Mg4 trophy sales drop like a stone!

[Cocijo]

I am more than happy with my MG4 but can't help but think that it's resell value will be virtually zero in two years.

I've just seen the press release from CATL claiming they can enter production of 500wh /kg batteries as early as this year. This will be a game changer, who would want a second hand car with a 250 mile range, when there will be faster charging new ones which have ~1000 mile range.

CATL's new 500 Wh/kg battery pack could power airplanes, claims company

I would - it depends on price and your situation. I don’t need a 1000miles range and charge on cheap Tariff at home. The early battery cars will be around for a good while, technology will change but it‘s all about cost and demand.

 

[tsedge]

I don't think anyone in the UK needs 1000 mile range, it is an american thing.

Edit: possibly for towing it would be needed as EV range halves or worse.

 

[Ian Key]

They'll probably use the higher battery density to produce small lighter batteries for smaller lighter cars so Mini size cars could have a 300 mile range.

 

[Pazmeister]

I am more than happy with my MG4 but can't help but think that it's resell value will be virtually zero in two years.

I've just seen the press release from CATL claiming they can enter production of 500wh /kg batteries as early as this year. This will be a game changer, who would want a second hand car with a 250 mile range, when there will be faster charging new ones which have ~1000 mile range.

CATL's new 500 Wh/kg battery pack could power airplanes, claims company

Mine on pcp guaranteed value in 4 years of £15800 so not zero for me!

 

[Rolfe]

If the car continues to work well then I'll just hang on to it anyway. Once I'm bonded with a car I tend to hang on to it as long as possible and who cares what newer innovations have arrived. Witness my reluctance to part with my 2009 Golf with 135,000 miles on the clock even as the insurance company was saying it wasn't economical to repair the bodywork damage caused by the idiot BMW driver who ran into me. If I'm intending to keep it then its resale value is irrelevant.

 

[turntoport]

I would - it depends on price and your situation. I don’t need a 1000miles range and charge on cheap Tariff at home. The early battery cars will be around for a good while, technology will change but it‘s all about cost and demand.

perhaps also worthwhile considering is the value of the battery pack itself - even after 10 years and maybe at 80% remaining capacity, a 40 (originally 50) kWh or 50 (originally 64)kWh pack will make one hell of a good value domestic battery, considering an 8kWh pack sells for what, around £8000 now. Ok, so domestic prices will drop as uptake and technology move forward, but i reckon those 'obsolete, valueless' car batteries will by themselves be worth more than the pcp minimum values.

 

[bowfer]

In general rear wheel drive provides much better traction and stops the front wheels fighting between steering and powering the vehicle. If you drive both the MG4 and MG5 you'll notice how the 5 is prone to wheelspin under higher acceleration.

Historically most cars were rear wheel drive, front drive emerged as a weight and cost saving measure that cut out the need for a propshaft and enabled more compact transverse ICE engine configurations.

With EVs there's no such considerations so they can be rear and front drive or both easily, which is why rear drive will most likely become more popular again.

In the wet/snow rear drive ICE cars can be very poor for traction but this is not the same with EVs. ICE cars have a heavy engine up front, so the weight is in the wrong place whereas EVs like the 4 have even weight distribution. EVs can do far better traction control with electric motors than is possible with ICE - see the various snow videos of rear drive Teslas driving past everything else, front or rear drive.

There’s so much tripe written about weight distribution being the reason for poor snow performance in RWD cars, it does my head in.
As a BMW owner several times over, If I had a quid for every time I heard ‘BMWs are light at the back’…honestly…
The truth is they have 50/50 weight distribution and, on standard tyres, aren’t any worse than FWD cars in snow (IE equally crap).
FWD is certainly safer for most people, but the sudden torque of EVs combined with weight transfer does make them wheelspin monsters.

 

[tsedge]

There’s so much tripe written about weight distribution being the reason for poor snow performance in RWD cars, it does my head in.
As a BMW owner several times over, If I had a quid for every time I heard ‘BMWs are light at the back’…honestly…
The truth is they have 50/50 weight distribution and, on standard tyres, aren’t any worse than FWD cars in snow (IE equally crap).
FWD is certainly safer for most people, but the sudden torque of EVs combined with weight transfer does make them wheelspin monsters.

I said nothing about BMWs so whomever your argument is with, it isn't me.

 

[bowfer]

I said nothing about BMWs so whomever your argument is with, it isn't me.

No, but you did refer to ICE car heavy engines being “in the wrong place” for traction (IE at the front when it’s the rear wheels being driven)
I just expanded on that, saying it can be a complete misconception.

 

[tsedge]

No, but you did refer to ICE car heavy engines being “in the wrong place” for traction (IE at the front when it’s the rear wheels being driven)
I just expanded on that, saying it can be a complete misconception.

I was making a generalisation, clearly there are exceptions, however an awful lot of cars are nose heavy.

 

[Cocijo]

perhaps also worthwhile considering is the value of the battery pack itself - even after 10 years and maybe at 80% remaining capacity, a 40 (originally 50) kWh or 50 (originally 64)kWh pack will make one hell of a good value domestic battery, considering an 8kWh pack sells for what, around £8000 now. Ok, so domestic prices will drop as uptake and technology move forward, but i reckon those 'obsolete, valueless' car batteries will by themselves be worth more than the pcp minimum values.

Yes. And many older packs can end up as storage in other installations like solar.

 

[bowfer]

I was making a generalisation, clearly there are exceptions, however an awful lot of cars are nose heavy.

If you check weight distribution figures, FWD cars are usually the nose heavy ones.
BMW and Merc are the most common RWD cars around these days and they’re pretty much 50/50.
The ‘light at the back’ thing is often a pub myth.

 

[tsedge]

If you check weight distribution figures, FWD cars are usually the nose heavy ones.
BMW and Merc are the most common RWD cars around these days and they’re pretty much 50/50.
The ‘light at the back’ thing is often a pub myth.

I believe they are very much the exception, but I am not going to argue, I defer to your knowledge.

 

[Cocijo]

There’s so much tripe written about weight distribution being the reason for poor snow performance in RWD cars, it does my head in.
As a BMW owner several times over, If I had a quid for every time I heard ‘BMWs are light at the back’…honestly…
The truth is they have 50/50 weight distribution and, on standard tyres, aren’t any worse than FWD cars in snow (IE equally crap).
FWD is certainly safer for most people, but the sudden torque of EVs combined with weight transfer does make them wheelspin monsters.

I don’t normally disagree with many of your comments but I certainly don‘t agree regarding BMW rear wheel drive cars!
Like you, I and my family have had quite a few BMW cars over the Years and travelled a lot of miles in them. My experience with 3 Series and 5 Series BMW regarding grip and traction in icy and snowy conditions is that they are appalling.
I recall on many occasions not being able to climb a nearby hill in my BMW’s as my neighbours in their VW golfs and (mostly front wheel drive cars) merrily drove past me.
Many would ask why my car would not go up the hill! They would say ‘you’re giving it too much revs it should do that’.
I tried all sorts but the rear wheel drive BMW is terrible in that situation.
A family member recently moved to a 3 Series and I had the call one day - what’s wrong, why won’t my car go up a hill when all the other cars seem to manage it??
The X drive model was introduced in the 3 and 5 series and this much improved things.
Why this is the case I don’t know but my extensive experience is they are really terrible in those type of conditions.

 

[bowfer]

I don’t normally disagree with many of your comments but I certainly don‘t agree regarding BMW rear wheel drive cars!
Like you, I and my family have had quite a few BMW cars over the Years and travelled a lot of miles in them. My experience with 3 Series and 5 Series BMW regarding grip and traction in icy and snowy conditions is that they are appalling.
I recall on many occasions not being able to climb a nearby hill in my BMW’s as my neighbours in their VW golfs and (mostly front wheel drive cars) merrily drove past me.
Many would ask why my car would not go up the hill! They would say ‘you’re giving it too much revs it should do that’.
I tried all sorts but the rear wheel drive BMW is terrible in that situation.
A family member recently moved to a 3 Series and I had the call one day - what’s wrong, why won’t my car go up a hill when all the other cars seem to manage it??
The X drive model was introduced in the 3 and 5 series and this much improved things.
Why this is the case I don’t know but my extensive experience is they are really terrible in those type of conditions.

Yup, but I’ve also seen Audis and VWs just as bad.
Still see them struggling up our road in the winter.
Change the tyres and it’s amazing the transformation (as with any car)
It’s certainly not a weight distribution issue, they are not ‘light at the back’

 

[Deleted member 10041]

I don’t normally disagree with many of your comments but I certainly don‘t agree regarding BMW rear wheel drive cars!
Like you, I and my family have had quite a few BMW cars over the Years and travelled a lot of miles in them. My experience with 3 Series and 5 Series BMW regarding grip and traction in icy and snowy conditions is that they are appalling.
I recall on many occasions not being able to climb a nearby hill in my BMW’s as my neighbours in their VW golfs and (mostly front wheel drive cars) merrily drove past me.
Many would ask why my car would not go up the hill! They would say ‘you’re giving it too much revs it should do that’.
I tried all sorts but the rear wheel drive BMW is terrible in that situation.
A family member recently moved to a 3 Series and I had the call one day - what’s wrong, why won’t my car go up a hill when all the other cars seem to manage it??
The X drive model was introduced in the 3 and 5 series and this much improved things.
Why this is the case I don’t know but my extensive experience is they are really terrible in those type of conditions.

Similar experience with a BMW 3 series , the X drives were available on the continent long before the UK because of the need for better grip in the bad weather, added to the rules re winter tyres in the alpine countries

 

[Rolfe]

I remember being held up by a nasty crash on the A702 at Lawhead one February in quite thick snow. I had winter tyres all round on my Golf, and was able to drive through it easily - until I came to the two-car smash that is, when I had to wait ages for the police and ambulance and so on to get the road clear.

Describing it to a friend later he said, "so the BMW was coming down the hill?" I said yes, then stopped and said, how did you know it was a BMW? Because I hadn't mentioned that part. He said, given what happened, it had to have been.

Also, it was a BMW that wrote off my dear departed Golf, so I'm not best disposed to them right now.

 

[bowfer]

Similar experience with a BMW 3 series , the X drives were available on the continent long before the UK because of the need for better grip in the bad weather, added to the rules re winter tyres in the alpine countries

Put snow rates tyres on a normal 3 series and they’re unlikely to need the X-drive.
Only sheer depth of snow scraping the front spoiler stopped my 3 on winters, not grip.

 

[Ian Key]

In the good old days when cars were smaller and lighter I hardly ever got stuck in my Triumph Herald because the tyres were that thin they would cut through the snow and not just sit on top. It was the only time it out performed BMWs and Porches