First long trip for MG ZS EV Trophy (if I get it)

[evcog]

Well in anticipation of receiving my MG ZS EV trophy connect in a few weeks I have already arranged my first long trip.
I'm going to the Fully Charged Live Show, in Harrogate, on the 19-21st May all booked with accomodation.
I could have gone to the Farnborough show in April, which is much closer to me, but very little accomodation available now.
Still I love Yorkshire and it will give me the opportunity to test out long distance travel in the MG. The distance is 261 miles so although thats below the WTLP range, most is motorway so I will have maybe a couple of rest stops on the journey where I can feed the car.
I know its early but I suspect some of you may be going there as well. It would be great to meetup with fellow forum volt guzzlers or amp heads if they are the right expressions?

 

[Waterstoney]

Hi evcog,
How was your planned trip? Sounds like it is a risky trip for the range.
I have the same model received at same time. I noticed fuel efficency is better in May comparing with March because I do not need to switch on heater.
I got 3.3mls/kWh on motorway doing 60mls/h. With 68kWh usable capacity, ZS LR model can only run 224miles (=3.3x68). My average efficiency is 3.7mls/kWh with a third on motorway in past 3 months.

 

[evcog]

Hi Waterstoney,
The trip was very good. I had charged to 100% the night before and my GOM was showing 287 miles. Of course with 259 miles to travel I knew I would have to charge somewhere so I had enough charge for my stay in Harrogate.

I was able to use adaptive cruise control for the first time since receiving the car and was very impressed. Obviuosly with the weather now getting warmer I did have to use AC occasionally. However, the trip up was giving me about 3.6 mls/Kwh. When not using ACC I used Regen 3 and ECO which when you are up to speed is perfectly acceptable on Motorways. Traffic speed on the Motorway was about 60mph anyway with the volume of traffic we now get on our sytem.
I stopped once at Ashby-de-la-Zouch Service Station and charged back up to 80%. It took so little time that I only had time to buy a sandwhich and coffee. Interestingly I noticed sand on the parking bay and wondered if an MG4 had been there?

Super happy with that charge and about 10p cheaper than I pay for rapid chargers when I need them in the South.

During the week I traveled to and from the Fully charged show, meeting Miles Roberts on the first day which was nice. On the Saturday I traveled about 2.5 miles from where I was staying to test out a Tesla Super charger on the Leeds Road. Unfortunaley id didnot recognize my MG ZS EV so I reported that on this forum and ZapMap. However, my charge was still good for the journey home. I had to stop once on the way back and unfortunaley below Gloucester the Service areas of the M5 have pretty bad EV charger facilities with many only having 2 rapid chargers. One of these was broken and the other occupied. Still had a good chat to the other EV driver as we compared the EV experiences and also the gripes of EV charging in the South. I have detailed what I am doing about those legitimate gripes in another thread in the forum just seach for my posts to see.

Anyway, I was at 19% on starting charging but was only getting 30Kwhr which was very slow. It did ramp up over a cup of coffee but the coffee shop was closing shortly so spent most of the time sat in the car. Got back up to 80% and the journey back was very pleasant as by this time there was little traffic.

I was very pleased with the comfort and drive of the MG, Long trips are no longer a mystery in my car. I don't think I suffer from range anxiety although I hope the Government get their fingers out in the South to ensure our service areas are up to scratch.

My next long trip is planned for August when I will be travelling to my cousin in Loughborough and then on to Dunoon in Scotland.