You don't have to sit & monitor for the whole time. In fact MG are quite good from what my dealer tells me but all cars require monitoring with interaction at various stages during the process otherwise the car will stop & wait for the next instruction & will disconnect from the main central computer if not done within a fixed period of time.
I would not describe the current update service as archaic. It's one followed by every manufacturer. It's safe which is what manufacturers seek. I am not aware of any manufacturer who currently allows their cars to update critical systems over the air. Firstly it could take a long time due to bandwidth issues & secondly it's simply not reliable enough & can brick a car if anything goes wrong. Of course, our cars & others receive certain updates over the air but these are not critical updates. For example, my own car received new map updates over the air a few days ago. This occurred after doing a system hard re-set to try to cure the issues the car was having. Next day upon start up the map updates were waiting for me. It all worked rather well.
From my own experience in the trade it looks to me as though MG are much more advanced than many other motor manufacturer regarding EVs. And more advanced than many people give them credit for. Of course, they get issues like everyone & nothing is ever perfect. But by comparison to Peugeot & Citroen & particularly their EVs, MG are streets ahead. Much more reliable & largely trouble free by comparison.
UPDATE: my neighbour who has a Tesla tells me he thinks some critical updates are available for that car over the air as hmadsen indicates. He's a tech & like me was surprised by this.
I have a Elon-car and i can assure you it has received every single update OTA and even though they have had a few recalls they have all been done via the OTA procedure, my car is just over 2 years and it has yet to have its first visit to an Elon repairshop (Incidentally it is going to them in a week, but that's only to have a few warranty related issues fixed because if has just about run out of warranty covered miles
)
ChatGPT (could be wrong) says that Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, Polestar, Volvo, GM (Selected vehicles), Ford Mustang, all Nio and all Xpeng cars, all have the ability to update every onboard module via OTA.
It seems that even the new MG S5 only has OTA for infotainment and telematics and we all know what that means...Atleast in regards to the ZS EV, that has it, but even though there has been numerous updates to the infotainment software, they never did it via OTA.
So in my opinion MG is not "ahead", not even in the Chinese market, from which Polestar, Volvo, Nio and Xpeng all originate.
Just to clarify....When there is a software update on my Elon car, it will automatically download it when connected to wifi (In my driveway) and when it has downloaded the update, it will prompt me that there is an update, in the app and i can then apply it now or schedule a time to do it.
If i select to start "now" it will say " Car will be undrivable for XX minutes while the update is performed" and i have to acknowledge that before it starts.
It typically takes between 30 and 50 minutes and i get another notification in the app, when its ready again.
I only do updates in my driveway, but i have never had an update fail me and i have received over 20 updates over the course of these 2 years.
Notable mentions about functions is, a year ago, they updated the headlamps to do matrix lights and just recently they activated a radar (That no one knew were there) in the headliner just behind the roof light, this radar is now able to detect if someone was left in the car, even able to "see" through the seats into the backseat. If it detects someone in the car (Forgotten child f.ex) it will send a message to the app and if the temperature gets above a certain setpoint it will automatically run the AC (I presume the same if temperature gets too low).
I'm not trying to knock the ZS EV, its a great car at the price we paid, but it is lacking and the fact they sold it as "Can be updated OTA" and then sent exactly 0 updates IS a bit poor in my mind.
