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Hi... New owner here.

Dougal62

Established Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2022
Messages
84
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39
Points
19
Location
Kintore, Scotland
Driving
MG ZS EV
Hi folks. Good to be here.
Got my year old black exclusive trim baby yesterday. Running well. I have questions though.
1. Can't get used to seeing the range drop drastically when we drive literally a few miles at 60 to 70mph. The few miles driving equates to around 2.5x range drop miles. Did a 38 mile trip yesterday but lost around 60. Got to our home town and gained 10 within 1 mile. Travelled literally round the corner and lost 10 again.
Today I was sitting in a car park listening to the radio. That's it. Listening to the radio. I lost 5 miles - huh? No air-con. No fan blowing. I had the windows open to keep cool instead. How on earth do I get used to this.
The car is every bit as nice as our Suzuki Vitara - well a wee bit better as there no denying noise but our Vitara is quiet.
I have the car on a seven day no quibble money back guarantee and although it's early days. I'm not impressed so far. The reviews swayed me into buying this car and at the moment I'm thinking I've got a rogue.
Oh and I also left it to charge for two hours today at my local railway station. Followed the instructions and even had help from the ChargePlace Scotland help team. The app said 'click to commence charging' or something like that. I did. Locked the car and walked away. I checked the progress on the app regularly but it was not changing. When I returned two hours later, sure enough it has not charged. I scratched my head.
I will go back in the morning and try again but I didn't see anything other than it was ready to commence charging.
If anyone can enlighten me I will be most grateful.
I have patience but...
 
Yes, correct. Short range.
You have the MK1 ZS EV, or the face lifted version ?

As you are in Scotland, calling the car the Exclusive and a year old suggests MK1.

This is what a MK 2 Displays looks like:

5C771674-B865-49B4-AB70-C7D0E6090A96.jpeg


F7D0D780-E75A-4E20-A19F-5E0B154E6CAF.jpeg
 

My experience is mainly with the MK2.

The MK1 has an advertised range of 163 miles.

It will totally depend upon how you drive the car, the terrain and weather conditions for actual achievable range.

The indicated range provided in the car is purely a guess based upon how you have been driving the car for a while. Hence this range indicator is known colloquially as the GOM (GuessOMeter).

Suggest you reset the trips and look at the achieved Miles/kWh when driving. Your car has 42.5kWh of usable battery capacity (when new). If you are driving on the Motorway at 70mph and are getting 3 miles/kWh then your maximum range will be 3 x 42.5 = 127.5 miles.

In practice, you should think about charging when you get down to around 15% State Of Charge (SOC). As such, from a 100% SOC to 15% SOC you will get around 108 miles of range.

If you have only recently got the car then it won’t have worked out your driving style to “accurately” determine your range. I put that in “” because it is not a truly accurate value.

Found these figures on the EV Database website:

2FD9A259-99E6-4903-976C-530BB6C036C9.jpeg
 
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And to add to that it may need a good overnight balance charge after its hit 100% keep it plugged in charging over night it won't cost much but can take some time depending on how out of balance /equalisation it is
How many miles on the clock?
 
My experience is mainly with the MK2.

The MK1 has an advertised range of 163 miles.

It will totally depend upon how you drive the car, the terrain and weather conditions for actual achievable range.

The indicated range provided in the car is purely a guess based upon how you have been driving the car for a while. Hence this range indicator is known colloquially as the GOM (GuessOMeter).

Suggest you reset the trips and look at the achieved Miles/kWh when driving. Your car has 42.5kWh of usable battery capacity (when new). If you are driving on the Motorway at 70mph and are getting 3 miles/kWh then your maximum range will be 3 x 42.5 = 127.5 miles.

In practice, you should think about charging when you get down to around 15% State Of Charge (SOC). As such, from a 100% SOC to 15% SOC you will get around 108 miles of range.

If you have only recently got the car then it won’t have worked out your driving style to “accurately” determine your range. I put that in “” because it is not a truly accurate value.

Found these figures on the EV Database website:

View attachment 9983
Thanks for the info.
 
And to add to that it may need a good overnight balance charge after its hit 100% keep it plugged in charging over night it won't cost much but can take some time depending on how out of balance /equalisation it is
How many miles on the clock?
Hmmm... This is the first time I'm hearing about balancing the battery. Is this because of the separate cells making up the whole thing and taking time to spread the charge evenly. I used to work in electric/electronics but didn't work much with batteries. None of the reviews talk of such. The car has done almost 11,500 miles.
 
Hmmm... This is the first time I'm hearing about balancing the battery. Is this because of the separate cells making up the whole thing and taking time to spread the charge evenly. I used to work in electric/electronics but didn't work much with batteries. None of the reviews talk of such. The car has done almost 11,500 miles.

This is worth a read:

 
Hi folks. Good to be here.
Got my year old black exclusive trim baby yesterday. Running well. I have questions though.
1. Can't get used to seeing the range drop drastically when we drive literally a few miles at 60 to 70mph. The few miles driving equates to around 2.5x range drop miles. Did a 38 mile trip yesterday but lost around 60. Got to our home town and gained 10 within 1 mile. Travelled literally round the corner and lost 10 again.
Today I was sitting in a car park listening to the radio. That's it. Listening to the radio. I lost 5 miles - huh? No air-con. No fan blowing. I had the windows open to keep cool instead. How on earth do I get used to this.
The car is every bit as nice as our Suzuki Vitara - well a wee bit better as there no denying noise but our Vitara is quiet.
I have the car on a seven day no quibble money back guarantee and although it's early days. I'm not impressed so far. The reviews swayed me into buying this car and at the moment I'm thinking I've got a rogue.
Oh and I also left it to charge for two hours today at my local railway station. Followed the instructions and even had help from the ChargePlace Scotland help team. The app said 'click to commence charging' or something like that. I did. Locked the car and walked away. I checked the progress on the app regularly but it was not changing. When I returned two hours later, sure enough it has not charged. I scratched my head.
I will go back in the morning and try again but I didn't see anything other than it was ready to commence charging.
If anyone can enlighten me I will be most grateful.
I have patience but...
I do admit that driving 60-70mph drains the GOM drastically so I ignore that and go by the HV battery percentage bars instead I think this is less drastic and feels more accurate.
As for loosing 5miles listening to the radio that’s impossible as it runs off the 12v battery you are focusing to much on the GOM just enjoy the car it’s very good.

.As for the charging I would suggest either user error or the charger itself was at fault not the car if you just persist I think you’ll find it’s a very good experience It just takes a little while to get used to it.
 
There is another thread on here about Charge Place Scotland not charging. Probably worth phoning their helpline and checking with them if it's not initiating the charge.
 
I do admit that driving 60-70mph drains the GOM drastically so I ignore that and go by the HV battery percentage bars instead I think this is less drastic and feels more accurate.
As for loosing 5miles listening to the radio that’s impossible as it runs off the 12v battery you are focusing to much on the GOM just enjoy the car it’s very good.

.As for the charging I would suggest either user error or the charger itself was at fault not the car if you just persist I think you’ll find it’s a very good experience It just takes a little while to get used to it.
Thanks for your reply. It was operator error on my part mixed with information overload and imprecise advice from my handbook. I apparently cannot charge my car if the doors are not locked. Opening the door to have a look at the day display from inside stops and ends the charge also. I then have to start the app and go through the whole process of inputting my details once again. So a lesson learned. Once the charge had started don't interrupt it even if I've locked the dogs in with granny for four hours in the blazing Sun. Surely they could have made the software hold onto our details securely so that it was then more of a two click operation... Never mind. I do like the car and as mentioned I will go by the battery bars instead of looking at the range. Oh, and, the boot floor from front to back is about one cm too short for lying a wheelchair down. At least the one we have. A small niggle though. One other small niggle is not being able to lower the seat belt retainer. Other than that it runs very close to being like our Suzuki Vitara which is not really any louder. I'm not complaining. Just an observation.
 
Opening the door should NOT cancel the charge process. Maybe someone more familiar with MK1 can clarify this.

The Charge Place Scotland software would appear to be rather poorly written.
 
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