MG4 SE vs Long Range - Battery Technology

[Tight Git]

Can you limit the current draw in the car to give you an extra 20 minutes for pie, beans and chips?

Not on rapid DC CCS chargers.

 

[RaspberryMan]

Everyday's a school day. I've only used a fast DC charger once and just assumed it was possible. What is the technical reason for that?

 

[Tuareg]

Because other users will want to use the charging point.

 

[PVperson]

In winter, going at motorway speeds over the Southern Uplands, I can reliably make Tebay, which is 110 miles away and tends to take me about 2 hours to reach. I probably wouldn't stop as early as that if I had a longer range car, but it's still a decent length of leg. I can go from central Scotland to the south coast of England with only three charging stops.

Conversely in summer I once drove for almost four hours non-stop, going to Fort William. The roads aren't all that fast and there were significant traffic hold-ups. It's about 140-150 miles I think.

Given that if I'm driving a long distance I'm probably going to be going fast, I wouldn't rely on getting further than 150 miles in the SR, even in summer. On the other hand touring around sightseeing would extend that quite a lot.

If you're OK about that sort of performance, and your normal daily drive doesn't exceed maybe 120 miles overall in cold weather with the heating on, the SR should suit you fine. On the other hand if you have a requirement to crack on when you're on a long road trip, then you should consider the LR, not just for range but for the faster charging. For one thing, if you hit bad traffic, then with the SR you can't cut your charging/rest stop short and get on, because the car needs the time it needs.

One thing I do find with the EV is that it breaks your journey up so that you're no longer heading for a destination 450 miles away, you're heading for your next planned charging stop, where you'll get to stretch your legs and have a cuppa and mess around on Twitter or something for maybe 45 minutes (in the SR). I find this much less stressful.

Wow! I gotta get me 10 of these chinese gizmos, and increase my range to 1000 miles!!!
Electric Vehicle Range Extending Generator Battery Car Solar Wind Power Generat✈ | eBay

 

[RaspberryMan]

Because other users will want to use the charging point.

I was kinda making the reasonable assumption that there were other bays free in the scenario...but aye, I take your point.

 

[PJWey]

Hi. I'm a new member. I always thought an EV was a pipe dream for me but I was amazed to see the price of used MG4s. I've read a lot of reviews now and they seem great value. I went for a test drive in one today and was very impressed (mind you, I'm coming from a 2004 mk1 skoda fabia so I'm easily impressed!).
As the title of the post suggests, my question is about the battery technology in the se and long range. It seems to me that the se has the newer technology allowing regular 100% charges vs the 80% of the long range. It strikes me that as most of my journeys are fairly local, there's no real advantage to the long range. Indeed, the base model is both cheaper and seems to have a better battery.
I've only just started to look into EVs so I'm happy to be corrected on this but I'd appreciate your views.

Love my SE, 16 months and 22k miles.
LFP is basically a rust battery, so if anyone comes at you with “child mining” or “precious metals” you have no need to worry. Also charging to 100% is perfectly reasonable and stress free. Added bonus is the car is 170hp and very quick despite being the base model. Also being SE it has less of MGs rather bad software. I added a Carlinkit for wireless AirPlay and also ABRP paired with an ODB for geek detail and accurate charge estimates for longer routes. But ultimately the car is easy to run and understand. Waving at other blue MG4 drivers is fun too, if you like that.

 

[PJWey]

One area not mentioned so far is where you are charging. If you are charging on a cheap tariff at home, then a SR or LR will be suitable. However if you have no access to home charging and have to always rely on the public network, then a LR will be more suitable in order to minimise the number of times you have to charge away from home

Yes if charging is more of a challenge then always buy the largest battery you can afford. Personally my energy costs have been significantly cheaper than diesel was previously and despite driving a fair bit further. Tactical use of public charging can keep costs especially low so just do some math of the cost difference for larger batteries.

Lithium battery prices have dropped a lot so LFP is less of a cost advantage and more related to use case. If you buying for 400k miles plus of use then go for LFP for sure… choice is a beautiful thing.

 

[Rolfe]

Love my SE, 16 months and 22k miles.
LFP is basically a rust battery, so if anyone comes at you with “child mining” or “precious metals” you have no need to worry. Also charging to 100% is perfectly reasonable and stress free. Added bonus is the car is 170hp and very quick despite being the base model. Also being SE it has less of MGs rather bad software. I added a Carlinkit for wireless AirPlay and also ABRP paired with an ODB for geek detail and accurate charge estimates for longer routes. But ultimately the car is easy to run and understand. Waving at other blue MG4 drivers is fun too, if you like that.

I endorse this message.

 

[Rolfe]

Wow! I gotta get me 10 of these chinese gizmos, and increase my range to 1000 miles!!!
Electric Vehicle Range Extending Generator Battery Car Solar Wind Power Generat✈ | eBay

What the hell is that?

 

[Tuareg]

Yes if charging is more of a challenge then always buy the largest battery you can afford. Personally my energy costs have been significantly cheaper than diesel was previously and despite driving a fair bit further. Tactical use of public charging can keep costs especially low so just do some math of the cost difference for larger batteries.

Lithium battery prices have dropped a lot so LFP is less of a cost advantage and more related to use case. If you buying for 400k miles plus of use then go for LFP for sure… choice is a beautiful thing.

Sorry but that's incorrect. Both battery technologies in use on these cars can well exceed 400k miles.

 

[siteguru]

To the original question ... when I got my SE, the LR version was £2,500 more expensive than the SR - that's a hell of a lot of public charging sessions! (Even at 79p per kWh that is 3,164 kWh, or over 62 lots of 50.8 kWh full charges, or over 124 lots of adding 50% to the battery).

 

[Biometricstu]

I have an SE LR and as I write this, I am on my first decent road trip from Bury St Edmunds to Harrogate in North Yorks. I like the extra range but could have done it in a Standard Range. The issue I had was with the apps like Zap-Map, which took me to locations with very few chargers. All busy. I now look for Gridserve after being taken to several locations I discovered Gridserve at Blythe Services on the A1. Loads of fast chargers plus some Tesla chargers. Easy and we were charged and on our way very quickly. In future I will google for good charge locations en route to save wasting time being taken to busy locations with hardly any chargers. Also one of the chargers that Zap Map took me to was a Tritium which refused to talk to my MG4! So my first road trip was frustrating but the return journey was easy and relaxing. Plus my recharge and burger at Blythe got us all the way home to Bury St Edmunds and I still had 30% left in the battery.

 

[ReintjeWA]

I have an SE LR and as I write this, I am on my first decent road trip from Bury St Edmunds to Harrogate in North Yorks. I like the extra range but could have done it in a Standard Range. The issue I had was with the apps like Zap-Map, which took me to locations with very few chargers. All busy. I now look for Gridserve after being taken to several locations I discovered Gridserve at Blythe Services on the A1. Loads of fast chargers plus some Tesla chargers. Easy and we were charged and on our way very quickly. In future I will google for good charge locations en route to save wasting time being taken to busy locations with hardly any chargers. Also one of the chargers that Zap Map took me to was a Tritium which refused to talk to my MG4! So my first road trip was frustrating but the return journey was easy and relaxing. Plus my recharge and burger at Blythe got us all the way home to Bury St Edmunds and I still had 30% left in the battery.

PlugShare can be handy to “recon” charger locations, but don’t rely too much on it showing wether chargers are available, a lot of people don’t use it to check in.

 

[Leebeejeebee]

I have the SE LR, it's a company car and I regularly drive long distances, so I always charge to 100% (mainly overnight on my 7Kw home charger). If I'm charging away from home I don't charge to 100%, just enough to get me home and then a bit extra. It's done just over 61,000 miles so far and I've had no issues with the battery/range.

 

[Leebeejeebee]

I have an SE LR and as I write this, I am on my first decent road trip from Bury St Edmunds to Harrogate in North Yorks. I like the extra range but could have done it in a Standard Range. The issue I had was with the apps like Zap-Map, which took me to locations with very few chargers. All busy. I now look for Gridserve after being taken to several locations I discovered Gridserve at Blythe Services on the A1. Loads of fast chargers plus some Tesla chargers. Easy and we were charged and on our way very quickly. In future I will google for good charge locations en route to save wasting time being taken to busy locations with hardly any chargers. Also one of the chargers that Zap Map took me to was a Tritium which refused to talk to my MG4! So my first road trip was frustrating but the return journey was easy and relaxing. Plus my recharge and burger at Blythe got us all the way home to Bury St Edmunds and I still had 30% left in the battery.

I have the Shell Recharge app. They partner with quite a few other networks, like EV Power, Allego, Osprey etc. Works pretty well for me. I normally use either one of those or Instavolt, which you get at a lot of McDonalds.