MG4 Intelligent battery heating on SE?

[DrAndyPerry]

Hi,
I've been playing with a few settings on my MG4 SE and have seen the intelligent battery heating option. It can be turned on and off.

In my previous model 3 this made a big difference to charging times and it worked if you navigated to a supercharger.

My question is, can this be activated in the SE which doesn't have sat nav? If so, how? I'm wondering if it's something they forgot to blank off in the SE model. I've not manged to figure out how to turn it on.

Andy

 

[Dan C]

I too would like some more detail on how it works ? Like I know it heats the battery when ambient temperatures are low so it can be rapid charged at a high speed still, but how does it know when to do this ?

I’ve left the option switched off as my car will be home charged at 7KWH for virtually all of its life and I believe at these speeds the battery temperature doesn’t matter so much.

 

[beefyj]

Hi,
I've been playing with a few settings on my MG4 SE and have seen the intelligent battery heating option. It can be turned on and off.

In my previous model 3 this made a big difference to charging times and it worked if you navigated to a supercharger.

My question is, can this be activated in the SE which doesn't have sat nav? If so, how? I'm wondering if it's something they forgot to blank off in the SE model. I've not manged to figure out how to turn it on.

Andy

It’s not GPS / Nav linked in any MG4. On my SE LR I can turn it on/off and car alerts suggesting it would be useful to have on if it’s cold.

 

[CatalinCazacu]

It’s not GPS / Nav linked in any MG4. On my SE LR I can turn it on/off and car alerts suggesting it would be useful to have on if it’s cold.

Yes you can activate this under the charging menu

 

[CatalinCazacu]

You can turn it on under the charging menu 3rd tab

 

[MoDolph]

When activated on my trophy I'm almost certain it heats the battery to 10degC then switches off. If you try to activate it remotely when the battery is above this temperature then it returns a message saying the battery doesn't need to be heated.

I haven't yet had a chance to test whether it goes to a higher temperature if the destination is set to a charger.

 

[MadaboutDana]

When activated on my trophy I'm almost certain it heats the battery to 10degC then switches off. If you try to activate it remotely when the battery is above this temperature then it returns a message saying the battery doesn't need to be heated.

I haven't yet had a chance to test whether it goes to a higher temperature if the destination is set to a charger.

Why would you want to go higher, though? Surely you're playing with diminishing returns there? We've already found that using energy to heat the battery doesn't significantly improve low-temperature range – in fact, switching on your heating system for 10 minutes before you get into the car will have much the same impact AND keep you nice and warm when you start driving ;-)

Plus you can heat the car interior up to 30 degrees (if you really want to!)... just sayin'!

 

[MoDolph]

Why would you want to go higher, though? Surely you're playing with diminishing returns there? We've already found that using energy to heat the battery doesn't significantly improve low-temperature range – in fact, switching on your heating system for 10 minutes before you get into the car will have much the same impact AND keep you nice and warm when you start driving ;-)

Plus you can heat the car interior up to 30 degrees (if you really want to!)... just sayin'!

Most batteries will only achieve their maximum charging speeds when the battery is above 25degC so only heating to 10degC might still lead to the rapid charge rate being throttled.

I believe Tesla heats their battery to 46degC before supercharging.

Older versions of NMC chemistries also show massive degradation when cycled below 10degC. Hopefully this is no longer an issue but I can't find any data on it as the manufacturers obviously like to keep it a secret for commercial reasons.

 

[the briggie]

I still believe that in most of the UK preheating the battery provides very little benefits v consumption pre journey. It does help with DC charging speed below 15c as the chemistry deems 15 to 35 to be the sweet spot..all based on others research online admittedly. My previous ev was hard set at 10c as the upper limit and that seemed to work fine for myself. Interesting subject matter though....

 

[Buster72]

I still believe that in most of the UK preheating the battery provides very little benefits v consumption pre journey. It does help with DC charging speed below 15c as the chemistry deems 15 to 35 to be the sweet spot..all based on others research online admittedly. My previous ev was hard set at 10c as the upper limit and that seemed to work fine for myself. Interesting subject matter though....

I have never used it.

 

[charlie bravo]

When activated on my trophy I'm almost certain it heats the battery to 10degC then switches off. If you try to activate it remotely when the battery is above this temperature then it returns a message saying the battery doesn't need to be heated.

I haven't yet had a chance to test whether it goes to a higher temperature if the destination is set to a charger.

If you’re using V2L lead is the battery getting hot?

 

[CatalinCazacu]

Hi,
I've been playing with a few settings on my MG4 SE and have seen the intelligent battery heating option. It can be turned on and off.

In my previous model 3 this made a big difference to charging times and it worked if you navigated to a supercharger.

My question is, can this be activated in the SE which doesn't have sat nav? If so, how? I'm wondering if it's something they forgot to blank off in the SE model. I've not manged to figure out how to turn it on.

Andy

 

[jonginn]

Resurrecting this thread as we're now headed into the colder months...

What makes this Intelligent? how does it know when to heat? A Tesla would use the satnav but the MG4 won't. I am completely baffled as to how this decides when to sacrifice battery% to heat the battery.

 

[MadaboutDana]

I tend to agree with @thebriggie that pre-heating does little to improve things; by the time you've heated up the battery, you've used as much energy as you'd have used anyway in the first few minutes of driving. As for this "intelligent heating" – well, it sounds amusingly cool, but is the usual MG black box otherwise. They are pretty inscrutable. On the other hand, the new models launched mid-year all show clear signs that they appreciate and listen to user feedback (rear windscreen wiper, bigger wheels, longer range...). I'd still like physical buttons for climate control, however! But that would add to the cost.

 

[JonnyG]

Assuming you have a home charger then I can see the benefit of preheating everything before a long trip in Winter at around 0 degrees C, while you are still plugged in. You can then start your journey with a warm car, warm (or at least warmer battery) and 100% range if required. Just needs a bit of planning timescale wise !

 

[Robf]

Assuming you have a home charger then I can see the benefit of preheating everything before a long trip in Winter at around 0 degrees C, while you are still plugged in. You can then start your journey with a warm car, warm (or at least warmer battery) and 100% range if required. Just needs a bit of planning timescale wise !

In addition, battery pre-heat is generally used when approaching rapid chargers , it shortens time to charge considerably (allegedly).

 

[MGFour]

It sounds more like the button has been labelled incorrectly. Correct label is Unintelligent battery Heating

 

[Rolfe]

If my Boxing Day plans come to fruition, I should arrive at my host's house at a fairly low SoC. I plan to decant my passengers, then immediately bugger off to a charging station which is barely six miles away to fill up. Seems like a plan to turn on battery heating when I set off for the charging station, assuming I can figure out how to do it, as I want to spend as little time charging as I can, so as to get back to the socialising.

I do want to set off back with a full battery, so the rest of the plan is to plug in the granny charger at my host's house, and hopefully get the LFP to 100% and balance while we're eating roast beef and Yorkshire pud and playing silly party games. Given that I expect to stay there about five hours (from my post-charge arrival) I need to be at a fairly high SoC to begin with, probably going to over 90% on the ultra-rapid. So the faster I can get there the better. I will report back if it happens.

 

[siteguru]

Tap on the battery tile on the home screen, tap on the Energy Consumption tab and the battery heating toggle should be there. (From memory).

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks, I'm sure I'll find it. My friend has just emailed me to say that she and her husband will be absolutely delighted to let me do the Boxing Day driving, so unless the expected annual invitation fails to materialise, it looks like we're on. I have to say I have spent many years trying to avoid doing it, and probably only had do do it once. (I've got a long drive the next day, or the day after, and so on - even when my GTi was new, I wasn't keen. What is it about EVs?)