You CAN road trip an SE SR

[Archev]

I arrived at my friends' house at eight, about an hour later than the ABRP estimate, mainly due to traffic. Everywhere I went there was a vacant ultra-rapid charger and the car charged quickly. Yes, it's the SR, you're not going to be doing a pony express across country, but if that was your priority you'd buy a different car.

The point is that if you have an SR, long trips are very much not out of the question. Ten hours door to door to cover 450 miles is not that bad, and two of the stops were meal breaks. I pretty much had to choke the pizza down, and the car was still at 85% by the time I got back.

Sitting next to a new face-lift Taycan.

Impressive journey.

 

[Rolfe]

I should also have mentioned that my aim was to arrive at 50% charge to have enough juice for today. I got here on 52%, so mission accomplished. If I'd been happy to roll in on 10% I could have cut the Cobham stop to about ten minutes, foregoing the pizza and saving 20 to 30 minutes.

 

[Rolfe]

I meant to keep this up to date, but I was enjoying myself a lot and didn't get round to it.

I drove the 16 miles to Glyndebourne the next day and parked up on one of the type 2 chargers in the car park. Then turned round to see Caliban's doppelganger parked behind me - an SE LR whose owner told me she had driven to the south of France a couple of times.

The day was a little showery but better than forecast and it was lovely strolling the grounds.

Dinner in the Mildmay restaurant was also excellent.

Although there is no photography allowed during the performance, here is a shot of a curtain call.

By the end of the evening Caliban was at 100% with his battery pack nicely balanced, mission accomplished.

 

[Rolfe]

The following day I stayed on with my friends. I took a stroll from the Hove waterfront back to their house and encountered no less than four MG4s on the way (details in the "MG4 spotted" thread). My friends have 16 solar panels on a high south-facing roof in Brighton, and the day was sunny. You can imagine. They have a feed-in-tariff, but like an idiot I didn't think of saying, fill the car up! We went out to dinner in the evening, but in my friend's car, as it's big enough to take the mobility scooter.

The following morning I did think of filling the car up for free, but there wasn't time to go the whole way by then (even though I hadn't used much getting back from Glyndebourne). The contrast between the ordinary domestic extension lead my friend produced, and the EV-rated one I was carrying was quite striking, and he was only too glad to use my lead. The plug got a bit warm, but nothing alarming and there was no visible damage to anything.

Then I set off for Yorkshire. As I was approaching the M25 I started to get ominous warnings from Android Auto about a huge delay, and there was a suggestion to save well over an hour by leaving the motorway. I was going to do it, but when I got to the junction it was getting badly gummed up by other traffic which had obviously got the same message, while the motorway still looked clear. I wondered if this might be a frying pan into fire move, as I don't know of any clear route round the M25 at that point capable of carrying that much traffic. So I stayed on the motorway and of course got caught in the grandfather of all traffic jams. TJA did its thing, and I only wished I had kept my Kindle accessible, I could have read while the car handled the driving part.

Eventually I got to my chosen stop, the Ionity chargers at the bus station at Milton Keynes. I still had a fair bit of charge left due to the very slow speeds (the M1 was pretty gummed up too), but I thought, I've been driving this car for 3 hours 40 minutes, I'm hungry and probably ought to visit the loo, so I stuck with the plan.

This Ionity did take my Electroverse card.

Next stop was at somewhere called Annersley, where there are Tesla superchargers next to a hotel which obviously used to be a Dakota, as I could find the toilets without any directions once inside. It's an exact copy of the one at Eurocentral, but it was called something different.

Caliban is getting quite used to hob-nobbing with Teslas.

I got to Halifax at teatime, just in time for fish and chips. I didn't actually take a photo of Caliban on the type 2 chargers there, although he charged on them three times.

 

[Rolfe]

These type 2 chargers are an absolute pain. I can't remember why I didn't get the charge started till about nine - I'm sure I didn't hang around, I was aware of the problem, so maybe I misremembered my arrival time. Anyway, the charger cut the power after four hours. I tried to restart it on the app but no dice. The MG app just kept saying "failed" and I couldn't ask the Blink app to start the charge because the charger was showing up as occupied. So I had to go out in the rain at one in the morning, unplug the damn car, plug it back in on the other plug on the same post, and re-start the charge. At least it was on 100% and balanced by morning.

In the morning we set off for Harrogate and Everything Electric. Great day out, weather stayed fine, and we all got MG baseball caps for free. This is my friends with the X-Power I got to test drive.

I was down under 50% charge by the time we got back, so I put the car back on these bloody Blink chargers. Not quite so bad this time because it wasn't quite so late, but again the charge was cut off before the car was finished and I had to go back out to the charger and re-start it again. It stops being funny after a bit.

Each time I used these chargers one of the cars blocking a bay was actually an EV that wasn't charging. I wondered if it was some sort of complicated place-keeping scheme, as they're frequently ICEd, but more likely they just thought it was OK to park there because they're EVs after all!

 

[Rolfe]

The following day we toured locally and visited a garden centre. On Bank Holiday Monday we drove to Grassingham to collect shoes that had been left for repair (and apparently posted to France for the job to be done) and had lunch in the picturesque village.

The car park there has half a dozen PodPoint destination chargers like the ones at Glyndebourne but I didn't bother because I didn't need the charge and we were only there a couple of hours. Might have been cheaper than that Blink outfit though, I suppose.

On the Tuesday we just toured locally again, went for a walk and a drink in an absolutely ancient pub. Then back on the Blink chargers to get ready for the road home. This time just one session as I wasn't that low.

 

[Rolfe]

I only need one charge to get home from Halifax, and I decided to go right on to Annandale Water at about 140 miles in, where there are new Gridserves. I maybe overdid it a bit on the motorway, because here's where I was when I got there.

I really do trust Caliban's GOM though, I was following the remaining distance to the service station on Android Auto and comparing it with the range on the GOM, and it was all totally fine. Swept into the forecourt on 4% with no loss of power and no sign of a turtle.

I was barely 50 miles from home at this point, and with the new solar on my roof I wasn't inclined to pay Gridserve any more than I had to. So instead of taking one of the new 350 kW units, I hooked up to the old 50 kW unit beside them, which gave me long enough to consume a McDonald's without the car taking on too much.

And this was the final tally for the entire expedition, photo taken after recharging and then going to the cattery to fetch the feline element from bondage vile. Note the baby Octopus now decorating the dashboard.

And this all just goes to show, you can road trip the SE SR. Although, if it's true that the car has some sort of fatigue warning system installed, I have yet to see it, and I definitely drove more than two hours on several occasions without a break. Three hours 40 minutes on the day I got snarled up in the M25. I think you're all making this up.

 

[Rolfe]

I should also mention that every time I rocked up at a charging station, there was a free charger. I did not have to queue, I did not have to wait, and all the chargers worked first time. Forton, Solihull, Cobham, Glyndbourne, Milton Keynes, Annersley, Halifax (three times) and Annandale Water. And I could have charged at Grassingham if I'd wanted to.

Down with FUD.

 

[Archev]

I’m having a dreadful time with this currrent camping trip to the wilds, on an island.

No not the car it’s utterly fantastic.
No not the fact that it’s electric. A guy I spoke to yesterday said he couldn’t be bothered keeping a battery charged? I said it’s easy - I spent fifty odd years trying to keep a fuel tank filled and the only times I’ve failed were petrol or diesel related.

Dreadful experience is definitely not to do with the camping accommodation. Fidden campsite is superb with all the modern gizmos it never had before. Loads of flushing loos, piping hot solar heated showers, etc etc and all for £12 per head per night whether you’re in a cheapo tent like me or an extravagant penthouse on wheels.

No, my dreadful time is with BURNING FOSSIL FUEL. I’m not doing very much gourmet cooking, boiling a drop water for porridge or coffee, frying a steak and that’s about it. But with a stupid wee gas burner using (very quickly) stupid wee canisters - aargh!!
OK so there’s eateries all around, delivery services available to your tent, a pizza van trundles here every Friday so it’s hard to go hungry. But I must investigate powering a little induction hob.

You modern folk with your fancy mancy built in power outlets have it too easy these days. ?

My teepee is resisting this wee shower and 20 mph westerly Atlantic breeze fine and I’m as warm as toast AND I have the back up option of my wonderful electric mothership not ten feet away ? fully ready to take me all the way home.

If only I didn’t need those oil burning ferries. ?‍

 

[decrep]

No, my dreadful time is with BURNING FOSSIL FUEL. I’m not doing very much gourmet cooking, boiling a drop water for porridge or coffee, frying a steak and that’s about it. But with a stupid wee gas burner using (very quickly) stupid wee canisters - aargh!!

So why not a VTL cable?

 

[Archev]

So why not a VTL cable?

Not on my pre facelift car unfortunately but I think I might need an inverter? Then possibly problems with the 12 volt battery???

 

[Tight Git]

@Rolfe - I've only ever managed to trigger the fatigue warning system once on my SE SR and that was on a journey of 171 miles non stop to a charger near Northampton. I'd slowed down after about 130 miles to ensure I got to the charger and the alarm started about 20 miles before the destination.

It's annoying when you are on a motorway as there is no way of stopping it (unless you stop and turn the car off).

 

[Rolfe]

I wonder if it's a distance thing then? The furthest I've ever driven on a single charge without stopping is about 150 miles. But then that would make a nonsense of all the debate about more range being better, and the people with the 64 kwh packs would be seeing it all the time.

 

[Tight Git]

Think it's more likely time based

 

[Rolfe]

So why are some people seeing it at two hours and I've never seen it despite often driving for more than two hours? Maybe it's a fault on my car? One which I'm not going to complain about!

 

[Tight Git]

I reckon it probably kicked in at about 3 hours - that's the first time I had driven for that long without stopping

 

[NickHeynes]

I've just done Essex to Snowdon and back in a SE SR and had no issues. One stop on the way up as I wasn't going to need the car while in Wales. And two on the way back cos I was going back to work the following day and wouldn't have enough with just using my granny charger. Used Gridserve chargers with no problems on the M6 and M 25. In fact the only issues I had was with ICE cars parking in the EV charging bays. I even had a "discussion" with a guy in a Merc AMG who tried to convince me that his was specially modified to an ev despite having four of the biggest diameter exhaust pipes I've ever seen!

 

[Richmorr]

I’ve done plenty of longer journeys and never had this problem, it’s December 22 model. Maybe it’s a change in the later V2 variant.

 

[MickeySw]

Not on my pre facelift car unfortunately but I think I might need an inverter? Then possibly problems with the 12 volt battery???

As long as the car is on, the power comes from the CCU and won’t drain the 12V battery:

MG5 Pre-facelift V2L (Diy)

As we know there's no V2L capability on Pre-lift MG5, so I decided to do a DIY version. The onboard charger is capable of delivering around 170amps to 12V battery, however the charging circuit fuse is 150amps, so we are looking at maximum 2.1kw max. I bought 2kw pure sine wave inverter, as I...

www.mgevs.com

 

[Rolfe]

I reckon it probably kicked in at about 3 hours - that's the first time I had driven for that long without stopping

3 hours 40 minutes, and no sign of it on my car.