Close to zero?

John T

John T

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Staffordshire
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MG4 SE LR
How close to zero per cent should i risk going away from my home charger with my MG4 LR? Also, would I need to pre-register with Tesla/download their app to use their chargers?
 
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Lowest I have arrived home with is 4% (11 miles) on a trip back from North Wales where they helpfully closed the M56 and Google Maps sent me on a diversion before the closure that ended in a closed road (the bridge over the M56 they were replacing!) that meant many miles back tracking to get to the proper diversion which in itself added many miles.
 
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I've only ever gone down to 7% on a trip far from home and that was scary enough!

Worth checking out the Bjorn Nyland video showing the LR at 0% but continuing to drive (slowly) for 24km:



So there's SOME buffer in there in an emergency but I wouldn't ever rely on it.
 
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John T said:
How close to zero per cent should i risk going away from my home charger with my MG4 LR? Also, would I need to pre-register with Tesla/download their app to use their chargers?
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If you trust the percentage bar indicator (I do) and you put the car in energy saving mode everything once past 3% you can take it all the way to zero if necessary but I’d say give yourself a 10% buffer if you don’t know the area around the destination and there are too few chargers. Otherwise i normally get the car to 5% once a month on my way to London as there are so many chargers I would not panic unless I was at 1%
In north wales I was struggling to charge and for a couple days I was driving with SoC between 5% and 15% on several short trips.
I now feel like I can face anything ??
 
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Warning. If you want to drive the car low, make sure its battery is allowed to balance once a month or so, and then every few months (3-6 they say) drive it down to below 10%, let it sit there for a bit, then charge it up all the way to 100% on an AC charger and again let it balance. That lets the system see the discharge curve of the battery and keeps the GOM honest.

I went down to my last seven miles today, with no qualms. I knew I could make Aberdeen, from what the GOM was telling me, and if I got nervous I could have dropped my speed to conserve range. I did accept when the car asked if it should go into energy-saving mode, but I didn't notice any effect on performance. I've been down to 4% before now.

It's all about knowing which charger (or home) you're headed for, and being comfortable from what the GOM is doing that you're going to make it.

Today was unusual, because the car was serviced yesterday and came back with a factory reset. Once the car was charged back up the GOM was telling me I had 199 miles of range. In your dreams. I've been seeing 145-150 miles lately, and the weather was cold this morning. I knew I had 140 miles to go. So I watched the GOM counting down at the same time as Android Auto was telling me how many miles I still had to go. By half-way I was believing it, with a reported 14 miles in hand. That decreased further as the road is quite hilly before you get to Aberdeen, but the worst it was telling me was 5 miles in hand. I reckoned that by then I was close enough that I wasn't in trouble, and if the 5 miles got any less I could reduce my speed to get more range, but it was all fine.
 
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Oh, and I used the Tesla superchargers at Dundee on the way back. I had registered in the Tesla app some time last year, and set up payment, and it was all entirely painless. Including the price.

1713650033537.jpeg
 
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dsimpkins said:
Would recommend the app, but you can use contactless payments also.
Click to expand...
You need the app for 'older' Tesla chargers. The ones I've used have no screen or contactless payment method so you have to go through the app. I've not used any of their newer chargers yet.
 
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John T said:
How close to zero per cent should i risk going away from my home charger with my MG4 LR? Also, would I need to pre-register with Tesla/download their app to use their chargers?
Click to expand...
We were close to empty when we arrived at our Holiday destination in Cumbria last week with just 4% (12 miles) remaining, careful calculation and keeping an extremely close eye on things, there was no room for error such as a road closure, we were lucky.
It was my fault this happened, travelling from Hampshire to Grange-over-Sands, I'd planned to charge at Ionity Stafford, but my wife needed a stop at Strensham Services, I thought I'd top up, a quick calculation and charged to 90%, didn't take long (barely time for a coffee) but with a lot of miles to drive, I set cruise to 75 mph, set ECO, limited heating and lights, we just scraped it by luck and a very small amount of calculation
In future I'LL STICK to my planned charge location, range anxiety did happen ??
 
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PeteC said:
You need the app for 'older' Tesla chargers. The ones I've used have no screen or contactless payment method so you have to go through the app. I've not used any of their newer chargers yet.
Click to expand...

The ones in the photo I used this afternoon had no screen and no means of card payment, and it was the same with the other Tesla superchargers I used last year just to check it all worked. The app was easy to download and set up though. I'd just recommend doing it at your leisure at home before you go, rather than faffing around beside the charger keying in your bank details.
 
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When just using the car for day to day use around where I live I try & keep it over 20% ( did go down to 14% once ) & don’t charge it above 80% unless I’m planning a long trip ( have charged it twice to 100% with no issues )

If it was low on charge & I had to use it quick I don’t think I’d feel comfortable letting it go below 10%
 
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Tesla 4th gen chargers take bank cards, earlier generation ones do not.

So if you don't want to use the app you'll have to check if they are v4 chargers and from what I can see the Tesla Website doesn't tell you what generation the chargers are.
 
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jeanloup said:
Do you need an adapter or a special cable to use Tesla's superchargers?
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No - they have CCS2 plugs on them, as do all recent Tesla cars (with CCS2 ports). It's only the early Tesla cars (like the Model S) which had the Tesla US connector, so they need an adaptor in the UK to be compatible with most Tesla superchargers. :)
 
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siteguru said:
No - they have CCS2 plugs on them, as do all recent Tesla cars (with CCS2 ports). It's only the early Tesla cars (like the Model S) which had the Tesla US connector, so they need an adaptor in the UK to be compatible with most Tesla superchargers. :)
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Oh cool that's good to know. I'll know to consider Tesla chargers in the future when doing a road trip. Cheers
 
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On the SR its, literally when it says 0 miles left. I got home the other day with 1mile left*, so just thought I'd leave the aircon on, it soon hit 0 miles, and that was it I couldn't select drive.

* it was actually 4 miles left, but wanted to see how low I could go so just drive around the village for 1-2 miles, until it was at 1 mile. It was slightly suprising that my Miles/kW was so low, transpired that I'd left on Intelligent ? (for the last 12 months) - Anyone know what Intelligent ? does, as dont think I need it?
 

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