MG ZS EV One pedal driving

[AK OK]

That's not with ACC, that's normal driving and lifting off the pedal to stop the car. It's done to show how quickly you can stop the car. In normal driving you would lift your foot slowly and the regen wouldn't activate as strongly. This is the benefit of one pedal driving and probably the only feature I will miss moving from the Leaf to the MG.

You asked what the difference between using the hack & ACC was? The hack appears to make the car stop without using brakes I.e. regen. ACC uses the brakes to stop /slow the car

 

[RetiredPope]

Yes, understand that, my query was why using the hack could cause failure of the motor/regen system. Given that it duplicates normal driving without ACC. The only differance I can see from normal driving is that it can bring the car to an almost complete stop without using the brakes. I can't see how using regen for ACC is different to non-ACC driving. Unless I'm missing something, given I don't yet have my MG and am going off my experiance from the test drive.

 

[AK OK]

Yes, understand that, my query was why using the hack could cause failure of the motor/regen system.

Additional strain on bearings due to increased regen rate of "full stops" & extra time in use for ACC & full stops?

Given that it duplicates normal driving without ACC.

No because standard ZS regen alone will not stop the car?

 

[Gadget Geek]

I see what RetiredPope means, regen braking is regen braking regarless of whether it's the car doing it or the driver.

 

[AK OK]

I see what RetiredPope means, regen braking is regen braking regarless of whether it's the car doing it or the driver.

Though the video made a point of the (significantly) decreased stopping distance of the hacked ZS....which suggests all is not the same?

 

[RetiredPope]

Additional strain on bearings due to increased regen rate of "full stops" & extra time in use for ACC & full stops?

That's my point, this wouldn't happen in normal driving with the mod, as you would lift your foot off the pedal slowly, not take it right off as in the video. So minimal additional strain on the bearings. There isn't extra time using regen as there seems to be little differance between ACC with regen and normal driving without the mod.

I drove the BMW i3 for a week, the regen is very strong and will bring the car to a stop a lot quicker than the mod shown, but apart from trying it once, the rest of the week a slow release of the pedal brought the car to a controlled stop without maximum regen.

 

[AK OK]

That's my point, this wouldn't happen in normal driving with the mod, as you would lift your foot off the pedal slowly, not take it right off as in the video.

Best get it ordered then
Do report back on how the insurance declaration goes

So minimal additional strain on the bearings. There isn't extra time using regen as there seems to be little differance between ACC with regen and normal driving without the mod.

You don't get regen with ACC as standard

I drove the BMW i3 for a week, the regen is very strong and will bring the car to a stop a lot quicker than the mod shown, but apart from trying it once, the rest of the week a slow release of the pedal brought the car to a controlled stop without maximum regen.

So not much use then?

 

[hmadsen]

I'll just point out that other EVs use regen for adaptive cruise control, even MG's own MG5. So I don't think that this feature is missing because of any mechanical constraint.

Unless the ZS EV and the MG4 uses the same motor and gearbox, there could be a difference in what these components can handle.

I once owned a car that had a diesel, that came in 100, 120 and 150 hp variants.

The 100 and 120 hp variants rarely saw any problems with the gearbox, but the 150 hp variant had just enough torque to overpower the gearbox.

This meant that most 150 owners experienced problems with their gearbox, needing to have bearings changed, while the 100 and 120 owners rarely or at a lot longer intervals, needed this.

So if the gearbox in the ZS EV is weaker than the one in the ZS EV, it might not be able to take the load of repeated max regen braking, as opposed to using the friction brakes for this task, most of the time.

Not saying this IS the case, i am just saying that there is a posibility that something like this could be the cause.

I don't follow the logic here, what is the difference between driving the car with this hack and not using ACC. Every time you lift off the accelerator to slow back to the speed limit the regen will activate. The system should be designed assuming that the driver never uses ACC, as several people on here do.

The thing is.

MG did not include this for a reason.

Maybe it cost money, and they did not want to spend that money.

Maybe there is some mechanical reason.

Maybe they decided they added "enough" features to the gen 2 car, and wanted to "save" something for when they release Gen 3.

Or maybe it is something completely different.


But since we do not know, we can not make a reasonable deduction on, whether it is "ok" or "not ok" that they did not.

They omitted anti pinch in 3 of the electric windows, this is maybe a saving of £1 per door, and they omitted one single valve, costing maybe £10 that would have made the climate control, able to do cabin heating (Heat pump), so it's not like they don't penny pinch to the max, so maybe they saved £2 per unit of the bosch system, because they omitted the regen working with ACC, and decided this was worth it.

Or maybe they decided that heatpump and braking on ACC is the selling point on the gen 3...

In reality we will probably never know, but if this IS just them being lazy or cheap, it is a piss poor decision on their part

That's not with ACC, that's normal driving and lifting off the pedal to stop the car. It's done to show how quickly you can stop the car. In normal driving you would lift your foot slowly and the regen wouldn't activate as strongly. This is the benefit of one pedal driving and probably the only feature I will miss moving from the Leaf to the MG.

Would have been nice to see this hack on the gen 2, and see if the regen percentage went about ~20% as the normal regen does max.

 

[AK OK]

Would have been nice to see this hack on the gen 2, and see if the regen percentage went about ~20% as the normal regen does max.

That's another good point your make @hmadsen ... Why does the MK2 have less regen than MK1? Devil is in the details...

 

[Tim Green]

I think it has to be a negative point to the zs that it doesn't have regen on ACC. If a hack can make it work then it is just sloppy engineering and /or lack of development.
It does seem odd that the mk2 is the same. It will make me look at other makes when changing the zs.

 

[Bodgerx]

A non modified gen2 you can easily get -120amp I think that's quite good

I’ve never seen that on mine.

I think the most I’ve ever seen is -90a momentarily on a steep incline with regen 3 and hard braking.

It’s tendency is to be conservative imo, overall, regardless of peak.

 

[hmadsen]

I think it has to be a negative point to the zs that it doesn't have regen on ACC. If a hack can make it work then it is just sloppy engineering and /or lack of development.
It does seem odd that the mk2 is the same. It will make me look at other makes when changing the zs.

The mk2 is probably 90% the same as the mk1

They added a couple of temp sensors and some computer to control the temperature, upgraded the infotainment to a faster CPU, fixed the silly charge flap and stuck a bigger battery in, swapped the instrument cluster to a digital one, but not a whole lot else was changed.

For me the 2 "worst" things is no regen on ACC, and the missing heatpump.

 

[Striker]

That's my point, this wouldn't happen in normal driving with the mod, as you would lift your foot off the pedal slowly, not take it right off as in the video. So minimal additional strain on the bearings. There isn't extra time using regen as there seems to be little differance between ACC with regen and normal driving without the mod.

I drove the BMW i3 for a week, the regen is very strong and will bring the car to a stop a lot quicker than the mod shown, but apart from trying it once, the rest of the week a slow release of the pedal brought the car to a controlled stop without maximum regen.

I think that the point with the stronger regen, is that the current regen on my Mk2 isn't strong enough to slow the car, if I'm driving spiritedly, braking up to a junction I'd be using full regen and the foot brake. If the regen was stronger, I'd be using that alone, pumping more current into the battery (which my guess is the limitation) and also mechanical load on the driveline components

Lack of regen on ACC is a stranger one, I can't see that it would be at all difficult, after all, most of the time slowing down due to adaptive cruise, is little more than the equivalent lifting your foot off the pedal
I wonder is its the complexity of the need to slow at different rates due to the circumstance, sometimes regen would be fine, sometimes braking would be needed. Also regen strength is reduced if the battery is fully charged and if the battery is cold. All of that would have to be taken into account

 

[Roldorf]

Beware stronger regen will almost certainly cause your brake disks to corrode as they are no longer getting used so much, seen it on many cars all you have to do is do a search on YouTube to see the consequences.

 

[Tim Green]

If regen was stronger on level 3 regen, owners could make their own choice by picking the level they prefer, taking into account the issue of more corrosion of brake parts.