MG4 in Australia

[Daggly]

I have a Zappy charger in my garage and I currently have it set to only charge off solar. You can see it cutting in and out as clouds come over, or the oven is turned on (house gets priority).

We've only used charging stations twice. The first time was just to try it out. The second was to avoid range anxiety even though I believe we had plenty to get where we were going. We have the 77kWh battery.

One thing I have to remind myself of, is that even when you ignore the purchase cost of the solar panels, inverter and Zappi charger, the solar energy we put in isn't actually free. For every kWh we put into the car, we lose on the feed in tariff we would have received. In our case, it's a paltry 7c per kWh but that is in effect how much it costs to top up our 'tank'.

I'm not complaining here. The price of fuel makes ICE vehicles totally unappealing to me.

 

[ozzz]

I have a Zappy charger in my garage and I currently have it set to only charge off solar. You can see it cutting in and out as clouds come over, or the oven is turned on (house gets priority).

We've only used charging stations twice. The first time was just to try it out. The second was to avoid range anxiety even though I believe we had plenty to get where we were going. We have the 77kw battery.

One thing I have to remind myself of, is that even when you ignore the purchase cost of the solar panels, inverter and Zappi charger, the solar energy we put in isn't actually free. For every kWh we put into the car, we lose on the feed in tariff we would have received. In our case, it's a paltry 7c per kWh but that is in effect how much it costs to top up our 'tank'.

I'm not complaining here. The price of fuel makes ICE vehicles totally unappealing to me.

I am over $400 in credit and haven’t paid a power bill in years.

 

[Daggly]

What is your FIT?

 

[wattmatters]

For every kWh we put into the car, we lose on the feed in tariff we would have received. In our case, it's a paltry 7c per kWh but that is in effect how much it costs to top up our 'tank'.

While that's largely true, not all PV energy generation can necessarily be exported for a credit. That can be due to grid export power limits and/or off-grid production.

In 2023 we had 2.75 MWh* of PV generation which otherwise could not be exported for a credit.

Additional PV energy in these cases is only generated if a load is present, so you either use it, store it or lose it.

EVs, water heaters and batteries are excellent loads for this scenario.

However you look at it, charging from home is cheap, be it via grid off-peak / EV tariffs or using solar PV.

* That's more energy than our car would use in a year.

 

[ozzz]

What is your FIT?

9c was 20c last year , long story but after retiring due to boredom and covid I ended up flipping houses and small renovations but in 3 houses I fitted solar when I sold them at a profit the solar made a profit so when I fitted solar to this house same week as we moved in I count that as a free system.

 

[Trooper]

I have a Zappy charger in my garage and I currently have it set to only charge off solar. You can see it cutting in and out as clouds come over, or the oven is turned on (house gets priority).

We've only used charging stations twice. The first time was just to try it out. The second was to avoid range anxiety even though I believe we had plenty to get where we were going. We have the 77kw battery.

One thing I have to remind myself of, is that even when you ignore the purchase cost of the solar panels, inverter and Zappi charger, the solar energy we put in isn't actually free. For every kWh we put into the car, we lose on the feed in tariff we would have received. In our case, it's a paltry 7c per kWh but that is in effect how much it costs to top up our 'tank'.

I'm not complaining here. The price of fuel makes ICE vehicles totally unappealing to me.

I’ve recently started using Charge HQ (with delays to save some contractor wear) for the same reason to maximize charging from solar ?

The way I look at it though - I’m not losing 7c/kWh FiT… Instead I’m saving the difference between 7c and the grid tariff at that time of day, which is anywhere between 27c - 36c.

 

[wattmatters]

My overnight trip Mon/Tue was 440+ km and I think will end up using ~80 kWh of which 30 kWh was free destination charging, 27 kWh of free tariff energy and I'm making up the balance with solar PV at 7c/kWh. So about $1.60.

Normal fuel cost for us would be ~$53.

 

[Daggly]

I’ve recently started using Charge HQ (with delays to save some contractor wear) for the same reason to maximize charging from solar ?

The way I look at it though - I’m not losing 7c/kWh FiT… Instead I’m saving the difference between 7c and the grid tariff at that time of day, which is anywhere between 27c - 36c.

That's a glass half full perspective and I applaud it.

 

[smartroadster]

The bulletin is AS-TEC-02112023-01, which involves a supporting bracket and longer bolts.

View attachment 23469

The end result you can see in Kev's photo above.

Does anyone have a copy of this bulletin?
It would be good to try and get MG to do this in the UK.

 

[neerav]

Since they purchased an MG4 Essence 64 I've been having a discussion with group member Alex AKA wattmatters about their experience driving, servicing, charging etc. Here's a detailed interview incl frustrating North NSW DC chargers during road trips, how Alex uses V2L at home and Home Assistant instead of MG app etc

Thanks for sharing a balanced pros and cons description of your experience wattmatters

MG4 Essence 64 2023 - Australian electric car owner real world experience - Electrifying Everything - by Neerav Bhatt

The following is a discussion with Aussie electric vehicle (EV) owner Alex about their purchase of a MG4 Essence 64 and experience driving, servicing,

www.bhatt.id.au

 

[clayton4115]

Hi anyone with the 77 kWh model, if you go to a DC fast charger will it charge to 100% if you let it to, or will it cut our at 94 or 95%?

 

[tsedge]

Hi anyone with the 77 model, if you go to a DC fast charger will it charge to 100% if you let it to, or will it cut our at 94 or 95%?

It is common with all models that DC rapid charging stops before 100%. Sometimes 95%, sometimes 97%. The car usually terminates the charge early to protect the battery. AC charging should reach 100%.

 

[clayton4115]

It is common with all models that DC rapid charging stops before 100%. Sometimes 95%, sometimes 97%. The car usually terminates the charge early to protect the battery. AC charging should reach 100%.

Ok thanks my Hyundai Ioniq 28 which I have had for 4 years stops at 94% on all DC fast chargers, looking at the MG4 77 as my upgrade

 

[wattmatters]

Had a couple of DC fast charges yesterday in our Essence 64 and it was still charging pretty solidly past 90% but it does slow down. I used the Tesla Superchargers at Thrumster and Raymond Terrace.

This is the charge curve at Raymond Terrace:

The steep curve on the left is 141 kW. The flatter curve on the far right 7.4 kW.

 

[leonkernan]

I've just done Melbourne - Sydney in my 51.

Worked really well but running along at 110 km/h has you pretty much going charger to charger.
I nearly got caught out at Avenel with the Evie station being out of order, but luckily just made it to Euroa.
After that I was being a lot more cautious about my options in case a station wasn't working.

 

[wattmatters]

Doing a quick plot of data captured showing charging power vs state of charge.

Tesla Supercharger Raymond Terrace 2 May 2024. Essence 64.

Obviously a bit of error with time stamps but the general curve is pretty clear, very rapid then slows down a fair bit between 50-60% SOC.

 

[NLMGSAN]

I've just done Melbourne - Sydney in my 51.

Worked really well but running along at 110 has you pretty much going charger to charger.
I nearly got caught out at Avenel with the Evie station being out of order, but luckily just made it to Euroa.
After that I was being a lot more cautious about my options in case a station wasn't working.

Wild guess: three or four stops?

 

[wattmatters]

After that I was being a lot more cautious about my options in case a station wasn't working.

Charge early, charge often. Unless you know you have a Supercharger site you can use.

 

[NLMGSAN]

Doing a quick plot of data captured showing charging power vs state of charge.

Tesla Supercharger Raymond Terrace 2 May 2024. Essence 64.

View attachment 26232

Obviously a bit of error with time stamps but the general curve is pretty clear, very rapid then slows down a fair bit between 50-60% SOC.

Did you end the charge process manually?

 

[neerav]

Unless you know you have a Supercharger site you can use.

Even those may not be reliable soon since Elon has sacked the whole team