Range Reading on the centre dial readout

[Frank]

Dear All,

Since having my car (now done just under 3000) I have never had a reading of more than 152 miles range after a full charge overnight from my pod point. The reading I get (always on eco mode) ranges from 149-152 bemuses me somewhat as if the WTLP is supposed to be 163 I was always under the impression that on a full charge it would have shown this at least, but as stated earlier it is never shown more than 152.

I have seen cars readouts on the internet (eco mode) and they have shown readings ranging from 192 to 203, because of this I contacted MG and asked them to explain such a large difference and just to make sure could they do a health check on my battery, after all it is possible to have a battery pack that for some reason does not have ALL its cells working.

Now the car drives perfectly and easily meets all the specs on acceleration and top speed, in fact my car can reach 98 miles an hour no problem and the punchy performance on any type of road is one aspect of the car that I really like (appreciate the fact EV Motors provide ALL the torque and HP instantly). I know that even if my battery pack was only at 80% cells working not SOC (just an arbitrary figure) all it affects is the range and NOT the performance of the car. However this is another reason why I contacted MG as after about 75 miles on a mixture of A roads and a little bit of Motorway (heading from Glasgow to Dumfries) I am down to about two bars and about 35 miles on the GOM which I think is a bit low but doesn't worry me too much as almost 99% of my driving is urban and I usually only do about 60 miles a week around town and starting with a full charge every morning I can drive how I want without having to even think about economy.

So could some of you guys let me know what readings you get on eco mode after a full charge, it would be appreciated as I could use the information in my discussions with MG who surprisingly after nearly a month have still not got back to me.

Regards

Frank

 

[Dave]

Sorry Frank,

The figure you are reading depends on a number of things, including:

Ambient Temperature when charging the battery.
Your Driving Style - which in your case does appear to push the car.
Road conditions when being driven as the GOM (Guessometer) takes into account your last 300 miles or so.
Battery Temperature when charging.


Generally you will see around 20% to 30% improvement in range in the summer compared to the winter. If you are seeing 150 miles in the current cold conditions, you will easily see the advertised range as summer arrives - so don’t panic yet.

I believe the test you are referring to is carried out with the car soaked to 23degC before testing, with the test carried out in a 23degC ambient condition. It certainly does not include driving at 98mph which will severely hit your range, as will using rapid acceleration and braking.

I should mention that if you are driving long trips and use ACC then this will affect your range as well. Unlike ALL other EVs, the MG ZS EV uses the friction brakes rather than regen to slow the car when ACC is active.

I am quite careful driving mine around the Royal Forest of Dean with all its hills and the GOM says around 170 miles when fully charged in these winter months. I have done just over 1000 miles of driving. I would be confident of seeing the car do more than 200 miles in normal driving in the summer.



I did a decent longish trip. From full I drove 110 miles and then car said I had 55 miles range left - so not bad on accuracy.

 

[Mgkev]

Hi Frank, I’ve only had my MG three weeks during this winter and I get a showing of 129 miles range. My Prius PHV has a 39 mile range but when I bought it November 2029 it would only show 28 miles of range. As the summer arrived the range increased to a maximum of 44 miles in September. If the range calculator is sophisticated it could be using parameters such as time of day, time of year, outside temperatures, wipers on etc.
I wouldn’t worry about your range yet.

 

[Frank]

Guys, (Dave & Mgkev)

Thanks for your replies. Dave, did not know that the Range Indicator took into account so many factors, one thought that it would just look at the battery fullness for the want of a better description and just give an estimated range after all that is all it is and I suppose, and an educated guess at that if it does indeed take into account the way the car has been driven over a previous period. The only thing with this is that even from new my car has never shown more than 150 ish so seeing yours above showing 170 still make me question my battery pack. Mgkev, based on your figure of 129 is this the range you have driven!!! from a full charge or the reading from the car after a full charge when in E mode? because if it is the reading from the range on a full charge taken from E mode than that's even lower than my 150 ish readings?

Overall I am not bothered about the range as most if not all of my driving is local and I will be the first to admit that I make good progress when driving and I always keep to the speed limits around town. The 98Mph was just a test to see what it could do. All my long trips are done on E mode regen 3 and I do drive with economy in mind. When driving about in a 30-40 mile radius I will enjoy the cars spirited performance but always taking into consideration other road users, weather, road conditions etc etc. I am 64 not 30 and not a boy racer and it is hoped I didn't give that impression, (however I do like my bikes and lived in Germany for over ten years and made full use of the bike(s) on the Autobahn and even then BMWs etc would still be passing me at 180 MPH!!)

Once again thanks for replying and I will continue to monitor the readings as better/hotter temps are upon us.



Regards

Frank

 

[Stuart Wright]

How heavy your foot is makes a big difference.
In traffic, if you're always accelerating hard and braking, you'll be way less efficient than driving more gently.
Remember that you never get as much energy back into the batteries from regenerating as you expend accelerating. Better not to accelerate and use that energy unless you need to.
On motorways, the difference between 60mph and 70mph is big. If I'm trying to conserve energy, I'll slipstream behind lorries or ideally coaches. Doing anywhere between 55 and 70mph.
I found that evolving from an Audi a4 Avant diesel to my Hyundai Ioniq made a huge change in the way I drive.
Whereas I previously did 90mph on the motorway and was more often than not above the speed limit everywhere else, now I'm more interested in being as efficient as possible and taking the car at a more stady pace. Not everyone will change that way, of course. But it's better for my wallet, my license and my safety.

In my Hyundai Ioniq, I get a range of around 125 miles in the winter and 140 in the summer.

 

[Mgkev]

That 129 miles is what’s on the estimated range after a slow charge at home. If you do lots of short journeys the car has to heat up inside each time and with the resistive heater that the MG has this will eat into the estimated range quite a bit so that 129 miles could be a lot less. I will be gradually going on longer journeys to test the real range of the car soon.

 

[proudZSowner]

do not use solar power but nuclear power you will definitely get ahead ...

 

[rich]

On eco mode, I get around 152 with heater / ac turned on and 163 with heater off

 

[Frank]

Rich,

Thanks, it looks like my readings are "normal" then, once again thanks for replying. Talking about heater, I used to get sufficient heat from my heater on two bars (red ones) and just last week I found that to get ANY heat I now have to use five bars, i.e. all the way up. Car is booked into MG on Tuesday next week to investigate and if the resistive heater needs replacing then like an ICE car it will probably be a pain to replace as it might be deep inside the cockpit, hoping that it is outside the cockpit in the engine (sorry Motor) bay!!!

Frank

 

[Mgkev]

Hi guys, I saw on YouTube that the heater works at half load when in eco mode. Is it possible that in your quest to get the stated range you may have started driving in eco of late?

 

[Frank]

On long trips I always drive on eco mode and the heater was ok on 2 or 3 bars but now needs to be on max to get any heat. I think it is the AC only that goes into a reduced more when in eco mode at least according to the manual, I will however check it out tomorrow

Frank

 

[MGE]

Just for the record on your range reading I have now covered a little over 1000 miles in my ZS EV and home charges via the 7kw charger when fully charged have tended to show a range of around 137 in Normal mode and 154 in Eco.

I note the comment about the difference in driving at 60mph and 70mph on motorways and have found that driving for an hour or so at these speeds tends to take about 20 per cent out of the predicted range. Interestingly I have tended to run on the motorway with the ACC on and wasn't aware this may sap power so I may go back to try old school driving to see if this makes a difference.

I have a regular 110-mile route I cover largely on the motorway and on two recent occasions in cold wet weather have only reached my destination with 14 and 6 miles showing in reserve. At the time of ordering I was told I would not have a problem as the car was good for around 150 miles and my wife was all for giving the car back within the 30 days allowed under consumer protection for it not being up to purpose as stated at purchase but I persuaded her to stick with it.

I'm now hoping range will improve as the weather begins to warm up as I'm informed running in the kind of conditions we have experienced over this past few weeks in the north should see a 20 per cent or so increase in battery capacity and power output once ambient temperatures increase.

 

[Frank]

Thanks for the reply. This just reinforces me that my readings are pretty normal. As I said earlier in my first post I do about 90% (or more) of my driving around town so long range is not really needed, however due to 3 x chargers not working in a row I nearly ran out with 8 miles to go and 4% left in the batttery the other day, all fun. In reality other than the embarrassment and the inconvenience, running out of fuel (any fuel, electric or otherwise) usually just means being towed or low loaded to the nearest charging Point

 

[Jon Thin]

Has anyone else had the problem of erratic readout of range?
Parked to charge with 31 miles range , Ecotricity charger failed to charge but only 20 miles range indicated afterward so could not risk driving to next charger.
So calling out AA for the second time in a month. So far have failed to complete a typical weekend visit to family since we bought the car.

 

[Frank]

Sorry to heAr about your experience but ALL my problems with charging the car when out as about has been with ecotricity chargers and if you read the internet forums no one has a good word to say about them try if possible to use other chargers!!!

 

[Stuart Wright]

Has anyone else had the problem of erratic readout of range?
Parked to charge with 31 miles range , Ecotricity charger failed to charge but only 20 miles range indicated afterward so could not risk driving to next charger.
So calling out AA for the second time in a month. So far have failed to complete a typical weekend visit to family since we bought the car.

Jon if you want to start a new thread showing the (approximate) start and end locations of your regular journey, I'll help with what charging I'd suggest.

 

[Jon Thin]

Sorry to heAr about your experience but ALL my problems with charging the car when out as about has been with ecotricity chargers and if you read the internet forums no one has a good word to say about them try if possible to use other chargers!!!

Thank you Frank. While we spent three h ours waiting for the breakdown truck we saw 4 Nissan Leafs charge successfully so wonder if this is a fault with the sleepy MG.
Anyway got taken to a Genie point in Andover which gave us a full charge.
Had to phone to get them to disconnect the charger by remotely stopping the charge.
Display read out said 165 range and HV battery disconnected so we were stuck again. Neither GeniePoint or MGAA could assist.
Tried everything and finally switched everything off and got out of the car and locked it. Got back in , car started fine with a a range of 147.
Summary of two long journeys , we won’t do any more.
Brighton to Burnley
Abandoned half way because of charging failures. Set out at 10am. Got home after midnight with AA callout. Lost hotel charge of £110 due to late cancellation.
Brighton to Bristol
Set off at 8am arrived at 8pm too late to look after grandchildren after charging failure.
Simply not reliable for two fit 70 year olds to travel cold rainy weekends.

 

[Jon Thin]

Jon if you want to start a new thread showing the (approximate) start and end locations of your regular journey, I'll help with what charging I'd suggest.

Thanks Brighton to Bristol but can’t see why we need to make special arrangements rather than use the motorway system?
After finally getting a GeniePoint charge off the motorway we spent a lot of time on narrow country roads in the dark and had to negotiate floods. We hired a car to do our routine Brighton to Pickering because we couldn’t face a 300 mile journey with 2 charging stops.
Combination of sleepy MG charging, unpredictable changes in range readings and unreliable motorway charging has ended our MGEV experience.

 

[Me in the corner]

On eco mode, I get around 152 with heater / ac turned on and 163 with heater off

That sounds pretty much the same as I’m getting, but I’m no expert. I’ve only had my ZS EV for three weeks ?.... already really love it!

 

[waxy]

Dear All,

Since having my car (now done just under 3000) I have never had a reading of more than 152 miles range after a full charge overnight from my pod point. The reading I get (always on eco mode) ranges from 149-152 bemuses me somewhat as if the WTLP is supposed to be 163 I was always under the impression that on a full charge it would have shown this at least, but as stated earlier it is never shown more than 152.

I have seen cars readouts on the internet (eco mode) and they have shown readings ranging from 192 to 203, because of this I contacted MG and asked them to explain such a large difference and just to make sure could they do a health check on my battery, after all it is possible to have a battery pack that for some reason does not have ALL its cells working.

Now the car drives perfectly and easily meets all the specs on acceleration and top speed, in fact my car can reach 98 miles an hour no problem and the punchy performance on any type of road is one aspect of the car that I really like (appreciate the fact EV Motors provide ALL the torque and HP instantly). I know that even if my battery pack was only at 80% cells working not SOC (just an arbitrary figure) all it affects is the range and NOT the performance of the car. However this is another reason why I contacted MG as after about 75 miles on a mixture of A roads and a little bit of Motorway (heading from Glasgow to Dumfries) I am down to about two bars and about 35 miles on the GOM which I think is a bit low but doesn't worry me too much as almost 99% of my driving is urban and I usually only do about 60 miles a week around town and starting with a full charge every morning I can drive how I want without having to even think about economy.

So could some of you guys let me know what readings you get on eco mode after a full charge, it would be appreciated as I could use the information in my discussions with MG who surprisingly after nearly a month have still not got back to me.

Regards

Frank

hi i get a reading of151 in eco mode,143 in normal mode,137 in sports mode,i have had 93 miles an hour,i have travelled from sheffied to winderemere did 80 miles to garstang tank half full topped back up on a instavolt took it to 137 miles on the clock, got to winderemere and topped it back up on a instavolt backup to 132 so far so good,at the lodge charging on the granny charger