Reduced power mode at 23%

[Keith Harris]

Did a 160 mile trip in my MG5 (short range) fine weather but cold (5 deg) lights on for about 30min . Fully charged on the outset showing 190 miles, on the way back with 40 miles on the gom and 23% on the battery, orange battery light came on and shortly after that the reduced power mode came up on the dash. We were about 12 miles from home, thankfully we made it with 17% on the battery, all at reduced pace. Does anybody know how far you can go before complete shutdown, ironically we are test driving the new ZS long range tomorrow, so if we go for it that will sort out the range anxiety , is anyone else out there a little surprised it went into reduced power mode at 23%.

 

[Jomarkh]

Hi, did it actually reduce the power or just advise it as that how I read it when it happens to me and didn't notice any power loss

 

[Keith Harris]

Hi, did it actually reduce the power or just advise it as that how I read it when it happens to me and didn't notice any power loss

Yes it did reduce power , noticed after about 10 mins , then it was quite noticeable with cars lining up behind me, you could feel everything slowing down quite a bit. I was getting about 35-40 mph by the time we got home

 

[MG5]

Mine goes reduced at 4% not 23%

 

[Jomarkh]

I had about 18% left and was still doing 70mph down the motor to see how low it would go and got home with 8% no issues with power

 

[MG5]

Would a balance charge help?

 

[Keith Harris]

Would a balance charge help?

Is that with the granny lead ?

 

[lebelinconnu]

I agree, would seem like it could be a balancing issue. Pretty sure you can do it with the granny lead.

 

[Jomarkh]

You can balance with a 7.5kW EVSE or a 'granny' but it will take 3 times as long

 

[Keith Harris]

You can balance with a 7.5kW EVSE or a 'granny' but it will take 3 times as long

How do you do it then please

 

[Jomarkh]

What home EVSE do you have?
Just plug it in and leave it, once it has finished it will shut the supply off

 

[Kithmo]

How do you do it then please

Just leave the charger connected until the dash says, "connected uncharged".
When it says, "100% finished" the battery is charged but it's still balancing.

 

[Keith Harris]

What home EVSE do you have?
Just plug it in and leave it, once it has finished it will shut the supply off

Ohme charger, yes i have done that a couple of times with the ohms and the granny. Not for a few months though

 

[Jomarkh]

You should balance monthly

 

[Keith Harris]

You should balance monthly

Ok thanks I will try it again

 

[weedavemac]

My MG5 LR went into reduced power mode at 11% battery yesterday. I was accelerating up a hill on a motorway at the time. Car slowed right down to about 50mph. Personally I thought it was a bit dangerous the way it happened but will simply try to avoid that scenario again.

 

[Ozzie1989]

My MG5 LR went into reduced power mode at 11% battery yesterday. I was accelerating up a hill on a motorway at the time. Car slowed right down to about 50mph. Personally I thought it was a bit dangerous the way it happened but will simply try to avoid that scenario again.

That is not good, imagine being in the outside lane overtaking and suddenly loosing power! There should at least be a 60 second warning giving you time to prepare

 

[Petriix]

It's a temperature thing. Trying to draw huge current from a cold, low state of charge battery can do irreversible damage. The BMS protects the battery by limiting the current draw. You can probably avoid it kicking in by accelerating more gently but, once it's kicked in, you'll be severely limited.

 

[SDP79]

You should balance monthly

So far I have completed this balancing charge once in my MG5LR having completed nearly 2k miles. I am with Octopus so it did normal charging for the low rate 4 hours at around 6kWh and then dropped to around 0.5kWh for nearly nearly 10 hours. All this was done automatically - I did not expect it and would have been disappointed had I needed the car fully charged in the morning - fortunately this time I did not! I did not set the car to balance charge. My question is can you set this balancing charge manually? If so how please. Many thanks.

 

[Alb]

It happens automatically (if needed) once the battery is fully charged if it's still plugged in and powered.
I've not done a balancing charge in the 1K miles I've covered so far because I've only had the battery at 100% once in that time. The handbook says that the car will warn you if it thinks it's required:

If an equalisation charge has not been carried out for some
time the message centre in the instrument pack will display
'Please Charge for BMS Balance'.