Percentage battery display

[MazzyW]

Hi,

I am a 2020 MG ZS EV owner.

Just wondering if there is any way to see the battery capacity remaining as a percentage without having to connect to a charger. I know we have the estimated range in miles, but that is proving very inaccurate in these winter months. We obviously also have the very rudimentary 8 bar display at the bottom edge of the right hand dial, but I was wondering if there is a screen I haven't found yet which shows this displayed as a percentage, or some other reading which is more than just measured in eighths.

I was driving home the other day and went down to 1 bar and got the alert so I pulled in. But when I connected it to the charger it showed I still had 24% battery capacity (I guess it can't show 2 bars once it is lower than 2/8's which would be 25%). However, if I had known it still had 24% I wouldn't hav worried about stopping and finding somewhere to charge.

Anything I'm missing ?

Cheers, Mark

 

[ARealHuman]

Nope! It's not there.

 

[mj224]

There are threads telling you about the bars and % value...One bar is 25% when it first shows as just one bar, but after that you don't know. The GOM should be reasonably accurate at that stage of discharge..

At one bar, you should be seriously looking for a recharge..

 

[Lovemyev]

As a side note, the face lift model of the ZS EV - does have a percentage read out ! .

 

[Coulomb]

You could put an old mobile phone in your car, and run an app that displays only a few data items, perhaps only that one.

The trouble is, it would probably be a phone with a clapped out battery, meaning it would take up to 2 minutes to boot every time you turned on the car, so it would not be available when you probably need it most: just getting in the car. So that's not ideal.

If the battery wasn't clapped out, it likely would be after a few months in the car (hot in summer, only charged when you drive the car, etc).

You could use your actual phone, but then you'd have to futz about setting up the app every time you got in the car. Not ideal.

You could install OVMS and a heads up display, and that would work all the time, but it's a fair chunk of coin. Ideal, but expensive.

Maybe one day you could use one of the data apps with Android Auto or Car Play, but even that requires you to plug in the phone every time. At present, it seems that only a few apps are anointed with the ability to run on the car's display. So still not ideal.

You could trade up to the latest ZS EV model, but even more expensive and disruptive.

Maybe one day someone will hack the display firmware, e.g. so when you use the battery button it displays %SOC as well as estimated range remaining. Maybe SAIC/MG will even do it, but it seems unlikely. I'd be happy to have a go at that, and produce patched firmware, but first we need access to the firmware binary image. No-one seems to have cracked that particular nut as yet, sadly.

In summary, here is a list of all the ideal solutions:

 

[Davemac278]

Useful for reference

 

[JodyS21]

Not ideal but if you stopped the car…..You could reset the trips, so that the GOM calculation is reset, then look at the range shown and figure it out as a percentage of the 100% range - roughly times it by 1.5 would give you the percentage……

As much as I don’t like the GOM….If you reset the trips before your journey, it will then be basing the efficiency on the exact trip you are undertaking and should give you a reasonably accurate range remaining.

I have app on an old tablet I use, also on my phone, and leave the Bluetooth obd2 dongle permanently plugged in.

 

[Tim Falkiner]

Useful for reference

Wowsers! I would have thought when the car went from five to four bars it would be at 50%. They must be using reverse psychology, or, more likely, perverse psychology.

 

[michaelgaunt]

I use car scanner on my phone and it reads the data via dongle.

But battery % is of the 44.5kw total, not the 42.5% usable. So you need to be careful.