BMS Versions Australia

[Peter WA]

Maybe you'd better give us some police/next of kin contact information in case we don't ever hear from you again, then we can at least tell them to find your body in a rusted car somewhere in "Nullarbor"....

Mobile reception is surprisingly good. About half the distance has at least 3G. Nowhere more than 100km to the nearest tower. ;-)

I'll also carry a 3kVA generator and 20l of petrol, just in case I need to 'top up' between stops.

 

[Dodger]

Maybe you'd better give us some police/next of kin contact information in case we don't ever hear from you again, then we can at least tell them to find your body in a rusted car somewhere in "Nullarbor"....

Then your next of kin will be able to put the bodywork warranty to the test!

 

[TassiedEVil]

The reason I started this thread is that no new car delivered in Australia at the moment gets the latest BMS. MG Australia told dealers not to do any BMS updates and leave them at factory version.

Rationale, I believe to have read between the lines: while the January BMS fixes the issues caused by the dodgy version, it probably was created in rush, in order to fix the issue. A more permanent new version is probably still in the making, or getting tested internally. MG Australia prefers to keep people on an old working version, rather than doing very frequent updates.

I get it that for any cars delivered in 2020 that probably is a safe approach. I'm just not sure it still is, for cars getting delivered now, did MG actually connected all the dots?

With a new car right now we get whatever came from the factory. With a production date of Nov 1st it could still be the slightly buggy but mostly ok early October version, or it could be the dodgy one from late October that many people in the UK got updated to throughout November.

If we've got the dodgy one I'd rather know sooner than later.

Can’t comment on the voltage yet (only had it less than 2 weeks) but the navigation software seems to have had an update. I remember trying it in early December during test drive and it was reeeeeally slow but now actually very good. Did ask about the latest update on delivery, but who knows? When we were trying to connect to Apple CarPlay during the ’reveal’, the screen actually froze and went blank,so we were taken on a quick trip around the corner to the techs. And yes, it was the solution from the ‘IT Crowd’ - turn it off, wait 5 mins then turn it on again. And yes, it worked.

 

[TassiedEVil]

Thanks

I love your signature line.

I'll do a major road-trip in the car, starting tomorrow. Let's hope the dealer can get MG to authorise the update. That's the issue. Dealer is willing, MG Australia says "No".

That road trip will get publicity either way. MG's choice if it is positive or a disaster for them. Crossing the Nullarbor Perhaps mentioning this fact that they don't yet know speeds decisions up.

Edit: there are a couple of other dealers along the way, one on Wednesday, on on Friday. After that: nothing for 2500km.

Are you doing a video diary or similar? That would be excellent! What a fantastic trip - did it 40 years ago and even finding conventional petrol stations required planning. Please keep us informed.

 

[TassiedEVil]

Yes, in an ideal world that would be the case. But the learning curve is steep, for dealers and for the local MG staff. Australia only got the EV in late 2020, I believe first deliveries were in October.

Not everything is running smoothly yet. Dealers are rather clueless. Sales reps vary, some make an effort to learn and listen from customers who often are better informed than them, others just brush suggestions off.

As to MG: it appears they try to avoid direct contact with customers at all costs and leave it to dealers. That means it is hard to know where i.e. delivery holdups come from.

All up it is hard to trust them in this environment, where useful information almost exclusively comes from other users and not from MG or a dealer.

Yes, agree - pretty much same experience here in Tasmania...

 

[Peter WA]

Quick update on the BMS situation: we decided to run the car down to 90% and then do another charge cycle over night.

This time it got to 452V, and the balancing took 2 hours. Neither is perfect, but both are an improvement over the first charge.

Also energy used by the car was about 4.5kWh, energy shown as delivered by the charger 6.23kWh. The difference allows for losses during both charging and balancing (at about 1.8A, so 400W).

Current working hypothesis: we are indeed still on the old (pre bug) BMS. The initial low voltage could have been caused by the car being stored since November, leaving cells to self-discharge unevenly. And who knows when the battery was built, could have been months before it got installed into the car.

I'll keep monitoring, I also will try the Thai app with an OBD2 dongle tomorrow.

 

[Peter WA]

Are you doing a video diary or similar? That would be excellent! What a fantastic trip - did it 40 years ago and even finding conventional petrol stations required planning. Please keep us informed.

Was the road already sealed all the way back then? I did it twice, 20 years ago. Easy trip, the second one was very boring though.

I reckon the situation with an EV now is similar to doing it in a petrol car back then

 

[TassiedEVil]

Was the road already sealed all the way back then? I did it twice, 20 years ago. Easy trip, the second one was very boring though.

I reckon the situation with an EV now is similar to doing it in a petrol car back then

Yes, all sealed even in 1985!

 

[TassiedEVil]

Peter WA - are you there yet???

 

[Peter WA]

Yes, I'm at Nullarbor Roadhouse right now, just about to finish a 6 hour charging session.

 

[Chippyinoz]

Just to update all Aussie owners on my experience. I received the car on 25th November with a build date of August 2020. Although I had most of the "comfort 2" features the centre display was showing the time instead of distance to empty so I returned the car to the dealer for a software update in December. He said they uploaded to the most recent versions of BMS but the display did not change.
It became clear I had received the buggy BMS. Max voltage after fully charging gradually fell to only 435v and I was getting the "please slow charge" warning appearing on the dash even when fully charged from AC.
I booked it in to have the BMS updated last Friday. On pickup the service manager told me they had been told not to update any software on the ZS EV but he contacted MG and they gave him permission to update mine and asked me to monitor. The display is now as per the manual and I expect it will take a number of charge cycles to rebalance the cells. I don't know if my original software was the October dud version or I got that when I took it in the first time. It is possible that MG have been loading new deliveries with the pre-October 2020 version which maxes at 455v but does not suffer balance issues. I hope that is the case for you all but I needed mine fixed and will be happy if I have the Jan 21 version and fixes the problem even if it is eventually superseded.

 

[TassiedEVil]

Yes, I'm at Nullarbor Roadhouse right now, just about to finish a 6 hour charging session.

What a great journey to do in an EV! ?? Keep us updated please!!

 

[JodyS21]

Just to update all Aussie owners on my experience. I received the car on 25th November with a build date of August 2020. Although I had most of the "comfort 2" features the centre display was showing the time instead of distance to empty so I returned the car to the dealer for a software update in December. He said they uploaded to the most recent versions of BMS but the display did not change.
It became clear I had received the buggy BMS. Max voltage after fully charging gradually fell to only 435v and I was getting the "please slow charge" warning appearing on the dash even when fully charged from AC.
I booked it in to have the BMS updated last Friday. On pickup the service manager told me they had been told not to update any software on the ZS EV but he contacted MG and they gave him permission to update mine and asked me to monitor. The display is now as per the manual and I expect it will take a number of charge cycles to rebalance the cells. I don't know if my original software was the October dud version or I got that when I took it in the first time. It is possible that MG have been loading new deliveries with the pre-October 2020 version which maxes at 455v but does not suffer balance issues. I hope that is the case for you all but I needed mine fixed and will be happy if I have the Jan 21 version and fixes the problem even if it is eventually superseded.

So did it fix it so that it displays the range and not time on centre display?
I don't think that is the BMS ecu module software that alters this, so to fix that I would imagine all of the cars ECU software needs checking and re-updating/fixing.

I'd be very surprised if the car when you got it on 25th Nov did not have the latest at that time update applied, which would've been the buggy BMS version.
When it went back in December, they wouldn't have had the fixed version at that time obviously. Depending when it was in December, if it was late Dec, it may have been once they knew it was faulty - so in theory they could have downgraded it to the previous ok version but I don't know if downgrading is actually possible.

 

[Cocijo]

It would be great if we could get a screenshot/s of what the tech sees when he updates the ECU’s ?

 

[JodyS21]

It would be great if we could get a screenshot/s of what the tech sees when he updates the ECU’s ?

I asked for that, they wouldn’t do it!

 

[Chippyinoz]

So did it fix it so that it displays the range and not time on centre display?
I don't think that is the BMS ecu module software that alters this, so to fix that I would imagine all of the cars ECU software needs checking and re-updating/fixing.

I'd be very surprised if the car when you got it on 25th Nov did not have the latest at that time update applied, which would've been the buggy BMS version.
When it went back in December, they wouldn't have had the fixed version at that time obviously. Depending when it was in December, if it was late Dec, it may have been once they knew it was faulty - so in theory they could have downgraded it to the previous ok version but I don't know if downgrading is actually possible.

The update has fixed the range on centre display. It was early December when it first went in and I am convinced they applied the buggy version. Early days to see if this has fixed the issue, a few more slow charges needed before I review the voltage.

 

[drjas]

The reason I started this thread is that no new car delivered in Australia at the moment gets the latest BMS. MG Australia told dealers not to do any BMS updates and leave them at factory version.

Rationale, I believe to have read between the lines: while the January BMS fixes the issues caused by the dodgy version, it probably was created in rush, in order to fix the issue. A more permanent new version is probably still in the making, or getting tested internally. MG Australia prefers to keep people on an old working version, rather than doing very frequent updates.

I get it that for any cars delivered in 2020 that probably is a safe approach. I'm just not sure it still is, for cars getting delivered now, did MG actually connected all the dots?

With a new car right now we get whatever came from the factory. With a production date of Nov 1st it could still be the slightly buggy but mostly ok early October version, or it could be the dodgy one from late October that many people in the UK got updated to throughout November.

If we've got the dodgy one I'd rather know sooner than later.

We've been updated to the latest BMS as the solution to the 12V battery failure caused by the old (November?) BMS

 

[TassiedEVil]

Yes, I'm at Nullarbor Roadhouse right now, just about to finish a 6 hour charging session.

Any travel updates Peter WA??

 

[Peter WA]

Any travel updates Peter WA??

Yes, all good, I made it back home Wednesday afternoon. Battery held up, so no BMS problem.

Only issue: the usable capacity always was only 40kWh, leading to range consistently below WLPT, more frequent stops, wasted time. See other thread I started

 

[Elec Car Aust]

We ordered in June 2020 and picked up in early Nov here in Brisbane. Over 4000 klms now and voltage at 451/452 after full slow charge. Not sure what BMS we're on. Sounds like a great trip Pete, glad it went well.