Battery life and replacement cost

[pollenface]

I rarely see dead ICE vehicles with over 250,000kms on the clock. Tesla people with the old batteries are reporting 480,000kms before noticing noticeable degradation. I'm 26,000kms in and not holding my breath.

 

[chris69]

what no insurance right off ????

That was the path they chose in the end, but the car was left in a known flood area in heavy rain for 3 days so the insurance company were hesitating.

 

[Alansurfer]

I was at an MG dealer a couple of weeks ago. The service manager showed me a quote for a replacement battery pack. The car it was for was identical to my Mk1 (he said he did a double take when I went in as the reg is very close too) that had been water damaged by sitting in a shallow flood for 3 days. No water had entered the car but the pack was destroyed. The battery pack was £24,000 and it only needed one hour of labour to swap.

Why would anyone pay that when you can get one for £5,000 used, the manufacturing cost is under $7,000. I smell dealership mark up. I’ll see if I can get into the manufacturing parts lists to check factory pricing for dealerships, I’m not in the car industry anymore but have been researching manufacturing costs through Sandy Munro and similar. Experience with buying new cells and up-cycling ev packs would lead me down the salvage route for a replacement if out of warranty, ev salvage (especially batteries) has become very popular.

 

[Coulomb]

Whilst that level of markup is obviously over the top, an EV battery is an expensive item to ship (due to its weight, bulk, and being hazardous material), and ideally should be stored in a cool warehouse (I have no idea whether they do this or not, I suspect not for the less expensive brands like MG). They also cost a lot, and their value decreases with time. I'd much prefer a battery that I know was made only a few months ago to one that has sat in storage for 2 years, for example. Because they cost a lot, they tie up a fair bit of capital to have a dozen of them waiting to be used. They very likely deal with this latter cost by never storing them at all, making the customer wait while they pull one off the manufacturing line, package it (you don't put these in a padded post bag), and ship as needed.

So for these reasons, I'd expect an EV battery as a spare part to cost significantly more than the manufacturing cost. But not 5x, obviously.

 

[RobinH]

In aerospace, spares markup on out of production parts is often x5 - x10. I would be surprised if automotive is any different.

 

[J R Doe]

4000 full (0-100%) charge cycles is about right for a thermally managed traction pack, so at 3.8 miles per kWh (235 miles for 62kwh pack) that’s 940,000 miles battery life. A drop in capacity will probably happen a bit before this but still even at 2,000 charge cycles you’re looking at 470,000 miles. Don’t worry about the charging to 100% as this won’t affect the number of complete charge cycles it will just mean the battery will last longer in time which suits the warranty better. The battery management system doesn’t allow full discharge or maximum cell charge voltage, the 100% indicates the allowed usable capacity , it’s set up very conservatively with a large low and high voltage buffer to help fast charging and discharging. All charge speeds slow to the exact same rate towards the last 10-5% from 140kw rapid to 2.2kw 10amp house hold socket.

My mg e5 has 73750 miles so far so good, I don't see any big drop in range; you are correct sir.

 

[moodym]

I've had my (2020) MG ZS since May 2023, it slowed to a halt eight weeks later and the AA managed to get it working, however, at the beginning of October it started but would not drive. The MG dealership had it for 4 weeks with no conclusion. Now, I'm told that the traction battery casing is broken which caused a fault in the battery to appear. They have quoted me £19,000 to repair! I've only driven the car on the road, It was implied I'd been driving it off road! I'm 61, not a thrill seeker and definitely haven't had an accident in it. The dealership I bought it from @Powerlease.co.uk are washing their hands of it and the finance company @Motonovafinance.com have changed tact since hearing this is not under warranty! The MG Dealership where is has been for at least 16 weeks now, did not see this damage in the four weeks they had it for repair and also now trying to wash their hands of it. I would be exceedingly interested to know if anyone has ever heard of a battery case breaking by driving a car on the road? Also, I would love to know what you would have to do to the car to cause the casing to damage in the first place.

 

[chris69]

I've had my (2020) MG ZS since May 2023, it slowed to a halt eight weeks later and the AA managed to get it working, however, at the beginning of October it started but would not drive. The MG dealership had it for 4 weeks with no conclusion. Now, I'm told that the traction battery casing is broken which caused a fault in the battery to appear. They have quoted me £19,000 to repair! I've only driven the car on the road, It was implied I'd been driving it off road! I'm 61, not a thrill seeker and definitely haven't had an accident in it. The dealership I bought it from @Powerlease.co.uk are washing their hands of it and the finance company @Motonovafinance.com have changed tact since hearing this is not under warranty! The MG Dealership where is has been for at least 16 weeks now, did not see this damage in the four weeks they had it for repair and also now trying to wash their hands of it. I would be exceedingly interested to know if anyone has ever heard of a battery case breaking by driving a car on the road? Also, I would love to know what you would have to do to the car to cause the casing to damage in the first place.

I bought a used car with MotoNovo Finance in 2019. Several months later it developed a fault which I was convinced would have been present when I purchased the car. MotoNovo were amazing in that they sent an independent engineer to inspect the car and his report stated that the dealer was most likely liable. MotoNovo fixed the problem at main dealer rates. My advice is to insist that they send an engineer to assess. I think you also have the fact that you had evidence of a problem within 3 months of purchasing the car - the engineer can make a determination about this.

Get pushy with MotoNovo. If they refuse go to the Financial Ombudsman. If you paid any of the deposit using a debit or credit card the bank will be liable too. Good luck!

If everything else fails then you can get a used battery pack from a scrap yard for about £2,500. Not ideal but better than being liable for finance on a car you can’t use.

 

[Tig170]

Call your insurance company, as this should be covered.

 

[chris69]

Call your insurance company, as this should be covered.

Doubt it. You need an incident for insurance to be involved - they won’t cover component failure.

 

[moodym]

I bought a used car with MotoNovo Finance in 2019. Several months later it developed a fault which I was convinced would have been present when I purchased the car. MotoNovo were amazing in that they sent an independent engineer to inspect the car and his report stated that the dealer was most likely liable. MotoNovo fixed the problem at main dealer rates. My advice is to insist that they send an engineer to assess. I think you also have the fact that you had evidence of a problem within 3 months of purchasing the car - the engineer can make a determination about this.

Get pushy with MotoNovo. If they refuse go to the Financial Ombudsman. If you paid any of the deposit using a debit or credit card the bank will be liable too. Good luck!

If everything else fails then you can get a used battery pack from a scrap yard for about £2,500. Not ideal but better than being liable for finance on a car you can’t use.

Thanks for your reply. Appreciated.

 

[Tig170]

I've had my (2020) MG ZS since May 2023, it slowed to a halt eight weeks later and the AA managed to get it working, however, at the beginning of October it started but would not drive. The MG dealership had it for 4 weeks with no conclusion. Now, I'm told that the traction battery casing is broken which caused a fault in the battery to appear. They have quoted me £19,000 to repair! I've only driven the car on the road, It was implied I'd been driving it off road! I'm 61, not a thrill seeker and definitely haven't had an accident in it. The dealership I bought it from @Powerlease.co.uk are washing their hands of it and the finance company @Motonovafinance.com have changed tact since hearing this is not under warranty! The MG Dealership where is has been for at least 16 weeks now, did not see this damage in the four weeks they had it for repair and also now trying to wash their hands of it. I would be exceedingly interested to know if anyone has ever heard of a battery case breaking by driving a car on the road? Also, I would love to know what you would have to do to the car to cause the casing to damage in the first place.

I still cant get my head around this, how comes Insurance, Seller, Finance company, MG Dealership are "washing their hands" - at the end of the day the car is in warrantly, its insured, and was bought recently - so many legal boundaries have been gone through (sale of goods, consumer selling act, distance selling etc.,) this sounds like a martin lewis / watchdog etc. route?

 

[DBedford]

Have a word with your local citizens advice.

 

[Spinynorman]

I still cant get my head around this, how comes Insurance, Seller, Finance company, MG Dealership are "washing their hands" - at the end of the day the car is in warrantly, its insured, and was bought recently - so many legal boundaries have been gone through (sale of goods, consumer selling act, distance selling etc.,) this sounds like a martin lewis / watchdog etc. route?

Don’t forget - RipOff Britain (BBC) & programmes like the morning tv magazine shows on BBC&ITV like to do items on this too.
As well as blasting it across social media - X, Facebook, instagram, TikTok etc. the more noise you make, the more they’ll listen and do something to get the negative PR to stop! Don’t forget review sites like Trustpilot and just tell the companies you’ll keep on until you get some satisfaction.
If none of this works, stand outside the dealership with a placard - not on their property mind - that warns anyone coming in what a bunch of unreliable jokers they are. They can call the police but run it all to Facebook live /Youtube from your phone as protection. Besides, to the old bill it’s a civil matter, so long as your offsite, you can’t be done for trespass - you’re just demonstrating and as there’s only one of you, no chance of being arrested for a breach of the peace - if they ever turn up that is…
Good luck with all this - it’s a journey but keep at it…

 

[Mg4me]

Hi all, premptative question, anyone aware of the life expectancy of the battery pack. I believe we have a manufacturers warranty of 80k miles but unsure when deterioration gets so bad a replacement is needed.

Reason for the enquiry is the pooŕ resale value, it appears I'll be hanging onto my ZS far longer than anticipated given I'm at 30k after 20mths.

Also any ideas on cost would be helpful

It's a year later from that inquiry, during which so much has happened! 2024 cost for an MG 51kwh battery replacement is $15,000 all up, but should be a tenth by 2030, which will be only a sodium ion (Na+) battery. Sodium ion is the battery future, and has bad news, good news, and fantastic news.
Bad news: Na+ is 30% less energy density, (meaning a heavier battery for same capacity).
Good news: Na+ is expected to be at least a fifth the cost of Lithium Ion battery.
Fantastic News: Na+ charges at least 10x faster than lithium ion, (sodium is a much faster and more energetic ion than lithium). The ramifications of this is that heavy batteries won't be necessary in the near future, because with more frequent charging stations around and with sodium's incredibly fast charging, the 1-hour stops at charging stations will be 5 minutes at a charging station.
For anyone reading this: don't waste thousands replacing your battery or worry about range or charging times. Sodium ion is here to stay.

 

[Tim Green]

Unfortunately that doesn't really help Moodym or anyone else with a damaged battery.

 

[pollenface]

Also, I would love to know what you would have to do to the car to cause the casing to damage in the first place.

were they able to show you the damage?

I think in these scenarios it would be great to see a non-dealer battery repair. Obviously the easy answer for a dealer is to unbolt the old battery, and bolt in a new one for 19k. I hear stories about how some packs can be opened up, bad cells or BMS indentified, faulty parts replaced and then put back together for a fraction of the cost.

 

[mattEV]

Hi all, premptative question, anyone aware of the life expectancy of the battery pack. I believe we have a manufacturers warranty of 80k miles but unsure when deterioration gets so bad a replacement is needed.

Reason for the enquiry is the pooŕ resale value, it appears I'll be hanging onto my ZS far longer than anticipated given I'm at 30k after 20mths.

Also any ideas on cost would be helpful

I think the poor resale price in the UK and some other countries is due to bad publicity due to the MG badge, people still tie the car to poor quality cars made by MG in the pass coupled with the fact that it's Chinese made. In Sweden the resale price isn't as bad as in the UK. It's almost impossible to buy used MG Zs EV for 10,000 pounds here. Exclusive models from 2020 is around 14,000 and 2021 models are between 15-16000 pounds. I am keeping mine for a minimum of 5 years at which time I would have gotten my purchase money back from savings on fuel. So even if I give the car away for free I won't lose a penny of my money. I drive around 3000km per month and saves a minimum of 3000 sek per month. So yeah the MG Zs is a brilliant car and serves the purpose I bought it for.