MG S5: first impressions

[stevedee]

We've only had our MG S5 ev Trophy 64kW a few weeks, but here are our first impressions.
First, let me say, we bloody love it!

Plus points:-

• Its an ev
• Very similar size, ride, visibility & driving position to our previous car, a Skoda Yeti
• The 360' camera
• keyless access
• The lady that tells me I'm going too fast
• Being able to de-ice & preheat the car, prior to stepping out of the house
• Adjustable regen
• Cabin space, especially in the back (although less space in boot than Yeti)

Negatives/could do better:-

• No phone number favorites list
• Welcome lights include headlights
• USB C sockets difficult to access
• Some settings not persistent (e.g. regen)
• No auto day/night setting for big screen
• No way to save/export video
• iSmart app not compatible with non-iPhone or non-Google Android phones
• Speed limits; map & small instrument display do not always match
• De-mist; car steamed up with 4 people on board yesterday; TBA

Keyless access
I like this feature, despite recent publicity about thieves using Relay devices. I believe I've established how this feature is implemented on our MG; the key is normally in a kind of 'sleep' mode. When taken near the car, low frequency (probably 125kHz) wakes the key, then the key uses 443MHz to lock/unlock the car. This is good because it means that screening the key is easier than it would be for high frequency, BLE (low energy Bluetooth) which is another common method.
We used to keep our Yeti key in a large coffee mug for convenience. Now we keep the MG key in a metal coffee tin!

Adjustable Regen
Great, but I seem to have to set it every trip.

Phone number favorites
This is a real pain. So we have had to prefix important contact names with; aaa_ to bring them to the top of the Contacts list.

Welcome Lights
With this feature enabled, we light up the houses on the opposite side of our narrow street when we unlock the car after dark. Ideally, this should just turn on the side lights.

USB C
I find it difficult to connect to these sockets located in the central storage box, on the front inside wall. It seems to me that they would be either better higher up, or located on the inside of the back wall of this box. We now leave cables permanently connected.

Speed limits
I'm guessing that the speed limits display on the satnav uses 'baked in' map data, while the limit shown on the Instrument display is interpreted via the camera.

MG iSmart App
Although I can install this App & launch it on my de-googled smart phone, it crashes with a message that it can't find the Play Store ...crazy.

Video
There is no 'dashcam' functionality. As we are old, and have got used to having one, I've had to buy & fit my own. It doesn't enhance the look of the car.
You may be interested in my post: Dashcam: power from 5Volts?

 

[Porsche944]

Some of these I agree with, others are you just over thinking things!
Video, every camera I have had has been USB, either mini or micro. A standard A to mini did mine, must have taken all of a few minutes on Amazon looking! My cameras have all sat on the passenger side, not sure why you'd use the drivers side.

The iSmart apps runs as do the vast majority through the Playstore for security. Not sure what a de-googled phone is!

See me home lights using headlights is standard, yes it is a PITA for the neighbours, mine illuminates the house across the road & as my car is reversed in this is useless. I may seriously shorten the on time, or possibly switch it off.

Speed limits, again not sure what the issue is. I watch the dash display & listen to Doris, not the sat nav screen. My speedo is pretty accurate, no more than 1MPH different all the way to beyond 80MPH!

Phone number favourites, not found this, mostly in AA I use recents as a list so not relevant to me.

The non-persistent regen etc. settings are a pain. I'm getting used to resetting each journey but it would be good if set say under MGPilot?

 

[Ruislip Resident]

Note. If you prefer full 1 pedal driving rather than one of the regen settings then it stays set. No need to do it each time. In my case however the missus does not like it so I switch it on and off when leaving or arriving home.

 

[stevedee]

...In my case however the missus does not like it so I switch it on and off when leaving or arriving home.

I also share the car, so we are trying to keep it simple, at least initially.
It seems to me that although manufacturers like MG operate near the bottom of the EV market, adding a feature like driver presets (e.g. driver #1, #2...) would not add cost to the ticket price. Same applies to frequently used/favourite phone numbers.
Considering all the amazing things this car has been designed to do, a few simple changes to the software is no big deal.

 

[Delascas]

Although I've just moved to a "googled" Android phone (after all my banking apps started to crash), I ran the iSmart on a non-googled FairPhone 3+ for the better part of 6 months. @stevedee are you also running MicroG? I never had a problem on the FP3 with iSmart. Clearly YMMV . . .

 

[stevedee]

...are you also running MicroG? I never had a problem on the FP3 with iSmart. Clearly YMMV . . .

Thanks for that, very interesting. Especially as MicroG is based upon LineageOS, which is what I'm using.
My initial hesitation concerns the reasons that Lineage rejected MicroG, but I'll do some more research; MicroG - Wikipedia

Its probably going to get even tougher to avoid Google on Android next year, as they prepare to tighten their grip on internet control, via developer certification.

In response to comment by Porsche944; make no mistake, you don't need Playstore to ensure your Apps are safe. You can safely use F-Droid or PureAPK, its just that Google don't like it!

 

[john1000uk]

Note. If you prefer full 1 pedal driving rather than one of the regen settings then it stays set. No need to do it each time. In my case however the missus does not like it so I switch it on and off when leaving or arriving home.

I think thats really interesting so in theory if I could change the oder that the regen was written in the software I could make the saved regen setting the one I use every trip e.g.swap the one pedal for regen 2.

 

[stevedee]

Although we still have only had our S5 a few weeks (6 actually!) we are still very happy with it, and the concept of electric vehicles. If fact, we never want to own another noisy, dirty diesel/petrol/LPG powered car again, ever!

Almost all the cars & vans I've owned in 55 years of driving have been manuals. The one exception was a Honda Civic petrol/electric almost 20 years ago. What I discovered then (& again now with the S5) is that autos calm my driving style. This, along with the nice lady that tells me when I've drifted from a 40mph zone down into a 30mph and I'm going too fast, has created a calm & relaxed driving experience for me, and for my unlucky passengers.

I'm hoping I'm not too relaxed, as I was driving back along the A272 the other day and made the mistake of yawning. This triggered the 'fatigue' alarm, generating a message about taking a break and a display showing a 'hot cup of coffee' graphic.

Following this, I tried to do a few fake yawns, but was unable to trip the alarm. Maybe I did something funny with my eyes at the same time. ...testing continues.

So, bearing in mind that we do love our S5 and 'ev World', I still stand by my comments in the first post.

Since then we have had the classic problems with the tail-gate; won't open to correct height, won't shut. And here are a few more points comparing our 10 year old Yeti with the S5;
Build quality was superior on the Yeti compared to the S5. A good example are the seats which were better quality and more comfortable. The front seats were more 'snug' meaning they gave better side support. The 3 rear seats could be removed via one simple control per seat (great if you have to transport lots of stuff, e.g. 'the tip run').

Also on the Yeti, the central armrest could be adjusted fore/aft & up/down. It had nice chunky luggage hooks that you could move along a rail. And it had very useful 'turning spot-lights', e.g. if you turned to the left, the left spot-light would illuminate the path/hedge/ditch at low level.

It could be that one of the other cars that we were considering, the Skoda Elroq, may have had some of these features built in. But we really didn't want a replacement car that was longer & wider than our previous one; our roads are not wide enough, and those white lines in public car parks are not far enough apart!

However, as I mentioned before, MG & Skoda occupy different sectors of the car market.

 

[nem]

In response to comment by Porsche944; make no mistake, you don't need Playstore to ensure your Apps are safe. You can safely use F-Droid or PureAPK, its just that Google don't like it!

I think what they mean is that Google play handles the security of the apps, ie. the authentication api. But I don't know if that's the case or not, sounds like it tho.