First go in an EV

[dave99]

Well I had half an hour in a blue Trophy this afternoon - what a nice drive!

I currently drive a 10 year old Kia Ceed SW - (loads of room, massive boot, great visibility) never even sat in an EV before though, and last drove an automatic about 20 years ago so this was a bit of a mind blower.

Failed before setting off not figuring out how to move the drivers seat forwards The car felt really big, its about a foot shorter than my ceed which shows a bit in the boot but was surprised how big it seemed for a hatchback. I see what people are saying about the cills too, did they really need to be that wide? I'm sure its one of those things you just get used to.

Once I'd stopped pressing the imaginary clutch and reaching for the gear stick I got on my way. That motor really pulls, and just keeps going - very nice. Bit of town driving, blast down the motorway, really does feel a much more modern way of driving. Weather was a bit drizzly so there was rain on rear window that didn't seem to clear, I was hoping some kind of aero effect might help but if its wet it seems to stay wet.

Reversing camera looks good, but I think they take a bit of time to trust - feels wrong not looking out of the window, but then there isn't much window to look out of. This is the bit that concerns me a bit, how are people finding manoeuvring the MG4 in tight car parks for example? The camera feels like it should be standard equipment, its a big premium for what is probably the most useful feature of the Trophy?

The big screen feels like it should either be slightly rotatable or face the driver a little more, feels like it takes a bit more attention away than it could do?

Wondering how much I can justify buying now

 

[ph79]

Agree with most of your points to be fair. I have a blue se sr and already dont want to go back to manual ice cars. Agree re rear window in rain but its not caused me major issues. Had a puma for 6 months which had camera and i still found myself checking mirrors etc
Camera is the one thing that i thought id want to see if i could get retro fitted but to be fair there are reversing sensors which helps so for now im ok. Ive found it easy enough to manoeuvre and you do need to reverse more as charger at rear.
Overall i personally couldn't stretch to trophy but am not disappointed with my se spec. Id have considered the longer range but was told i had a guarantee standard range on first batch so just went for it.
Good luck with your decision!

 

[Macadoodle]

Agree with most of your points to be fair. I have a blue se sr and already dont want to go back to manual ice cars. Agree re rear window in rain but its not caused me major issues. Had a puma for 6 months which had camera and i still found myself checking mirrors etc
Camera is the one thing that i thought id want to see if i could get retro fitted but to be fair there are reversing sensors which helps so for now im ok. Ive found it easy enough to manoeuvre and you do need to reverse more as charger at rear.
Overall i personally couldn't stretch to trophy but am not disappointed with my se spec. Id have considered the longer range but was told i had a guarantee standard range on first batch so just went for it.
Good luck with your decision!

What kind of range and miles / kWh are you getting if you don't mind me asking ? I have an SE SR on order and I keep thinking I should have plumped for the extended range .

Probably only cover around 40 miles a day so I thought if I could by on charging every four days or so I could live with that.

 

[ph79]

What kind of range and miles / kWh are you getting if you don't mind me asking ? I have an SE SR on order and I keep thinking I should have plumped for the extended range .

Probably only cover around 40 miles a day so I thought if I could by on charging every four days or so I could live with that.

Display has me at 3 9 miles per kwh after 875 miles. A lot of that was motorway and over 4 achievable on slower roads. Not sure how much impact colder weather will have on range.
Others on forum suggest on Lr battery charging to 100% not always optimum but not sure. It wouldn't have put me off but as a first ev i just went pure value and i don't miss what i never had.

 

[Macadoodle]

Thanks for that. So if I use 45 kWh of capacity to leave a little buffer I should manage 4 days on a charge.
That's acceptable imo, got so sick of charging our leaf just about every bloody day !

Looks like even the LFP wont need more than 100 charge cycles yearly for the average mileage driver, 30 years to hit the 3000 cycle mark, hard to say what effect time itself will have on the cells though.