestic household but are expensive and more importantly need a 3 Phase AC supply which almost all domestic households do NOT have.
Important points:-
Slow charging should only be used until you get a home charger installed. It puts a huge strain on the socket due to the current being drawn and some sockets can't cope with it, keep a note of the temp of the socket (it will get warm but hopefully not hot, so keep a watch on this).
Fast charging with a home charger is the most sensible way to operate an EV. People unlucky enough not to be able to install a Home Charger (no off road parking or live in flats) will find it very inconvenient to run an EV and are usually dependent on using the public charging infrastructure to charge their vehicles. I plug my car in EVERY night regardless of charge so I have a full tank every morning just in case of that unexpected journey.
Now here's a problem Rapid Charging is not good for an EV battery and if one always charges using Rapid Chargers their battery will not last as long as an EV that mainly used Slow or Fast Chargers. However if you are using your EV for travel outside of its range you will HAVE to use Rapid chargers as the other chargers will take too long. Example your EV can travel 150 miles in one charge and your journey is 250 miles you will have to charge at least once during that trip. Drive 130 miles and you will need to put in enough charge to make the rest of the journey. So you need to put in enough charge to travel the remaining 70 miles. Rather than working in gallons needed, EV work in percentage to battery capacity. A full tank (battery) is 100%, and most EV show the battery capacity remaining to help the user work out their charging requirements. You need to know your own vehicles potential range from a full charge to help you work out the maths just the same as you would do with an petrol or Diesel cars Potential MPG . The MG ZS can safely do about 130 before you would need to charge and you would likely have used about 70% of the battery capacity. So you have arrived at the charger and you need to work out what you need, you have 30% in the tank already and you need to travel another 80 miles before getting to your next destination which could be home, another charging stop or destination, so you need to work out the percentage you will need to get the battery up to to complete your journey. Rapid chargers will only give a EV what it will take. A system on EVs called the Battery Management System (BMS)communicates with the charger and tells it what to give the vehicle. All EV s takes different charge rates and the MG can ONLY take a maximum of 80Kwh but only occasionally as unfortunately the BMS wants to protect the Battery life and in normal charging you would only be taking about 40Kwh on average and when the battery gets to 80% charge the BMS really throttles back the charging to that of a slow charge at about 3Kwh. This is why you read in EV handbooks always only quote the time it takes to charge from empty to 80% and not to 100%. You can charge to 100% on a Rapid Charger it's just that it will take longer to get from 80-100% due to the BMS protecting the battery. Unless There is others waiting to use the Rapid charger or I am pushed for time I ALWAYS charge to 100% to make the working out easier plus having a full tank again helps keep range anxiety at bay.
There is also another major difference between Slow/Fast and Rapid charging. Rapid is Direct Current charging that goes directly to the battery which creates a lot of heat in the battery and that is why the BMS cuts in. The other speeds are AC charging and go from the charger via the cars on board AC Charger which converts it to DC and then goes to the battery. All EVs do have on board AC chargers but are not the same size, the MG has a 7 Kwh and therefore when using AC charging from whatever source it will only take a maximum of 7kwh. An easy way to determine what type of charging you are giving the MG is that if you are only using the top part of charging port it is AC, if using all of the charging port then it is DC.
So in summary, Slow and Fast are ONLY good for overnight charging and is the best healthwise for the battery. Rapid should ONLY be used when you have to keep costs down, STAY away from the Public Charging where possible as it vastly more expensive than charging at home. However in saying that there are free chargers around but mainly only up to Fast charging speeds so to be any use you would have to be plugged in for at least over an hour to make it worthwhile.
Finally, a LOT of EV drivers over concern themselves with their batteries (in my opinion) and have a charging regime, don't charge to 100% , don't let the charge get too low and so on. Bollocks to that, the BMS won't let the car get too low and it will also not let it charge to 100% either. The car will tell you it has charged to 100%, but it has not and NEVER will charge to 100% and when it might be indicating 0% on the battery , it isn't. The BMS leaves a margin top and bottom to protect the battery , beside you have an 80000 mile warranty on the battery, so you do NOT NEED A charging regime, unless you worry about that sort of thing. Plug it in EVERY night before settling in, and have the reassurance of having a full tank every morning.
