MG4 SE SR has DC charging limitations
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- Опубликовано: 13 окт 2024
- Hey guys and thanks for tuning in this week.
Since the arrival of my MG4 SE Standard Range my eye has been on charging. As I do many trips of 100 mile plus and part of my decision to buy this car, as well as its price and drive quality, was the 'advertised' 117kW peak charging speed. Although this isn't the be all and end all, I think it's fair for the consumer to be able to achieve was the car is advertised as acceptably capable of and if we can't, then expectations should be managed at a manufacturer or dealership level.
In November 2022, I performed a DC Ultra fast charging test at Ionity on my MG4. In my opinion I ticked all the boxes to reach the optimum charging speed for this car (you can watch this video in the link below) and despite trying everything the car fell very short.
In this video I test the charging again, trying another reliable ultra fast charger, Tesla V3 Supercharger and I discuss the variables as to why I think software has a lot to do with this shortfall rather than chargers or climate.
I'd love to hear your opinion on the matter of charging and manufacturers managing expectations.
If you enjoy this video and like my content, a like, share and sub would be fantastic.
Car: 2022 MG4 SE SR
Topic: Charging Expectations and Limitations
Charger: Tesla V3 Supercharger, Celtic Manor, Newport
Arrival SoC: 24%
Energy added: 8kWh
Price £5.68
Useful References:
DC ULTRA-FAST CHARGING TEST November 2022
• MG4 SE STD DC ULTRA-RA...
Bjørn Nyland MG4 range and charging review
• MG4 51 kWh range test
• MG4 51 kWh, Atto 3 and...
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Thanks as always,
Stu
#MG4 #MG4SESR #MG4charging #LFPcharging
MG have changed the specifications of MG4, on the sites and on the brochures and now in DC it indicates a maximum power of 88 kW
Thanks for comment. In my 6-month ownership video I discuss this very point 👍
Its nice to see the Brynglas tunnels in a RUclips video. I tried the same Tesla charger at the Celtic Manor in late December and was getting maybe 40kW. Was bloody freezing mind.
That’s cool. Did you try preheating etc?
I just charged my MG4, got 130-140kW untill 70% then dropped to 70kW.. It's 6 degrees here, pre-heated the battery.. So 10-80% took 22 mins. on my top spec
That’s fantastic speeds. That’s how’s it’s done 💪
Thanks for the video Stuart. I'm curious about the software updates, were they over the air or did you have to go into a dealer to get them? Thanks
Hi Neerav, these were done at the dealer
In my day Software was tested properly. In house testing followed by a limited number of beta testers. Now companies seem to chuck it out to the public first and wait for the flack before doing anything. Also those on smart energy meters have find the companies can remotely update the meter to be prepaid only. Time for EV drivers to be able to rewind software updates or to be fully informed before a new update is loaded?
Why would you want to rewind to older more buggy software? I would rather fix forward.
“First buyers” are the new beta testers 🤣
@@richardthegreat well since software follow agile everybody is a 1st buyer. As nobody does waterfall development anymore
@@damiendye6623 nobody? 😂 ever heard of “agile-fall”?
@@richardthegreat ys but unfortunately Google, Amazon, Microsoft, eBay and all the big players still use it and it not going away like waterfall development did because major release cycles are to costly and don't generate revenues
I have a Mini Cooper S E with a 32.6kWhr battery with no battery precondition on the move and in 15 months / 8900 miles I have only had 1 charge that got close to the maximum declared charge speed of 50kW and that was 49kW on a 50kW charger on a 31C day, car parked in the sun.
That’s good considering No preconditioning but at 31c it shouldn’t require it etc
Maybe the integrated heater is just not powerful enough to heat the LFP in winter to get to 115kW. The heat pump version can heat the battery with 8-10 kW while consuming 3. Maybe Tesla insulates their batteries better. Get an OBD II scanner. The battery needs to be at at least 40C. Guessing will not help.
Great comment. I did consider that but evidence of drivers in 30c heat have same issue. I’m waiting for carscanner to update their app for MG4 and I’ll be all over it. 😊
The standard only charges at most 88kW. Since the new model code went out, it's now in the specs 88kW. It's a LFP limitation.
Tesla model 3 has a 60kwh LFP.
Charges at 170kw...
@@akacicaa that's a reason why Tesla screw up their costumers with huge degradation on the first builds. "Charges at" is somewhat misleading too. it can go up to 170kW DC. specially, in LFP, in any other brands including MG, you first go fast in the first 30% and start to slow down a lot. NMC can take higher power for more time.
@@pushdword where did you get information about "early cars degradation"? Proof?
My point is Tesla can reach almost twice the speed relative to the battery size. There is no reason for mg not to reach 100kw for the first 10-30%. I know its not that important, but still
Lots of cars you won't get peak speed arriving at 25% but it does seem that these cars won't go above 80-odd kw. Bjorn Nyland has just been testing one in Thailand where it's warm and he's arriving on low SoC, it was also topping out consistently at that level. 117kw seems a bit of a pipe dream on MG''s behalf.
I agree with you they should not be advertising unachievable speeds.
Damn!! I am replacing my ZS EV with an MG4 because no matter how low the charge or warm the battery it won't charge higher than 30 kw. This is such a disappointing think to lean!
@@tonychallinor6721 if it's the 64kwh version it will charge faster
My main consideration is will it take long enough to rechange at a busy rapid charger for me to be able to take the kids for a meal and toilets , or will I have to break off to move the car and get indigestion.
Indeed. You can throttle the charge by limiting how many amps it can use in the app/car. But, it’s not something I’d do personally unless there’s other chargers available
Where car manufacturers are concerned, you can't believe anything they tell you, that's a given
my mg4 jumped straight to 140kw charging. After preheating for 20mins under way to they charger.
I barely make it back with my coffee before the car is ready to go again
That’s 😎 that’s how every car should be now. You’ll have to take a flask next time 😂
I did manage to get the 135kW with an MG4. It was autumn and it worked good. I arrived with 40% and it did charge pretty well, achieving the claimed speeds.
It also seems like the standard rage doesn't have battery preconditioning. Only those with Li-Ion have it afaik.
That’s great rate at 40% but this should be the normal for ground up EVs 👍
I understand that the LFP batteries need 100% charges for the BMS to sort things out. From first having the car until recently I did not charge the car to 100%. During this periods the range calculated by miles and percentage battery usage did not talley with miles per kW hr indication. Having charged it to 100% the numbers have come into alignment. I was wondering if your car had recently had 100% charge prior to doing the test or like me you were running it in a continuous part charged state? I'm grasping at straws hers I think.
Thanks john, it’s a great point and indeed correct. Unfortunately, I’m always charging to 100% and even discharging to 10% to help the cells balance out and help the BMS be more accurate etc 👍
@@stuart_thomas Talking of charging to 100%, when I charge my car on the granny cable, it still seems to draw power after it has reached 100%. Is that the BMS balancing the pack and should I leave it connected until this stops happening? I am a little worried that I am over charging the battery.
@@redjohn20001 it’s fine john. Like you said it’s balancing the cells.
I think we will never see the 117 Kw or something about 100 because the 2023 version of the mg4 se is sold with a peak of only 88. In my oppinion MG is lying with its statement the mg4 2022 can reach 117.
Couldn’t agree more. I’d be lying if I said that peak speed wasn’t a factor in buying this car. At the time is was 20kW slower than the Long range peak speed which is very competitive on paper
Have you tried charging the battery to 100% on a fast charger? İf so how much time did it take?
Not to full, it’s not worth it has it tapers off after 60% and it’s quicker to move on and charge again at a lower state of charge. However, I have charger my Tesla to 100% on a supercharger.
Check out my DC charging video where I charger the MG4 from 3-80%, spoiler alert 🚨 it charged quicker than the MG suggest 👍
Chargers in europe have been shown charging it upto 150kw its the UK infrastructure id say
That sounds like the long range model with the NMC pack👍
Aww man im getting the SR model in march. Oh well i will complain and get free charge credit 😁😁
@@doriantomaszewski1240 don’t worry the charging curve is still great 👍
Is your LKA 'autosteer' as scary as Bjorn's!??
😂 It’s not, but I do only use TJA which isn’t scatty and unpredictable but I also wouldn’t trust it on anything but a motorway. Luckily apart from the missing rear cabin light I think most of the issues on the MG4 can be sorted with software. Bjorn does make a lot of references to premium vehicles and this car isn’t their competition… well, apart from the way it drives 😉
Does the SR not have ‘Intelligent Battery Heating’ 🤔
I'm not sure the battery heating is to get the battery to the optimum temp, more a workable temp and it's meant for really low temps. For comparison sometimes in January my mk1 ZS EV would struggle to peak at 30kW so I'd not get in a panic seeing 80 to 90kW on a LFP pack in winter. Given that the 20% to 80% time is the same or better than spec with the lower peak rate it might be that at some point the charge curve was changed and avoiding heating the pack with 100Kw+ means they can ramp the power more gently?
Hi Clive , it does and it was activated for nearly 75 mins.
There is no way you should (despite manufacturer claims) charge a LiFePO4 cell at more than 1C, especially at sub 20 degree ambient temperature. You will seriously degrade its life by doing so. Long term tests of CATL (and other brands like EVE) LiFePO4 normal large capacity cells suggest that 0.4C is optimal (the cells are more easily actively balanced during charging and maintain a higher floating charge). The battery pack is 51kw, so my guess would be that the BMS on the battery pack is monitoring the cells and throttling the charge. These cells have a very flat charging curve except at low and high state of charge (the very ends of the curve). The BMS will be monitoring the cell voltages and will be trying to balance the cell voltages to keep the range (highest to lowest) down to (probably) below 100mv (0.100V). My guess is that the cell balancer hardware is hard at work at 70kwh and over that the difference is too great, so it keeps throttling the charge back. It would be interesting to see if anyone has hacked the software to read individual cell voltages (as I can do on my house battery system - which is a 48 cell 51kwh cell stack). I would wager a lot of money that watching the changing voltages would show exactly as I describe). One test you can do is to do a fast (70kwh) charge, go for a run until you have about 10% charge left and see what range the car says you have. Switch it off, go for a coffee. Come back, and check. I would bet the % charge has bumped up, and/or the range. Now do the same with only a 7kwh or 22kwh charge. You may find the range is better overall, but the bump at the end is less noticeable.
I would suggest that 22kw ought to be the fastest to use for the MG short range pack (but from the data sheets on the MG4, that seems no faster than the 7kwh charger). The Long Range pack uses different chemistry, that can take the much higher charge rate (as people who have the Trophy will tell you). So, yes, MG saved money using LiFePO4, probably at least £1k on the battery pack, to hit their entry price point. Almost every review I have seen ignores the battery chemistry difference.
Thanks for detailed response Trevor, I very much appreciate it. I do agree with most that you say. The two chemistries are very different at a charging level. I don’t have an issue with super fast charging speeds, 70/80kW is fast enough with a great charging curve in my opinion. My issue isn’t with what it’s capable or not capable of it’s the marketing used by manufacturers. Managing expectations is important and my point is that MG shouldn’t be waving figures to consumers which just aren’t realistic.
I’ve fortunately owned my MG4 long enough to have a good idea of range without the guess-o-metre and I’m AC charging 90% of the time at 6.4kW (max).
Thanks for your input here, it’s greatly appreciated
UK will have winter temps too anđ that is the main reason if temps are still below 15°C
The preconditioning = battery heating needs to heat longer and more which means you have to check the battery valve temps.
ODBeleven should give you the real figures you need.
the luxury = trophy version has even outperformed the 140 kW and peaked around 147 kW.
MG is making misleading ads with false specs n claims regarding the lfp version.
They have too many issues which must have forced them to limit the lfp charging speed shortly before internatiinal shipping began.
Your Thailand friend must have seen high charging figures. He has not (and I guess he had been at a fast dc charger) so you can not expect higher charging speeds even in summer and 25°C temps.
Software is the limiting factor
Agree with a lot of this. I see the trophy/luxury is hitting cracking speeds which is perfect even at 40% SoC. As soon as carscanner releases support for MG4 I’ll be all over it. I’m at MG on Theda day so I’ll be letting them know etc
It is a Standard Range affordable, Chinese made car. 80 to 90kW is normal for China EVs in that price classification. They focus more on Charging Curve.
I agree. 90kW is quite good for LFP. Unfortunately, it’s sold as a 115kW peak charge and I think MG should adjust this. Better to under promise etc
Thanks for the video. The power consumption screen on your car looks different to the screen on mine (Trophy) The layout is the mirror image to mine - plus your consumption graph is more detailed than mine. Mine just shows a straight line average. I wonder if this means we are on different software releases, or is it because the SR and Trophy use different battery software versions? (BTW I live just a few miles fro you by the look of it 😃)
From what I understand the Trophy's battery usage graph has never worked. Mine certainly hasn't and I've seen similar reports from the MG4 forum and various MG EV Facebook groups. Hopefully fixed at some point.
Same here. Trophy consumption has straight line. Also it’s very annoying we have to keep disabling lane keep assisting.
I given up with forum I don’t think MG takes anything from there.
The lane disabling requirement is becoming more common on all new cars with lane disabling, I am afraid. I have it on my Hyundai i30.
I'm in Braintree and have used the gridserve 350kw chargers and still only get upto 80kw
I was told by an employee that it was because of the cold weather more than likely
Did you use the intelligent heating prior to arrival David?
@Stuart Thomas I had been driving the car all evening and I'm pretty sure that was on too yeah
@@davelenderson I think that helps prove the point thanks david
@Stuart Thomas all wrong nothing to do with the car or the software.
Doing homework on the battery example look up article:
New Tests Prove: LFP Lithium Batteries live longer than NMC
in the tests it reads ''LFP Lithium ion batteries normally charge at a lower rate, often up to 1.5 C rate''
So for the 51 version around 75kwh seems Realy normal for the lfp
Mg can say what ty want with high numers its normal to charge at that speed.
Not all lithium ion phosphate cells are created equal.
Thanks for the comment and I understand what you’re saying. LFP does operate at a lower voltage but they don’t have thermal limitations like other chemistries so as long as the cells are controlled correctly by the BMS there’s no reason why they won’t charge faster (obvs not as faster as NMC) under the right conditions and this is something Tesla experienced when they introduced LFP to the model 3. They limited the performance and charge speeds in software. When everyone kicked off a software update was sent out and although it doesn’t performed like their other cells (which is expected) it did meet expectations.
Nothing abnormal to see here - it’s the BMS that protects the battery pack. Welcome to lithium ion phosphate battery technology and it’s limitations.
I’d say it’s a little over protective but Tesla had the same issue and resolved it. Fingers crossed and all that 😊
@@stuart_thomas I’m at not an issue. It is what it is.
I can charge my diesel car with 894 kwhr of diesel in 5 minutes. That is over 10,000 kwhrs per hour.
Carrying a tank of tens of gallons of co2 generating pollution is clearly the future.
Wow, impressive I dread to think how much that cost you?
You can cancel out the two hours and just say 10000kW 😂
Of course you can, but the idea of electric vehicles is to stop burning the planet.
90 litre tank?
I just go to a petrol station and fill up in 5 minutes 😂
Thanks for that Dick.
Until governments decide you can’t.
The climate change deniers have rolled up... 🙄
My car fills up at home while I sleep for about 2p a mile, not been to a petrol station for 5 years 😄
@@MattHill303 you might not be aware that not everybody , me included , is able to charge a car at home , also some of us enjoy a day’s driving great roads in northern England and southern Scotland , for no reason other than the shear hell of it .