First European road trip (in the Cyberster)

[Shelmec]

Recently completed our first short European road trip in the Cyberster (GT). Wanted to share our thoughts if they are useful for others (the good and the bad). It's a long post of text, tried to keep it concise!

Trip summary

3 countries, staying in 5 hotels over 6 days. 14 charge stops at a cost of £217 for 468kW of charging. Drove 1428 miles, averaging 3.05 miles/kW on mostly motorways with some “a-roads” and a few mountain passes.

The good (positives)

• Charging in France is good, especially using Electroverse if you have it. Cheaper than the UK. Fewer charging options in Switzerland.
• Tesla charging is cheaper than other providers (Ionity, Fastned, etc) but they do have very short cables. If you are willing to support Musk enterprises, that is (topical at the time of writing)
• There was availability at all locations – no waiting time
• All (except 2) worked 1st time. 1 (Ionity) could not establish connection to the car, but moved to another one and it worked. 1 (also Ionity) was stuck on the language selection screen, although the next driver managed to get it working.
• European roads have no potholes. Even the narrow mountain roads. Seriously, UK…..?
• 2 people with luggage for 6 days (and we overpacked), and still space for 12 bottles of wine on the way home!
• At time of writing, Cyberster is like a film star. Lots of interest, people taking photos and videos.

The bad (issues)

• “Car key not found” when idle for a long time (Eurotunnel crossing). Placing in the backup position works, but not sure why it times out?
• Checking wheel balancing/alignment/tracking is important, as long spells at speed on French motorways can be tiring with vibrations. I guess those UK potholes have knocked something out of alignment.
• “Release steering wheel” message (would not start) after overnight stay. Lock/unlock and moving the wheel so it was straight seemed to fix the issue. I think it’s a known problem?
• One mountain road we were taking over the Jura mountains was shut (a few minutes earlier) due to a serious accident. Hope the driver of the car was OK. Trying to re-route was not fun, with no internet and car satnav (and Waze via CarPlay) both resolutely inisiting we had to go via the closed road. (see recommendations)

Our recommendations

• Driving on French motorways – get a Bip-n-Go. (Thanks to the MGEV forum for this). Barriers can be late to react, but you sail through.
• When coming off at a French motorway service station (Aire) the electric charging is a car symbol with a + sign. Makes it easier to locate the charging.
• Get French Crit’Air sticker at least 1 month in advance (if driving city centres). Swiss motorway vignette also (although we got ours at border control).
• Plan, plan and plan. Including checking exactly where the chargers are and what’s nearby. Makes arrival easier.
• Love using Electroverse – and as an Octopus customer it goes straight on the bill. It can be pessimistic about energy usage, but that’s preferable.
• We used Le Shuttle (Eurotunnel) and paid for Flexi Plus. Recommended. Costly, but reduces stress of hitting a departure time, and you can stock up with goodies in the lounge. Even Tesla chargers by the lounge (Calais side at least).
• Mostly used comfort mode for efficiency. Sport mode is FUN but it does burn through the electrons.
• Charge up before going up a mountain pass. Range estimates DO NOT apply. This was the thing which triggered the worst range anxiety; 26km of roads ate more than 100km of range. Having said that, range increased coming back down.
• Catholic countries (France) are completely shut on a Sunday after 12 noon. We forget this in the UK.
• Buy a backup paper road atlas – when there’s a sudden road closure and there’s no internet.
• Stop more often (even if not to charge) – even a Lidl can be different to look around. Check the tourist signs on the roads for things to go and see. Lots of hidden gems. We found a Madeline factory and Baccarat crystal (although the latter was too expensive!)
• Use Waze rather than the car Google maps in town driving – the GMaps pick some really odd city routes.
• Having a co-pilot (passenger) is invaluable for when you need to look things up or at some toll booths/border crossings.
• Set car and phone to use km rather than miles – it helps!
• Use ACC (Adaptive cruise control) on motorways at 110km/h for a slightly slower but less stressful drive. Still not sure on the car doing the steering.
• Save those topless moments for town driving (or country roads). 110/130 km/h topless for long periods of time can get tiring, especially if the top of your head is in the airflow (just under 6' tall).

I hope this is useful – happy to see comments or answer questions as applicable. Now time to plan the next one….

 

[Moroboshi]

Great stuff, as someone who loves a good road trip (I'm planning a big loop around France now for this Summer) it's something I'm very familiar with, albeit always in ICE cars where range is completely irrelevant.

I'm also a regular visitor to Switzerland, truly the most beautiful country in the world. How did you find charging there? Plenty of places in towns to charge? And at what speed? Did you run across any which needed an obscure app/RFID card? Interesting to read your observation on mountain pass driving, always the highlight of any trip through Switzerland. Are there chargers en route? I can't say that I've ever seen any on my travels, and I've driven most of the famous passes in Switzerland.

I'm curious about the car conking out in the tunnel. What went on there? And what exactly did you do to get it up and running again?

 

[MonkeyM]

@Shelmec. Another great Euro write up after @Cyberella! As somebody who loved driving European roads in ICE cars, and been an EV driver for almost 9 years but never driven our EVs abroad..as yet, these write ups I always enjoy reading.
So your typical maximum range was around 220 miles but as no EV driver wants to run to zero I suspect you were filling up at around the 180 mile mark? Did you get any overnight charging at any of your hotels?
One point of concern is the vibration you experienced. As mentioned extensively on the MG4 X-Power forum, this is quite a big issue on their AWD cars. Something to do with the 2 motors fore and aft not being in sync. The RWD regular MG4s are not affected. I hope this is not the same issue, which would therefore only affect GT Cybersters? Only noticeable at speeds above 60mph. Or as you said it could be a car in need of tracking etc.
Otherwise this car could do with a Frunk for long trips away. Seems to have a big enough boot and in cabin cubby holes and storage however.

 

[beerygaz]

Awesome writeup and observations.

Some questions for clarification:
Where is the "backup" position for the key?
Does the OEM sat-nav use Google maps? I'm in South Africa but the car thinks it's from Aus so the map set I can see on the sat-nav is Australian right now.

 

[Shelmec]

Great stuff, as someone who loves a good road trip (I'm planning a big loop around France now for this Summer) it's something I'm very familiar with, albeit always in ICE cars where range is completely irrelevant.

I'm also a regular visitor to Switzerland, truly the most beautiful country in the world. How did you find charging there? Plenty of places in towns to charge? And at what speed? Did you run across any which needed an obscure app/RFID card? Interesting to read your observation on mountain pass driving, always the highlight of any trip through Switzerland. Are there chargers en route? I can't say that I've ever seen any on my travels, and I've driven most of the famous passes in Switzerland.

I'm curious about the car conking out in the tunnel. What went on there? And what exactly did you do to get it up and running again?

Thanks for the questions! Unfortunately we only had about 1 day in Switzerland (with an overnight). I used Electroverse to choose charging - that doesn't show many compatible chargers, but there are others not on electroverse. It seemed that towns and main roads are reasonably well served, but out in the country/mountains, you'd need to plan to be charged, or at least know where you planned to charge next. I didn't see any on the routes we took (over Jura in/out of France). Some chargers 150kW+, I think more options available up to 150kW, but I was aiming for speed of charge most of the time.

In the tunnel, we drove onto the train, parked up and I powered off the car through the central console. (didn't get out and lock it - stayed in the car). On arrival, when the time to move off came, pressed the brake pedal to start the car and it said "car key not found". Placing it in the bottom of the central console storage cubby on the hard plastic panel fixed the issue, but slightly alarming the first time it happened! I guess getting out, locking, unlocking and starting as normal would also have worked. NOTE: Doors do not fully open in Le Shuttle - I found winding the window down, letting them open as much as they wanted and then pushing (manually) the rest of the way worked ok.

 

[Shelmec]

@Shelmec. Another great Euro write up after @Cyberella! As somebody who loved driving European roads in ICE cars, and been an EV driver for almost 9 years but never driven our EVs abroad..as yet, these write ups I always enjoy reading.
So your typical maximum range was around 220 miles but as no EV driver wants to run to zero I suspect you were filling up at around the 180 mile mark? Did you get any overnight charging at any of your hotels?
One point of concern is the vibration you experienced. As mentioned extensively on the MG4 X-Power forum, this is quite a big issue on their AWD cars. Something to do with the 2 motors fore and aft not being in sync. The RWD regular MG4s are not affected. I hope this is not the same issue, which would therefore only affect GT Cybersters? Only noticeable at speeds above 60mph. Or as you said it could be a car in need of tracking etc.
Otherwise this car could do with a Frunk for long trips away. Seems to have a big enough boot and in cabin cubby holes and storage however.

Thanks for your comments! Re: charging; as this was our first significant road trip in the car and first electric trip in Europe, I was overly cautious, and planned to charge more often than maybe I needed to. I'd always charge up to 80% "just to be safe", and I think the lowest level on arrival was 34% remaining. Having said that, as confidence built, we did skip the occasional planned stop.

Hotel charging - 3 out of 5 had charging available. Of these, 1 was hotel owned/managed (didn't use it) and the other two were Electra/Tesla which we did use. One hotel which didn't offer it was a very small hotel in a village (wasn't expecting it), and one had gated parking in the city centre without charging options. Both hotels with charging options had a mainstream charging option within 10 mins drive though.

Re: vibration - this was noticeable in Comfort as well as sport, and as comfort is rear motor only I don't think it's the issue you mentioned in MG4 X-Power cars. Once I get it up to a garage for balance/tracking/alignment I'll post whether this was the cause. Most likely some of the nasty east-anglian pot-holes I have not quite avoided which jarred the car when hit.

 

[Shelmec]

Awesome writeup and observations.

Some questions for clarification:
Where is the "backup" position for the key?
Does the OEM sat-nav use Google maps? I'm in South Africa but the car thinks it's from Aus so the map set I can see on the sat-nav is Australian right now.

Backup position is in the storage cubby in the central console - there's a hard plastic patch on the bottom - rest the key on/near there and it works.

I believe OEM sat-nav is Google Maps, but I'm somewhat surprised by the choice of route in towns. I ended up using Waze more often than not - the only downside being it doesn't show directions in the drivers screen and you're constantly looking at the car-play screen in the middle of the car.

 

[Shelmec]

One other observation I'll add is that in the 4,400 miles I've now driven in the Cyberster, the only other car I've seen "in the wild" was at a showroom we passed in France. Still not seen one "on the road".....