Information & Inspiration For
MG Electric Vehicle Enthusiasts
MG Electric Vehicle Enthusiasts
Newbie questions
- Thread starter Welshman100
- Start date
-
- Tags
- mg5
AdamMGEV
Prominent Member
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2021
- Messages
- 1,163
- Reaction score
- 1,068
- Points
- 406
- Location
- Cheshire
- Driving
- MG4 Trophy LR
Probably because they got too many to deal with from AVRO Energy was it?
defeatedbythecat
Established Member
In advance of picking up my LR on Thursday I have some noob questions if I may?
If I am in a car park and know I'll be waiting a while, should I turn the car on fully to listen to the stereo for 30mins+ to not use the 12v?
Does MG Pilot work at night or only during the day?
What's your favourite cheese?
If I am in a car park and know I'll be waiting a while, should I turn the car on fully to listen to the stereo for 30mins+ to not use the 12v?
Does MG Pilot work at night or only during the day?
What's your favourite cheese?
biffo
Prominent Member
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2021
- Messages
- 1,147
- Reaction score
- 1,326
- Points
- 419
- Location
- Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire
You can't turn the car fully on when connected to a charger - the HV battery is disconnected at this stage so you're only running off the 12V battery. But that might not be what you're asking - so yeah, if just sitting and waiting always turn on fully and use the HV battery rather than 12V.
MG Pilot works fine at night - the radar for ACC doesn't need light and the camera for LKA seems happy with headlights and road markings.
I had a lovely chunk of Tesco Finest Langres the other day, served with their Christmas assorted cracker selection and Ploughman's Plum Chutney
defeatedbythecat
Established Member
Love a good Chutney... Fuelling the festive feeling as Xmas cheese is coming!
As an aside, if I am charging in the cold with the family in the car, I'll just have to run the heating off the 12v and hope it doesn't die?
smokie
Prominent Member
To me, it's not playing the game to rely on free in-store chargers for your main charging, if you are.
Eventually the stores will find a way to stop it e.g. you only get free charging with a certain level of spend. Or they'll just charge everyone.
Eventually the stores will find a way to stop it e.g. you only get free charging with a certain level of spend. Or they'll just charge everyone.
Petriix
Established Member
That's not really accurate. You can press the start button twice without your foot on the brake to enable running the HVAC etc from the HV battery while charging.
biffo
Prominent Member
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2021
- Messages
- 1,147
- Reaction score
- 1,326
- Points
- 419
- Location
- Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire
We may be talking about different models here, as my MG5LR definitely tells me the HV battery is disconnected - this is on DC charge , can’t say I’ve hung about when AC charging.
What you’ve described is using the 12V battery as far as I understand.
Prof1967
Established Member
Next time I'm on charge I'm going to double check.
It's either pressing the button twice with your foot off the pedal or twice with your foot on the pedal which means the HV battery is disconnected as far as being able to drive the motor but it will put power to the 12 volt battery to allow you to run the infotainment, heating etc without the voltage dropping too low to start the car when yo want to drive off.
It's either pressing the button twice with your foot off the pedal or twice with your foot on the pedal which means the HV battery is disconnected as far as being able to drive the motor but it will put power to the 12 volt battery to allow you to run the infotainment, heating etc without the voltage dropping too low to start the car when yo want to drive off.
biffo
Prominent Member
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2021
- Messages
- 1,147
- Reaction score
- 1,326
- Points
- 419
- Location
- Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire
I’d thought a single press with foot off starts radio, windows, etc (ACC State, same as first position with key). A second press lights dash up (ON/Ready State, same as position II with a key ICE car). Pressing a third time with foot off shuts it all down. This is all from 12v battery - just like an ICE.
Pressing button at any time with foot on brake connects HV battery and shows ‘Ready’ - the equivalent of starting the engine.
Last edited:
Fluffykins
Established Member
You might want to watch this about Rolecs:
The connection to the charger cable should be made in the meter cupboard, not the fusebox. Our meter cupboard is on the outside of the side wall. The fusebox is inside the kitchen, poking into the back of a high level kitchen unit cupboard.
Out PodPoint installation was simply the addition of a couple of T connection blocks to the consumer side meter tails, a new Earth leakage breaker in its own little tin housing and a current monitoring transformer (ferrite ring round a meter tail), all inside the meter cupboard.
And that was it.
Plenty of room inside the meter box, despite there being a large older style meter and a bigger Economy7 radio controlled switchover thingy in there.
The meter and Economy7 switch have since been replaced by an Octopus smart meter, which leaves loadsaspace.
EVsince2016
Prominent Member
My first charger in 2016 was a Rolec like this one, I still have it stored. When it was replaced with a smart charger in 2019 it was found that the connections to the 40A fuse were badly burnt. Apparently this was a problem at the time as Rolec used cheap 40A fuses.
The fix was simply replacing the fuse, that's it. I was surprised that no fuses tripped actually!
I found Rolec somewhat unhelpful at that time and dismissive of the issue blaming the installer.
Gomev
Distinguished Member
This is old news and relates to the old model. The new Rolec smart meters are fine.
@Jomarkh - Don't let @MilesperkWh put self doubt in your mind about the white option. A fine and well considered choice my in book!!
Jomarkh
Distinguished Member
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2021
- Messages
- 3,878
- Reaction score
- 2,439
- Points
- 1,032
- Location
- Southampton
- Driving
- MG5 Excite
Why pay for a colour Dave, it's not my first white car although it is my first new car?
AnonymouseDriva
Established Member
Actually, it's slightly more, but not a lot. There is a bit of loss in charging with some of the power being lost to heat generation etc, but not a lot. Figures banded about are somewhere between 10 and 20% with all the usual caveats around temperature, speed of charge (such as on rapids), AC/DC conversion (for fast / granny) etc. This means that it could 'use' up to about 68kWh at the meter to put the full 57kWh into the battery (taking the worst case loss rate).
Very unscientifically, I see about a third of the battery filled in my 3 hours of overnight charging (I'm on Octopus Go Faster so get 3 hours at 4.5p/kWh) so that's roughly 19kWh into the battery. My hypervolt generally tells me it has used about 21kWh. I work that as a 10% loss, but there are a lot of abouts and roughlys in that calculation!
Even at the worst case though that's only adding a couple of quid per full charge for you. (or about 50p for me!)
Just add the percentage to your rate and assume that your car costs 23-25p/kWh (in terms of energy actually delivered to the battery) to charge at home when working your figures out.
EVsince2016
Prominent Member
Charging a battery has losses of around 10%.
If the battery is cold, losses are higher, as the charge approaches 100% the losses ramp up a lot.
If the battery is cold, losses are higher, as the charge approaches 100% the losses ramp up a lot.
Nick10006
Novice Member
Not sure if anyone's mentioned but I use plugshare and zapmap apps for checking availability of public chargers. I've had a Nissan Leaf for 5 years now (early adopter!). When we 1st got the Leaf we charged on Granny charger for about two years with zero problems. Just plugged in and left it overnight. So don't worry, as long as your house has decent electrics it shouldn't be a problem.
Just ordered an MG5 LR and looking forward to being a two EV family!
Just ordered an MG5 LR and looking forward to being a two EV family!
Latest MG EVs video
MG Hybrid+ EVs OVER-REVVING & more owner feedback
