MG4 EV 51kWh Traffic Efficiency

[edsxp]

Hi all, I have been using my 51 kWh MG4 EV Magnify iSmart (I guess the Trophy Standard Range in many countries) for 2 weeks and 1200km in Indonesia and have been loving it so far. I just have several issues, starting with the range.

I believe in the UK the rated WLTP is at 218 miles, which is about 348 km, let's just say it is 350 km. In Indonesia, it is advertised as 425 km, but for the past 2 weeks, combining the remaining range and the distance travelled, it can only achieve about 320 km - 340 km. I live in Jakarta, where the traffic is abysmal, so I can only achieve about 22 km/h (13,75 mph) on average, or 25 km/h (15,625 mph) on a good day. Is the range just due to the bad driving average? Of course, I need to use AC as the weather has been very hot these past months, so I was wondering if the range is not accommodating for the AC as well.

I also have a question about the regen braking. Mine can only start after the battery drops below 48%, so above 48%, the car just coasts if I depress the gas pedal. Is that normal or is there any problem with my car?

Any response is highly appreciated. Thanks for your time!

Note on picture: the remaining range is still in miles even though it says km, I haven't got the time to update the software. It totals for about 321 km.

 

[Buster72]

Well I am in England and also own an MG4 SE SR which has the 51kwh battery.
I always use Normal driving mode with High regen which equates to level 3 regen.
It progressively comes in with the battery below 98%. So your 48% is quite different.
During the summer, the range was about 250 miles/400km according to the GOM. But now it is getting colder, that figure is closer to 200 miles/320 km.
Summer miles/kwh was was typically 4.4. But it has now dropped to 4.0.

So your regen level, especially in traffic should be pushed up the range.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm with Buster. I get regen coming on progressively right from when I start driving at 100%. It's very little at first, just 1% regen, and you can't feel it when you take your foot off the accelerator, but by the time I'm down to 95% there's a pretty useful amount of regen happening. I hardly ever have the battery as low as 48% so if my car behaved like yours I'd never see any regeneration. In reality I can see 22% regeneration without touching the brakes.

Your apparent poor fuel efficiency is odd, because EVs usually produce great figures in slow city traffic. I drive mostly in the country and get around 3.5 miles/KWh if I'm not pushing it, but when I go into the city this increases markedly.

It could be that heavy aircon use is affecting efficiency, but the regen thing is odd. I think your car may have a fault, and you should probably speak to your dealer about it.

 

[edsxp]

Thanks for sharing! @Buster72 I always put my regen at level 3 as well, but it just happens to start at 48%. I will be having my software update on Tuesday, so I'm hoping for it to solve my problem about the regen. Your summer range is what I was hoping to get, but for some reason I always end up with your winter range, so I was wondering if my average speed is the issue here, but I guess that is not something that I can change.

 

[edsxp]

I'm with Buster. I get regen coming on progressively right from when I start driving at 100%. It's very little at first, just 1% regen, and you can't feel it when you take your foot off the accelerator, but by the time I'm down to 95% there's a pretty useful amount of regen happening. I hardly ever have the battery as low as 48% so if my car behaved like yours I'd never see any regeneration. In reality I can see 22% regeneration without touching the brakes.

Your apparent poor fuel efficiency is odd, because EVs usually produce great figures in slow city traffic. I drive mostly in the country and get around 3.5 miles/KWh if I'm not pushing it, but when I go into the city this increases markedly.

It could be that heavy aircon use is affecting efficiency, but the regen thing is odd. I think your car may have a fault, and you should probably speak to your dealer about it.

Thanks for the input, I will try to speak with my dealer this week, probably after having the software update, but as I am using it daily, I just can't afford to have the dealer pull it back and having to wait for weeks again. I still haven't got the wall charger and my current house power output is limited so using the granny charger is also hard, I have always used the public charging station, as because it is limited and for some reason as well, I only get 26 kW charging speed when using the 60 kW charging station, so maybe there is an issue with the battery now that I think about it lol it never crossed my mind.

 

[Rolfe]

I also use the granny charger supplemented by a public charger five minutes walk away. I get 1.87 Kw on the granny lead and over 45 Kw on the 50Kw rapid charger when my battery is down around 20%. (At SoC above 50% it's a fair bit lower than that though.)

If you are mainly driving in slow city traffic you should be getting very good economy, although the heavy aircon use is a complication of course.

 

[edsxp]

I also use the granny charger supplemented by a public charger five minutes walk away. I get 1.87 Kw on the granny lead and over 45 Kw on the 50Kw rapid charger when my battery is down around 20%. (At SoC above 50% it's a fair bit lower than that though.)

If you are mainly driving in slow city traffic you should be getting very good economy, although the heavy aircon use is a complication of course.

Thanks for the helpful reply, I think I will do more research on this issue and consult with my dealer. I'm just hoping that this issue is mostly software due to not being able to use regen braking efficiently. I think I will wait until I have my software update and see if the problem still occurs. I mostly charge at 30% battery, and it still shows me 26 kW charging speed, but I haven't tried other charging box so the problem may also be from the charging box.

 

[siteguru]

Are you making sure to charge to 100% and let the charge continue so the BMS can balance the battery cells?

Edit: I mean charging on an AC charge point. 26kW charge speed sounds like a DC charger - you need to use an AC charge point (home/granny lead at ~2kW rate, 7kW charge point, 11 or 22kW 3-phase charge point) to get to 100% and do a balance.

 

[Rolfe]

Good point. I always do that and my battery, GOM and current SoC are behaving very well.

 

[edsxp]

Are you making sure to charge to 100% and let the charge continue so the BMS can balance the battery cells?

Edit: I mean charging on an AC charge point. 26kW charge speed sounds like a DC charger - you need to use an AC charge point (home/granny lead at ~2kW rate, 7kW charge point, 11 or 22kW 3-phase charge point) to get to 100% and do a balance.

I haven't used the AC charger to charge to 100%, my current house electric capacity is not enough and still on progress with my electric supplier to add new electrical point before I can comfortably use AC charger. I will try this once it is available, thank you for the input. When using DC, I usually pull it out as soon as possible as I still need to drive like 10 miles to my home, with the traffic, it could sometimes cost me 1 hour

Good point. I always do that and my battery, GOM and current SoC are behaving very well.

For now, the SoC and the GOM are actually quite accurate, my max range from 100% is at 218 miles, and I get about 200 - 210 miles, but the thing is it is rated for 425 km in Indonesia (about 265 miles). When I open the UK web, it says it is rated for 218 miles, so I'm quite confused now, which one I should believe in. But with the case of my regen braking not working, I am still hoping for the 425 km, and as I haven't heard any other with issues like mine, I think mine should be a one-off case and can be solved with the software update.

 

[siteguru]

MG MG4 EV Standard Range

All details and specs of the MG MG4 EV Standard Range (2022). Compare price, lease, real-world range and consumption of every electric vehicle.

ev-database.org

That estimates City - Mild Weather range as 275 miles (440 km) ... that perhaps makes sense for a climate like Indonesia.

 

[edsxp]

MG MG4 EV Standard Range

All details and specs of the MG MG4 EV Standard Range (2022). Compare price, lease, real-world range and consumption of every electric vehicle.

ev-database.org

That estimates City - Mild Weather range as 275 miles (440 km) ... that perhaps makes sense for a climate like Indonesia.

Yes I have also seen that figure, then again I always wonder what does "mild" means? Does that includes air conditioning or not? Stereo? Stop and go traffic (for me that happens like 80% of my daily driving)? Because when I look for the WLTP range test method, they said that they don't use any heating or air conditioning. And not using air conditioning under 38C is not something I'm willing to do

 

[Kyriakos]

hi All, I am considering buying a MG4 but not yet decided for the battery 51kwh or 64kwh. Once a week I travel 270 km. I do not like NCM batteries for many reasons. (80% SoC, future availability and costs). what is your opinion for LFP vs range. Is the 270 feasible with a normal speed 120-130km/h? what is the range in highway with mild weather?
thank you all

 

[Tight Git]

hi All, I am considering buying a MG4 but not yet decided for the battery 51kwh or 64kwh. Once a week I travel 270 km. I do not like NCM batteries for many reasons. (80% SoC, future availability and costs). what is your opinion for LFP vs range. Is the 270 feasible with a normal speed 120-130km/h? what is the range in highway with mild weather?
thank you all

Hi mine has just done a 500 mile round trip over 2 days and at 70mph was doing 3 miles/kWh starting from home with a full charge and getting back with 13% (temperature started at 4C and finished at about 10C so colder than in your area!)

At the last charge stop it put in 40% in 19 minutes on a 350 kW charger.

Sorry it is all in miles not kilometres - I will let you do the sums!!!

 

[Rolfe]

That's about 170 miles I think? And your top speed is about 80 mph?

To be honest I don't think so, not at that speed. At a lower speed you might do it, especially if you didn't use the heater or the aircon, but even then I think you might have some anxiety. The car's efficiency at that sort of speed isn't fantastic.

I did a motorway run in my SR at 80 mph on the ACC. It was a fairly mild evening and I wasn't using the heater at all. I was only getting 2 to 2.5 miles/kWh. I started with about 93% battery and got home on 9%. The distance was 130 miles. I wouldn't even have managed that had it not been that the last 40 miles was downhill at only 40-50 mph.

If you can arrange a charging stop in that journey it's perfectly feasible to do it in the SR, but I don't think it can do it on a single charge.

 

[Kyriakos]

That's about 170 miles I think? And your top speed is about 80 mph?

To be honest I don't think so, not at that speed. At a lower speed you might do it, especially if you didn't use the heater or the aircon, but even then I think you might have some anxiety. The car's efficiency at that sort of speed isn't fantastic.

I did a motorway run in my SR at 80 mph on the ACC. It was a fairly mild evening and I wasn't using the heater at all. I was only getting 2 to 2.5 miles/kWh. I started with about 93% battery and got home on 9%. The distance was 130 miles. I wouldn't even have managed that had it not been that the last 40 miles was downhill at only 40-50 mph.

If you can arrange a charging stop in that journey it's perfectly feasible to do it in the SR, but I don't think it can do it on a single charge.

thank you for your reply. I found these two videos:



with a speed of 75Mph the consumption is 19.9kwh/62,5mliles (62.5miles=100km)
with a speed of 68,75 => 19,2kwh
with a speed of 62,6 => 15,5kwh.
maybe with 68,75mph I can manage to reach my destination (270km=168,75miles).

 

[Rolfe]

That's tight. Weather will have an effect, as will use of the heater or aircon. Also, you never want to go down to zero. If you really want the SR, and I can sympathise, I would advise identifying a rapid charger maybe about 130 miles into your route where you can sit even for ten minutes to make sure you don't have a disaster.

 

[siteguru]

Or drive at the slower speed.

 

[ari197]

I haven't used the AC charger to charge to 100%, my current house electric capacity is not enough and still on progress with my electric supplier to add new electrical point before I can comfortably use AC charger. I will try this once it is available, thank you for the input. When using DC, I usually pull it out as soon as possible as I still need to drive like 10 miles to my home, with the traffic, it could sometimes cost me 1 hour


For now, the SoC and the GOM are actually quite accurate, my max range from 100% is at 218 miles, and I get about 200 - 210 miles, but the thing is it is rated for 425 km in Indonesia (about 265 miles). When I open the UK web, it says it is rated for 218 miles, so I'm quite confused now, which one I should believe in. But with the case of my regen braking not working, I am still hoping for the 425 km, and as I haven't heard any other with issues like mine, I think mine should be a one-off case and can be solved with the software update.

The regen could be because of custom country specific software.. knowing the temp and traffic pattern, MG might think that it's the best configuration..

Maybe check with other user from Jakarta?

As for range,I'd say the AC is the cause..

 

[turntoport]

I haven't used the AC charger to charge to 100%, my current house electric capacity is not enough and still on progress with my electric supplier to add new electrical point before I can comfortably use AC charger. I will try this once it is available, thank you for the input. When using DC, I usually pull it out as soon as possible as I still need to drive like 10 miles to my home, with the traffic, it could sometimes cost me 1 hour


For now, the SoC and the GOM are actually quite accurate, my max range from 100% is at 218 miles, and I get about 200 - 210 miles, but the thing is it is rated for 425 km in Indonesia (about 265 miles). When I open the UK web, it says it is rated for 218 miles, so I'm quite confused now, which one I should believe in. But with the case of my regen braking not working, I am still hoping for the 425 km, and as I haven't heard any other with issues like mine, I think mine should be a one-off case and can be solved with the software update.

edsxp; perhaps also consider that motor regen 'braking' is only 75 to 80% efficient, so if you're doing a lot of accelerate-decelerate (which for 10 miles sounds like it - isn't it faster to cycle ?) you'll lose energy substantially, esp if you boot the gas every time on takeoff. As the other guys have mentioned, when in traffic the ac uses proportionally much more power out compared to that used by the propulsion motor:- the ac is working on time, remember, not distance. I guess typical temperatures of 30 deg C and RH around 80%, your ac is working pretty hard. Given your typical regime, 300km seems pretty good for a 51kWh. (I also have the 51kWh and my usage is very similar energy consumption to Buster and Rolfe.)
good luck!