Long-ish Drive

[biffo]

Started from Glasgow with 100%, first stop being Southwaite Moto Services, about 100 miles. I’d heard on Zap-Map that 2nd unit was broken but no one there when I arrived so an easy charge. Took to 86% (27.954 kWh @ 30p/kWh => £8.39) and a Tesla driver appeared as I was leaving.



Next stop was MFG Crow Orchard (8 units available) after 103 miles, again no one there when I arrived. Unit 3 wouldn’t start but Zap-Map showed recent successful charge on unit 1 and sure enough it started. Took to 86% (35.05 kWh @ 39p/kWh => £13.70). An Audi arrived half way through and one other car by time I left.



Arrived at North Wales after 84 miles, totalling 275.7 miles and 3.0 miles/kW. Sat at 65mph on ACC the entire trip Eco and Kers 2 - made it pretty stress free once you get used to working with the MG Pilot



Did pop to local Lidl PodPoint and topped up, went higher than expected as had to call help desk to stop - so up to 90% (32.27kWh @ 25p/kWh => £8.07)



Next time, might stop at 80% charge (maybe less at more expensive MFG), especially if anyone else was waiting - but first time nerves and no one else needing charge took me to 86%.

 

[biffo]

The drive home was a bit more of an ordeal - started at 60% due to Lidl PodPoint being occupied, so stopped at stopped at Kinmel Park Services on A55 near Rhyl to grab Starbucks and charge from low 50% to just over 80% - it was an old Electric Highway unit, first one not working but second being fine - charging at just over 40kWh.

Next stop was Lancaster Park & Ride - via a TomTom detour for traffic. Visited McDonalds first for comfort break and food as nothing at Park & Ride. Getting very slow speeds - around 30kWh and took forever - so reached a touch over 60% and decided to push on to Tebay.

Two new Gridserve units at Tebay North, a Tesla sitting at the dual CCS unit so I used the CCS/CHAdeMO one. Again, slow speeds, taking forever. But it was about 1oC and I remembered the setting for HV Battery Heater - so turned that on and moved to the dual CCS once Tesla had gone. Not sure if different unit or the heater, but seemed to charge much faster. Got to 70+% and set off as very cold and well approaching midnight.

Quick stop at Gretna to see how much money we could spend in a short time at IONITY. Seems the answer was £10 for 14.28kWh. Only pulling a little over 40kW but zero degrees and I just needed enough for the 81 miles home.

I started travelling at 70mph rather than 65mph - but range was falling fast. GOM said I’d get home with 20 miles left, then 15 miles - so dropped back to 65mph again, turned off air con and finally arrived home with about 20% and 25 miles.

Overall, very long (both this message and the journey). Charging speed seemed to never go much above 40kWh in the cold despite charging from around 20%. On way down, MFG Crow Orchard was averaging 65kWh. IONITY is a waste of money even on a warm day, but it worked so worth the extra £5 to me after midnight. With a roofbox and loaded & at 0oC, the MG5LR will do around 150 miles at motorway speeds - just as EV Database predicts

Glad to be home.

 

[Alb]

It's very helpful to get real world feedback like this.
Thanks for making the effort

 

[biffo]

The thing I probably failed to grasp is the 150 mile motorway range in winter is 100% to 0%. When charging to 80% en route, really just using the 80% to 20% capacity - so 60% of 150 miles is around 100 miles between charge stops.

 

[Amun]

Thanks for the real world info. Just to confirm, though, this is the LR version? The one that's quoted as a 250 mile WLTP rating?

 

[EVsince2016]

When I drove my LEAF to Portugal I worked on the basis of its 140 mile range. From 100% down to 20% gives you about 110 miles driven at 60 mph, so I expected about 100 miles from that. There onwards, 80% to 20% was 80 miles.

You have to do range x 80% for the first bit, then range x 60% for the rest.

You do need to adjust for hills etc and on the LEAF a heat pump doesn't hit range too badly whereas the resister heater in the MG does hit range hard in winter.

 

[EVsince2016]

Thanks for the real world info. Just to confirm, though, this is the LR version? The one that's quoted as a 250 mile WLTP rating?

Take the battery capacity and multiply it by the miles per KW achieved and that give you the range, better than a GOM

Drive more carefully and that range increases

 

[Severnless]

@biffo so with the roof box on and loaded up the LR 5 is In the low 3miles/kw?
when we had a roof box on our ZS I saw low 2’s miles/kw
not tried a roof box on our SR5 yet! But after your excellent report I’m dreading it…
mind you our route to Pembrokeshire from the midlands is mainly B roads.

ps. Great write up, Thankyou

 

[biffo]

Thanks for the real world info. Just to confirm, though, this is the LR version? The one that's quoted as a 250 mile WLTP rating?

Yep MG5LR - the 250 mile WLTP is only realistic under a specific set of circumstances. The numbers quoted on EV Database for different types of driving and temperatures show a massive variation in range - between 150 - 320 miles.

 

[biffo]

@biffo so with the roof box on and loaded up the LR 5 is In the low 3miles/kw?
when we had a roof box on our ZS I saw low 2’s miles/kw
not tried a roof box on our SR5 yet! But after your excellent report I’m dreading it…
mind you our route to Pembrokeshire from the midlands is mainly B roads.

ps. Great write up, Thankyou

Fully loaded with 510 litre roofbox with two big cases and two small, dogs in cage in boot, etc - sat at 65mph on ACC and did 3.0 miles/kWh over 275 miles Glasgow to North Wales - initially 2.8 but averaged 3.0 by end - this increased to 3.2 when driving around once at destination.

 

[EVsince2016]

Fully loaded with 510 litre roofbox with two big cases and two small, dogs in cage in boot, etc - sat at 65mph on ACC and did 3.0 miles/kWh over 275 miles Glasgow to North Wales - initially 2.8 but averaged 3.0 by end - this increased to 3.2 when driving around once at destination.

View attachment 5289

3.0 x 57 kw = 161 miles

 

[biffo]

3.0 x 57 kw = 161 miles

Sounds about right. Heading down was about 16oC, so range was somewhere between the EV Database cold and warm highway range - stops planned around 100 miles

Didn’t check the return efficiency but remember seeing 2.7 or 2.8 at one stage - now showing 3.0 for both legs combined (including todays Tesco drive) so that would make sense. So, 2.7 x 57 kW x 60% (usable charge) = 92 miles between charges

 

[Petriix]

With a 61kWh battery you really don't need to drive 80-20%. A 10% buffer is easily 20 miles if you need it to be. And you can add that extra 10% from 80-90% in about 10 minutes if you want. So 90-10% gives you 80% of your maximum on the second and subsequent legs. That's 120 miles worst case or more like 150 miles if you slow down a bit.

 

[biffo]

The 20% is more an issue of reaching a charger where it’s busy or broken & having to travel 20+ miles to the next one (e.g. the next charger from Southwaite South (which had a broken unit) is Booths at Penrith, about 12 miles so not ideal if running to 10% - which is 10% x 57 (usable) x 3 miles / kWh = 17.1 miles. What if Booths is busy or broken & only for 5 miles left?) I did arrive at MFG with less than 20% as I knew not all of the 8 units would be busy/ broken but the first one I tried didn’t work.

I did charge to 86% on two occasions - but as can be seen from the ZS battery graph, and I noticed the charge rate myself drop off significantly after 82% - along with charging to 90% can block the unit for other users.

Slowing down does work - but much less than 65mph on a 275 mile motorway journey tends to leave you sitting with lorries and increasing travel time - which was already pretty lengthy. I honestly don’t believe I could have achieved much better than 3 miles / kWh given the roofbox and fully loaded car - and didn’t even get that when 0oC, more like 2.7 - and charging speeds were terrible at this temperature .

 

[turpsey123]

May I ask how you turn on the HV battery heater? I've never come across that option.

 

[biffo]

There is a menu setting on the infotainment. I don’t fully understand if this setting is an override to always turn it on or quite how it works

 

[EVsince2016]

There is a menu setting on the infotainment. I don’t fully understand if this setting is an override to always turn it on or quite how it works

View attachment 5297

So basically you can keep it turned off when only charging at home so to increase range in particular in winter, but turn it on when you need rapids on long trips.

 

[biffo]

So basically you can keep it turned off when only charging at home so to increase range in particular in winter, but turn it on when you need rapids on long trips.

That just occurred to me too - think I’ll turn it off until I next need a cold weather rapid charge

 

[Kithmo]

That just occurred to me too - think I’ll turn it off until I next need a cold weather rapid charge

Does it keep the setting (on) when you restart the car or does it default back to off ?

 

[biffo]

Does it keep the setting (on) when you restart the car or does it default back to off ?

Photo was from this morning with switch on - I changed this Friday night so looks like it’s preserved