Setting target battery level issue

[Mihir]

The heater won't be on in @Mihir s post as he's not in the car and I'm assuming it isn't preheating. So it's showing range with the heater off.

What I'm saying is if you look at predicted range on the ismart app its likely to be predicted range with the heater off.

See - heater off
View attachment 7281


Heater on
View attachment 7282

Spot on @Merry: Range shown was without preheating and heater off. It showed me 211 miles on Eco. But it dwindled down even faster! Here is the pic I took this morning before starting:

 

[Mihir]

Looks like MG have been ahead of Teslas on this one!! But now we know one of the reasons SR cannot have custom charge levels and also the displayed range not being consistent with driven range I've mentioned in my recent posts on other threads.Can connect the dots now -

Tesla automatically setting LFP battery charge limits to 100% to prevent 12V Li-Ion batteries from failing

Earlier this week we told you about some new Tesla owners who were experiencing their 12V Li-Ion batteries failing when the vehicle’s main battery was at a low state of charge (SOC). The problem was […]

driveteslacanada.ca

 

[Lovemyev]

As an example, the SR battery will charge to 100% SOC on a Rapid Charger, the LR battery is limited to 95% SOC on a Rapid Charger.

We have a Trophy ? LR and when we collected it, the SOC was at 98%.
Chorley Group Burley have there own rapid charger on site, so I suspect it would have been charged using this rapid.
We had a fairly long journey home, so they probably just charged it to 100% for us.
Well at least I know it rapid charged okay !.
It will be a LONG time until it will see its next one ?!.

 

[Hotlush]

We have a Trophy ? LR and when we collected it, the SOC was at 98%.
Chorley Group Burley have there own rapid charger on site, so I suspect it would have been charged using this rapid.
We had a fairly long journey home, so they probably just charged it to 100% for us.
Well at least I know it rapid charged okay !.
It will be a LONG time until it will see its next one ?!.

Tbh other than a trip to the outlaws we've never needed to use a rapid in 2 years and even then I only used it because it was free ?
Only other times have been to check CCS was still working after a few ZE50 owners reported theirs stopped after some updates.

 

[Laurie]

Because the SR has an LFP battery, you can’t set a charge limit like the LR version, because LFP doesn’t degrade from frequent 100% charge
That’s what I’ve been explained

It annoys me because I don’t have regen until the battery reaches around 97%

Same, except I have to get down to about 90% to have regen kick in. First time i charged it, it ran away with me up the hill, I felt like I was riding a race horse and had to yell "whoa" HAHAHAH.

 

[profdraper]

Whenever I try to set the target battery level both in the car's infotainment screen or on the iSmart app, it seems to be jump back to 100% and due to this I am never able to charge upto only say 80%. I have to either use Ohme's charging app to limit my charging(They do not have integration with MG ZS EV charging yet. So its again manually done in a complicated way!) or have to manually hit finish charging when the level hits 80% on the iSmart app/car infotainment screen. If I set to charge at night, this means I need to stay awake till it gets to 80% to manually stop it!

Also when I try to set to a different level, the estimated range number never changes. Here is a video on the issue. The same thing happens on the iSmart app too :



Anyone having such issues?Or managed to resolve it?
@navneeth1986 ? I vaguely remember you having mentioned this at some point. Did you manage to resolve it?

Yes, annoying, contradictory and vague - MG and manual appear none the wiser. Here’s what I’ve been able to glean after having owned a Mk1 for two years, and now the Mk2 facelift SR:

Yes, the charging control on the SR & the LR are different; so are the battery chemistries. The LR has the same NMC chemistry as per my MK1, and the Mk2 SR has the LFP chemistry. Should be all good, 3k NMC vs 10k cycles commonly rated for LFP, meant to be safer etc. And yes, the LR MG with NMC has an 80% break point slider but the SR will not use this, only 100%. The only way to charge to 80% appears to be using the scheduling and a little math.

Best charging behavior for LFP batteries

I have been writing about the importance of LFP (LiFePO4) batteries for a while now, but I haven’t written about the best charging behavior for this battery chemistry yet. It’s time to write a small, but important article about the subject, especially because I have seen some confusion on online...

pushevs.com

The difference in range for EVs can also be commonly matched to the chemistry, eg: Tesla MY too uses LFP for the shorter range & NMC for the long range (BYD are one brand that use LFP for all ranges). Tesla are fine with charging to 100% for the LFP, but drilling down further into user groups, or seems that’s more about Tesla wanting better stats for their SOC while they’re happy for the battery to maybe take a bit of a hit given its greater robustness & longer rated cycles; many owners more regularly charge to 80-90%.

Back to MG: some fora have indicated that ‘MG recommend regularly charging to 80%’, but I see no evidence of this in the manual. However in the Charging & Dischrging sections of the manual, they do rabbit on about ‘battery pack 1 & battery pack 2’ but never define the difference (one assumes one must be the LR NMC because of the lengthier charging times. Still no recommendations about LFP or otherwise…

Finally, the manual also rabbits on extensively about equalization charging as per the MK1, but nowhere can I see as to how to verify that (the MK1 had indicative lighting), how to do so etc. The manual indicates lengthy equalization times.The Interweb seems none the wiser (other thread on that in this forum).

Battery equalisation

Did you monitor how much electricity it used? I wonder if it uses more to equalise than to just charge to full? Er shurely not?

www.mgevs.com

MG4 Equalisation Charge

Can someone clarify for me just what is meant by "frequently" using rapid chargers, and how this affects the SR battery? There is a rapid charger at the end of my street which is no more expensive than my domestic electricity supply. One charging regimen that seems convenient to me is to give...

www.mgevs.com

Is this documented anywhere in the manual or something? I can relate to what you say here. When I charged my car over the weekend using a rapid charger, it did charge to 100%.

Nope.

It annoys me because I don’t have regen until the battery reaches around 97%

Not true, KERS 3 OR 2 is always working; if at 100% it will need to wait a little of course, until there’s some space to put it.

Looks like MG have been ahead of Teslas on this one!! But now we know one of the reasons SR cannot have custom charge levels and also the displayed range not being consistent with driven range I've mentioned in my recent posts on other threads.Can connect the dots now -

Tesla automatically setting LFP battery charge limits to 100% to prevent 12V Li-Ion batteries from failing

Earlier this week we told you about some new Tesla owners who were experiencing their 12V Li-Ion batteries failing when the vehicle’s main battery was at a low state of charge (SOC). The problem was […]

driveteslacanada.ca

Don’t’ see it, the MG hearsay is problematic

 

[mick31]

Because the SR has an LFP battery, you can’t set a charge limit like the LR version, because LFP doesn’t degrade from frequent 100% charge
That’s what I’ve been explained

It annoys me because I don’t have regen until the battery reaches around 97%

I agree, I think this is a major issue, brakes don’t seem to do anything and when you are used to using regen first part of the drive is not great. Had a Niro before this and charged to 100% on long journeys and didn’t notice a thing.

 

[DB Go Rex]

I agree, I think this is a major issue, brakes don’t seem to do anything and when you are used to using regen first part of the drive is not great. Had a Niro before this and charged to 100% on long journeys and didn’t notice a thing.

I'm surprised you didn't. I had an Ioniq which uses pretty much the same drive train and software as the Nitro and at 95%+ regen was disabled or limited (you even get a warning) and there is a noticeable difference in breaking behaviour if you had it previously set to the highest level Lvl3. Maybe not quite as dramatic as the MG but noticeable.

 

[littleflower]

Mine was charging set to max 80% but had to increase to 100% as I was going on a long journey. Ever since I have lost the arrow to change the level.
I have the cheapest one (SE?)

The biggest issue for me is the lack of regen when the battery is fully charged.
I see the difference on my commute : 24-25kwh/100kms when the battery is full and no regen ; 18-19kwh/100kms when I can regen

And you have to be careful as you have to actually brake harder when it is full!