Short range on GOM

[BatterBits]

Hi everyone,

I just bought a used 20MY Exclusive - less than 7k miles on the clock. I've pottered around town, and done a 50 mile round trip, very happy, love the car.

I have a problem though - I don't know the history of updates. I understand that the Comfort2 upgrade has been installed because I can see an external temperature reading on the screen, it was serviced in December 2021, so I would hope that the BMS and other updates should have been done - but I don't know. I have an OBD2 dongle on order, but not yet arrived.

But I'm concerned about the range - in Normal Mode, I have charged it fully with the granny charger, and it reads

Sport - 131 miles
Normal - 139 Miles
Eco - 152 Miles

After the last charge, I zeroed the Accumulated readings, the current journey was also zeroed. This made no difference to the range forecasts and these readings seem to be much lower than what should be "normal"

Wasn't planning to do it this early, but I need to do a 375 mile each way trip this week, I'll be using one of the apps to find the charging points en route, but I'm concerned if these values are real, that I'm going to be living with a stressed OH on the journey. Both ABRP and ZapMap suggest 3 stops each way (from Stafford area, to Oban area) - do you guys think that is realistic or should I try to schedule a 4th stop?

 

[Dave]

I just bought a used 20MY Exclusive - less than 7k miles on the clock. I've pottered around town, and done a 50 mile round trip, very happy, love the car.

I have a problem though - I don't know the history of updates. I understand that the Comfort2 upgrade has been installed because I can see an external temperature reading on the screen, it was serviced in December 2021, so I would hope that the BMS and other updates should have been done - but I don't know. I have an OBD2 dongle on order, but not yet arrived.

But I'm concerned about the range - in Normal Mode, I have charged it fully with the granny charger, and it reads

Sport - 131 miles
Normal - 139 Miles
Eco - 152 Miles

After the last charge, I zeroed the Accumulated readings, the current journey was also zeroed. This made no difference to the range forecasts and these readings seem to be much lower than what should be "normal"

Wasn't planning to do it this early, but I need to do a 375 mile each way trip this week, I'll be using one of the apps to find the charging points en route, but I'm concerned if these values are real, that I'm going to be living with a stressed OH on the journey. Both ABRP and ZapMap suggest 3 stops each way (from Stafford area, to Oban area) - do you guys think that is realistic or should I try to schedule a 4th stop?

In ECO Mode the range shown at this time of the year probably isn’t far off.

I think the MK1 ZS EV was rated at 168 miles range in optimum conditions?

 

[Mr H]

At this time of year I'm getting 138 mile range in normal with air con on mainly motorway driving.

 

[ARealHuman]

Is the battery balanced? Just charged my gen1, in Eco mode 172 miles showing (no chance of getting that though!)

 

[Lovemyev]

IF - The car has received the latest BMS update, and given its low mileage, you should be seeing a predicted range on the GOM of ( or close to ) 161 miles WHEN you have fully charged and balanced on a A/C charger.
Both trips should have been reset and NOTHING is turned on in the car when you are checking !.
Leave you foot OFF the foot brake when you boot up the car.
You may get a yellow battery warning on the dash, but disregard this for this check.
Check the voltage on your HV battery, when fully charged and balanced, you should see between 448 and 450 volts.

 

[Kithmo]

Mine shows 158 miles on the GOM, fully charged and balanced, trips reset, this time of year, Normal mode, no heat and I'm getting about 140 actual on my short urban trips with occasional heater use.

 

[Lovemyev]

Mine shows 158 miles on the GOM, fully charged and balanced, trips reset, this time of year, Normal mode, no heat and I'm getting about 140 actual on my short urban trips with occasional heater use.

I am seeing a consistent 154 miles of range when fully charged & balanced now at 18,000 miles covered.
I suspect your car has covered a lot less mileage @Kithmo ?

 

[Gadget Geek]

Wasn't planning to do it this early, but I need to do a 375 mile each way trip this week, I'll be using one of the apps to find the charging points en route, but I'm concerned if these values are real, that I'm going to be living with a stressed OH on the journey. Both ABRP and ZapMap suggest 3 stops each way (from Stafford area, to Oban area) - do you guys think that is realistic or should I try to schedule a 4th stop?

Always have a plan B and plan C, just in case of diversions, broken or busy chargers etc. ABRP is usually within a few miles of it's estimates so you should be OK.

 

[Kithmo]

I am seeing a consistent 154 miles of range when fully charged & balanced now at 18,000 miles covered.
I suspect your car has covered a lot less mileage @Kithmo ?

3,800 miles to date.

 

[Trevor]

I get 152m in E, and 137m in N.

This week I'm on a training course, 47 miles away. Motorway driving at 70mph, mild level of heating. Arriving home with about 10 miles spare. Average 2.8 m/kWh. If you cut the speed to 60 mph you might get 120m, but I would plan to charge at least every 80 miles as there is every possibility that the charger is not working and you need to find another.

 

[Lovemyev]

3,800 miles to date.

Thought so !.
My guess is that your battery SOH is still 100% given that you have a low usage a pattern .

 

[chowbenter]

The last couple of times I've charged to 100% has also shown 139 miles in Normal mode at this time of year.

 

[Mihir]

Hi everyone,

I just bought a used 20MY Exclusive - less than 7k miles on the clock. I've pottered around town, and done a 50 mile round trip, very happy, love the car.

I have a problem though - I don't know the history of updates. I understand that the Comfort2 upgrade has been installed because I can see an external temperature reading on the screen, it was serviced in December 2021, so I would hope that the BMS and other updates should have been done - but I don't know. I have an OBD2 dongle on order, but not yet arrived.

But I'm concerned about the range - in Normal Mode, I have charged it fully with the granny charger, and it reads

Sport - 131 miles
Normal - 139 Miles
Eco - 152 Miles

After the last charge, I zeroed the Accumulated readings, the current journey was also zeroed. This made no difference to the range forecasts and these readings seem to be much lower than what should be "normal"

Wasn't planning to do it this early, but I need to do a 375 mile each way trip this week, I'll be using one of the apps to find the charging points en route, but I'm concerned if these values are real, that I'm going to be living with a stressed OH on the journey. Both ABRP and ZapMap suggest 3 stops each way (from Stafford area, to Oban area) - do you guys think that is realistic or should I try to schedule a 4th stop?

May be late to the party but saw this in the manual and thought worth sharing. This may also bring down the range if you plan to rapid charge the car at services etc:

Surprisingly, slow charging point according to the manual refers to granny chargers!

 

[Lovemyev]

May be late to the party but saw this in the manual and thought worth sharing. This may also bring down the range if you plan to rapid charge the car at services etc:

View attachment 7147

Surprisingly, slow charging point according to the manual refers to granny chargers!
View attachment 7148

Balance charging can be performed from any A/C unit, because when balancing the demand for power is only around 500 Watts.
A wall box or a Granny will perform balance charging just fine.
Regular D/C rapid charging can cause a cell imbalance across the pack, that can be corrected by using a A/C charger periodically.
MG recommend a balance cycle to be under taken about once a month.
In the Gen1 ZS EV you can get a warning message if the car detects if you using rapid chargers to frequently and it will recommend you carry out a slow charge cycle.
I have not witnessed this myself, because my rapid charging cycles are pretty much zero !.

 

[Mihir]

Balance charging can be performed from any A/C unit, because when balancing the demand for power is only around 500 Watts.
A wall box or a Granny will perform balance charging just fine.
Regular D/C rapid charging can cause a cell imbalance across the pack, that can be corrected by using a A/C charger periodically.
MG recommend a balance cycle to be under taken about once a month.
In the Gen1 ZS EV you can get a warning message if the car detects if you using rapid chargers to frequently and it will recommend you carry out a slow charge cycle.
I have not witnessed this myself, because my rapid charging cycles are pretty much zero !.

Is there a way to manually trigger the balancing? Or it just happens on its own after the charging reaches to 100% on a AC charger(either granny or wallbox)

 

[Alb]

It's only triggered after full charge is achieved.

 

[Kithmo]

According to MG, up to 3kW are "slow" chargers and 7-12kW "fast".
What about 3.1-6.9kW then, my 7kW Pod Point charges at less than 7 due to losses and the car having a 6.6 max limit ?

 

[Lovemyev]

Below about 97% SOC the car will allow roughly around 7 kw’s from a wall box.
My home energy meter records 7.1 Kw’s from a lower SOC.
When the battery hits about 98% SOC the car will then throttle back the demand, to about 3.6 kw’s.
At 100% SOC the balance cycle will commence, the car will then be pulling around 950 Watts.
Quickly this will ramp down again to 500 Watts, then closer to completing the balance cycle it will reduce to 350 Watts and the 175 Watts before finishing shortly after, by automatically opening the contactors in the wall box and returning it to the standby condition.
Supplying 950 Watts to conduct the balance cycle is well within the remit of both the Granny and a wall box of course.
This is why either of these A/C units are totally suitable for balance cycles.
Rapids don’t offer this facility and it would be pretty pointless sitting on the rapid anyway.
Some owners favour to charge to 80% ish and then finish the charge and balance at home with a Granny, if they don’t have a wall box.

 

[BatterBits]

Oh Dear.

So it looks like my journey with the EV is short lived.

We went up to Scotland this week for a funeral, and our experience has been sufficiently anguished, that the car is going back - I'd work around it, but I know when I'm beaten (Wife).

The journey up to Scotland was fine, we had some stops where we expected, and they went well largely, most taking about 45 minutes to reach 80ish% charge.

The problems were when we got up to the West Coast, in Tyndrum - 2 chargers, both listed as functioning in the Charge Scotland app. Both were faulty. I didn't have enough range to make it to Oban, so I called the helpline and asked them where I could go to charge - I had to backtrack to Crianlarich. The app didn't work (I'd previously registered for an account & set up a direct debit) so I had to call the helpline again - they were pretty efficient and managed to get some charge into us.

We then went off to the hotel (Lochnell Arms North Connel - brilliant hotel if anyone needs one in that area), where we granny charged overnight, and had about 110 mile range. Off to Oban, with a similar experience - 2 lots of chargers both out of action. As were the chargers everywhere back to Crianlarich.

Arrived back to the charger we used the day before, again it didn't work. called the helpline to work their magic, except this time, they couldn't start the charger. They suggested the next nearest at Killin - 13 miles away, with a range of 19m remaining on the GOM - you can understand I was less than thrilled, nevertheless, it seemed I had no other option. Wife by now is spitting feathers, mostly in my direction - I had had a long uphill battle to convince her that the world was ready for EV, and this wasn't going well.

I say that, it was just about to get a whole lot worse. Disconnected from the charger, tried to "start" the vehicle, and got a "vehicle control system fault" with the big red icon on the display. That seemed to be terminal - I couldn't move the car.

This was around 3:30pm and briefly, the breakdown service are going to take a minimum of 3 days to get the car back to my home, they were not able to provide a courtesy car because I hadn't thought to bring my driving license (they wouldn't accept a photo I had on my phone) so that's a lesson learned for the future.

The only train I could get (leaving at 10pm) was a sleeper, and was fully booked. Therefore no choice - had to stay overnight in a hotel, and not get back until 17:30 - missing 3 important appointments.

The recovery people that went first, were unable to get the car onto the low loader, and whilst I was on the train, they called me and said they might have to get me to arrange my own recovery and they would reimburse me - thankfully, this didn't happen, another service was sent out and they managed to recover the car. They "hope" to deliver it to my home within 72 hours, we will see if they manage that.

So on the bright side, we purchased the car from Cinch - they have a 14 day no quibble guarantee which we have invoked, they were exceptionally good to deal with, they understand that the car has a major fault, and they can't pick it up until it is delivered back, but still no problem.

Ironically, my better half loves the car, and is asking if we can have a hybrid, or ICE version of it....

Thanks to all for their contributions to this thread.