Up a creek without a paddle.

[Long Tom]

Saturday morning. Decided to clean the inside of the windows, as forward vision is handy. Moved the car to allow all around access, went to press the stop button and a warning light HV battery disconnect followed by more faults than you could shake a stick at. Tried pressing the stop button would not turn off, the steering lock was engaged car live and unable to do a thing. At this point phoned dealer and informed to get it recovered on Monday. So phoned recovery and described fault they said they would send a operative out. 5 hours later car has been sat there unlocked and still turned on.
Recovery eventually turned up and tested 12v battery reading 6volts. changed battery and car operable with host of faults they eventually reset and all seems back to normal. Much food for thought?
Questions remain :-
1, car does not fail to a safe state.
2, what happens when the battery fails whilst driving.
3, Could the car be moved in that state.

 

[Gomev]

Saturday morning. Decided to clean the inside of the windows, as forward vision is handy. Moved the car to allow all around access, went to press the stop button and a warning light HV battery disconnect followed by more faults than you could shake a stick at. Tried pressing the stop button would not turn off, the steering lock was engaged car live and unable to do a thing. At this point phoned dealer and informed to get it recovered on Monday. So phoned recovery and described fault they said they would send a operative out. 5 hours later car has been sat there unlocked and still turned on.
Recovery eventually turned up and tested 12v battery reading 6volts. changed battery and car operable with host of faults they eventually reset and all seems back to normal. Much food for thought?
Questions remain :-
1, car does not fail to a safe state.
2, what happens when the battery fails whilst driving.
3, Could the car be moved in that state.

1, fortunately not experienced this
2, hopefully shouldn't fail when driving as constantly topped up by HV.
3, did you try? but since it warned HV battery disconnect then I would think not.

 

[Jomarkh]

Where you able to plug it into your EVSE to see if a quick zap might have changed things!

 

[BugEyed]

1. Was the car still driveable? I'd argue that would be a safer failure mode if you were on a motorway when this happened. But if the HV battery was disconnected then it sounds as if it was undeliverable.
2. The 12v battery wasn't broken (as in open circuit), more just discharged. I'd be more worried about how it got to this state. After sitting with the systems on for 5 hours I'm not surprised that the 12v was flat but what caused the initial issue?
3. Did you try moving it? My guess is that it wouldn't.

For the future carry a 10mm spanner to be able to disconnect the 12v battery.

Similar issues bugged the delayed initial deliveries of ID3 and Zoë 50 amongst others, caused by damaged 12v batteries from sitting around waiting before being delivered. Out of interest how long have you had the car and how many miles have you done this week?

 

[1UKDUDE]

had loads of problems with my hyundai ionic 12v battery

 

[Slipstream]

Sounds like a faulty 12volt to me.

 

[Colin Maguire]

1, fortunately not experienced this
2, hopefully shouldn't fail when driving as constantly topped up by HV.
3, did you try? but since it warned HV battery disconnect then I would think not.

I've had this when my car was a couple of months old! I too felt helpless....I was in a public car park!. Luckily there was a friend nearby with jump leads!!!. That got me going again. Spoke to my dealer and he said this can happen if you don't press the brake pedal hard enough....had no trouble since then!

 

[BugEyed]

Spoke to my dealer and he said this can happen if you don't press the brake pedal hard enough

The old "blame the user" obfuscation. It should only go into one of two modes - full drive or Aux+ (where you can use the windows and AC). There shouldn't be a failure mode whatever the user does.

 

[Colin E]

1. Was the car still driveable? I'd argue that would be a safer failure mode if you were on a motorway when this happened. But if the HV battery was disconnected then it sounds as if it was undeliverable.
2. The 12v battery wasn't broken (as in open circuit), more just discharged. I'd be more worried about how it got to this state. After sitting with the systems on for 5 hours I'm not surprised that the 12v was flat but what caused the initial issue?
3. Did you try moving it? My guess is that it wouldn't.

For the future carry a 10mm spanner to be able to disconnect the 12v battery.

Similar issues bugged the delayed initial deliveries of ID3 and Zoë 50 amongst others, caused by damaged 12v batteries from sitting around waiting before being delivered. Out of interest how long have you had the car and how many miles have you done this week?

I agree about flakey batteries waiting delivery as a new car. Mine lasted a week, then gave similar problems. Fortunately we have mobile battery replacement service, replaced at home.

 

[opyate]

We went to France via ferry last week, and the first rapid charger I plug into conks out the car. (Attached, photo of the error on the dash, and the charger which caused it.)

After a few hours of me and the French tow truck guy communicating via Google Translate, I find this forum and the number 10 spanner trick (disconnect 12V battery to reset the system). In the end it cost me 4 hours in the scorching sun (waiting, phoning, researching, talking to other helpful EV owners, etc) and €140 just to end up using his number 10 spanner, which I later remember I had in the boot anyway so I could take off the roof rack if I needed to.

Not the best way to start a holiday! I'll wait until I have a long range Tesla or e-tron etc before leaving the country again, that's for sure.

Apart from that, the ZS has been great for local driving. The local Cotswold hills knacker the battery, but luckily we're mostly driving in mostly-flat Cheltenham.

 

[BugEyed]

I'll wait until I have a long range Tesla or e-tron etc before leaving the country again, that's for sure.

Why? Because it'll be more fun posing in one while you wait to get rescued in the same situation? Don't think that they don't suffer from the same issues, because (apart from Tesla on their own Supercharger network) they do. And the e-tron is so inefficient that you'll spend a lot more time charging.
The issue relates to the poorly defined CCS standard inflicted on us by the German car industry and the EU. So sadly we are stuck with the issues until the standard is tightened up and the car manufacturers, charge point manufacturers and networks all come within it.

 

[opyate]

Why? Because it'll be more fun posing in one while you wait to get rescued in the same situation?

While I was stranded next to the charger, both an e-tron and a Tesla (using an adapter) plugged in and charged without issues, so they seemed more reliable. (An ID-4 also plugged in, but it's not large enough for my family, so I didn't mention it.) The owners of said vehicles were nice too, trying to help, helping with translations, etc - definitely not there to pose.

 

[Prof1967]

While I was stranded next to the charger, both an e-tron and a Tesla (using an adapter) plugged in and charged without issues, so they seemed more reliable. (An ID-4 also plugged in, but it's not large enough for my family, so I didn't mention it.) The owners of said vehicles were nice too, trying to help, helping with translations, etc - definitely not there to pose.

Was it an instant fault or had you managed to charge the car at all. I've had the issue a couple of times where the HV battery shuts of when charging to 95% on a rapid charger but not an instant shut off when first plugging in.

 

[opyate]

Was it an instant fault or had you managed to charge the car at all. I've had the issue a couple of times where the HV battery shuts of when charging to 95% on a rapid charger but not an instant shut off when first plugging in.

Instant fault. I parked knowing I had 25% left on the battery. I remember the ABB machine showing that I had 10%, then showing "done", but it didn't seem to do any charging.
Bad software or electronics on MG's part? The other cars seemed to handle it.

 

[BugEyed]

Bad software or electronics on MG's part? The other cars seemed to handle it.

It takes two to Tango, or in this case three.

• Car
• Rapid
• Network

Thanks to the poorly written and inconsistently applied CCS standard all three have to understand what each other means, not what they say. So all three have to apply patches to work with each other. In your case either the car or the network hadn't, probably because of the relative rarity of an English resident MG on that French network. That an e-tron worked doesn't shift the blame from the network, and the Tesla was using the far more reliable Chademo standard.
So in short all CCS equipped EVs are a lottery on Rapids. Stick where possible to a network that you know works with your car even if it means less convenience unless you are willing to risk having to do the 12v disconnect and/or DCS reset tricks. And blame the correct people, the German car lobby and the EU for moving us away from Chademo.