Possibly returning ZS EV owner :)

[hmadsen]

Hi

I bought a new ZS EV back in April 2022, owned it for 4 months and then some guy decided to total it by reversing into it at full throttle (Mustang V8 5.0 so quite quickly got to 35mph, which smashed the front in and pushed the car into another car behind it, smashing up the rear as well).

When his insurance accepted full responsibility (Easy case, HD Dashcam captured the whole incident) I promptly ordered a new MG ZS EV, but the waiting time had shot up to 12 months, so when Tesla slashed their prices and were able to deliver 5 months after our order, we changed horse and bought a MY LR.

Very happy with the Tesla, but now the wife has a new job, that is basically a 60 mile roundtrip mainly on the motorway, so our Corsa 1.0 is not going to do it for her. We were looking at buying a used MG, the choice was between the 4 and the ZS EV that we knew and now MG in Denmark has slashed the price of a brand new MG ZS EV Luxury like the one we had to an insanely low price so now we are on the verge of pulling the trigger on ordering one. (Price right now is ~2/3 of the price we paid when we bought ours in 2022....I know they are probably doing it to clear inventory because the new model is coming up, but this just means that the offer goes away, and our car might be quite the bargain in terms of resale price at a later date).

Tried a bit of searching but did not get a definitive answer so here goes.

Has the ZS EV received regular map updates, i remember ours got one at about summer 2022, is there anything newer...And how many have there been ?

Has the car actually received any OTA's ? Is there any outstanding faults of the kind that requires going to a MG garage to get them done or did they iron out the ones that were there in 2022 (I remember something about the car bricking at DC Fastchargers in unlucky circumstances).

Oh yeah by the way....Did they do any updates to the GOM ? As i remember it, i could go substancially longer on the 100 to 50, than the 50 to 0 (Non linear GOM) I am sorry, but i have become very fond of the Tesla, it is super linear in my book and i would rather have the real figure, than some optimistic 100-50 that goes to a "Holy moly, where did all of those % go, from 50 to 0

 

[Susanna]

I don’t think there’s been any updates to infotainment and certainly no OTAs - I don’t use the in-built sat nav; preferring Apple Maps as that shows roadworks/traffic jams etc.

I haven’t had any issues with my 2022 ZS EV Trophy, but I’ve driven less than 11000 miles. The car suits me fine, as I like the ride height, heated seats and the pano roof.

Sorry I can’t answer your questions properly!

 

[hmadsen]

I don’t think there’s been any updates to infotainment and certainly no OTAs - I don’t use the in-built sat nav; preferring Apple Maps as that shows roadworks/traffic jams etc.

I haven’t had any issues with my 2022 ZS EV Trophy, but I’ve driven less than 11000 miles. The car suits me fine, as I like the ride height, heated seats and the pano roof.

Sorry I can’t answer your questions properly!

Hi

Thank you for the answer, so the good old "can be updated via OTA" does not mean "Will be updated" when dealing with chinese stuff still rings true

Well i plan on using it with a dongle that makes wired AA, wireless AA so maybe not the biggest problem

I was just curious as I found several silly Chinese "Google translate" texts that made little to no sense in Danish and I Hoped they had fixed it. The dongle was a Christmas gift back in 2022 that i never used due to the long delivery time, prompting me to Get a Tesla instead and the questions about updates, was also because you get a bit spoiled with the Tesla that gets updates "All the time"

 

[Coulomb]

Did they do any updates to the GOM ? As i remember it, i could go substancially longer on the 100 to 50, than the 50 to 0 (Non linear GOM)

No, I don't believe that the GOM has significantly improved, certainly not to Tesla levels.

I think you're ruined as far as being happy with a reasonably priced Chinese EV (of almost any brand) goes, after getting used to a Tesla. Sorry to say. MGs are still great value, and I love both of ours, but you have to be prepared to forgive a bucket load of tedious niggles.

 

[Tim Green]

I think Coulomb is right, although I am not bothered by the niggles. The ZS is a great car in many ways. Sometimes I am tempted by the long range models, including Tesla, but we have a Merc e320 estate which is much more suitable for long journeys anyway.

 

[Susanna]

@hmadsen - I have a Carlinkit dongle for wireless CarPlay - saves all the faffing plugging and unplugging the phone. Most forum members who have any make of these dongles recommend setting a 30 second delay, giving the infotainment time to fully boot up before the dongle tries to connect. I certainly found this works well. Also, it’s better if the phone isn’t connected to the car itself via Bluetooth - just use the connection with the dongle.

@hmadsen - your comment about going significantly longer on 100-50 than 50-0 is just the same as I remember from ICE cars. Always many more miles in the full to halfway than in the ‘bottom’ of the fuel tank!

 

[hmadsen]

No, I don't believe that the GOM has significantly improved, certainly not to Tesla levels.

I think you're ruined as far as being happy with a reasonably priced Chinese EV (of almost any brand) goes, after getting used to a Tesla. Sorry to say. MGs are still great value, and I love both of ours, but you have to be prepared to forgive a bucket load of tedious niggles.

Yeah i kind of know what i am getting, we had one, albeit only 4 months, but we were so happy with it that when the insurance paid out, we promptly ordered a new one.

To be honest, if delivery times had not shot up to 1 year plus, we would be driving a ZS EV today and been none the wiser about what other EV's could offer.

At the end of the day, this will always be our "second car" the one that shuttles the wife back and forth to work and the car our daughter will drive (She never drove the Tesla) so essentially a "personal bus" for her to take to work. (And compare it to a 2012 Vauxhall Corsa 1.0 3 door it is a MASSIVE upgrade in all aspects )

And yes right now here it is VERY reasonably priced, i just found out, they lowered the price for a brand new long range "luxury edition" MG ZS EV with 3 phase charger (Important here as we only have 230V 16A, but 3 phases so 11KW charging at home instead of 3.6KW).

The Luxury here is the highest trim with the sunroof, rear cross traffic, blindspot, extra speakers, wireless phone charger, 360 (minecraft quality) camera, electric "leather" seats, glassroof with sunroof, rain sensor, full Ismart app functionality, and whatnot and i am now able to buy one, from MG, completely brand new, for £22.200 which is a steal, compared to the £35.000 we paid for the one that was totalled and even a comparable MG4, they want £26.700 for.

I believe this is the "Trophy long range" variant in UK terms.

I think Coulomb is right, although I am not bothered by the niggles. The ZS is a great car in many ways. Sometimes I am tempted by the long range models, including Tesla, but we have a Merc e320 estate which is much more suitable for long journeys anyway.

Yeah if we buy the ZS EV it will mean we will be fully electric, it might be a bit over the top to buy a Long Range for what is essentially a 60 mile round trip daily, but I am not able to get a Standard Range (50 kWh battery) in luxury trim with a 3 phase charger.

The 3 phase charger is pretty important here, as otherwise I am stuck with 3.6 kW AC charging, which is a pain, when we have 3 cars sharing one charger, and solar panels that can do 13kW output in the summer and we want to put as much of that solar power into the cars, rather than sell it at low prices.

And at the current price they are offering, £22.200 for a factory new Trophy Long Range, its not a big problem that it has a larger battery

@hmadsen - I have a Carlinkit dongle for wireless CarPlay - saves all the faffing plugging and unplugging the phone. Most forum members who have any make of these dongles recommend setting a 30 second delay, giving the infotainment time to fully boot up before the dongle tries to connect. I certainly found this works well. Also, it’s better if the phone isn’t connected to the car itself via Bluetooth - just use the connection with the dongle.

Thanks for the tip, i have a AAWireless dongle i got for christmas 2022, this was back when our ZS EV was totalled but we had ordered a new one. When we switched to buying the Tesla when they slashed the prices substancially in January 2023, this dongle became obsolete for my use, but i just put it in a drawer and now i can take it out and finally use it

I will certainly look into setting it to wait a bit before connecting if possible

@hmadsen - your comment about going significantly longer on 100-50 than 50-0 is just the same as I remember from ICE cars. Always many more miles in the full to halfway than in the ‘bottom’ of the fuel tank!

I agree, previous to us going electric we have had quite a few Vauxhalls, and never have I ever owned a Vauxhall that had an accurate fuel gauge.

That being said, it would be totally doable, to make the GOM, a lot more accurate, than what i remember the one in the ZS EV, and I can say that at least my Tesla, has a pretty accurate one.

There is really no reason NOT to make it accurate, I know its not as easy with NMC batteries as the battery voltage does not drop a lot over a large range of the SoC, but again...Tesla can do it, and from what I read elsewhere, other EV manufacturers have pretty much nailed it, so I was hoping SAIC had made some adjustments since our first ownership back in 2022

But not a massive deal, the wife will do a 60 mile roundtrip to work in it, so it will probably sit somewhere between 80 and 50% most of the time anyway

By the way, this is how the MG ZS EV looks if someone reverses into it at 35 miles per hour.

Car was totalled by the way.

 

[BOB353]

A bit of elbow grease and polish would fix that.

 

[hmadsen]

A bit of elbow grease and polish would fix that.

Yeah, this was back when delivery time of a new car was 1+ years, spare parts was not very easy to get either.

I was told that the reduction gearbox was bent and cracked so powertrain would need to be replaced, the whole front as well, including sensors, cameras, the 2 front airbags was blown which means new steering wheel and dashboard, and all seatbelt pretentioners were also fired and then the car was also pushed into the car behind it at the toll booth so the rear looked like this.

By the way for anyone that did not know...The rear centre seatbelt does not have a pretentioner, only 2 outer front and rear seats have them.

The insurance evaluator said the car would cost £14000 to fix....That is....£14000 more than the price of a new one

"Worst" part is....Today 2 years 4 months later, the at the time nearly 70 year old driver of the other car, has not had his day in court.

Still waiting on the Danish courts to get to this case.....Open and shut case, i have the HD dashcam footage that shows everything that happened so not a very difficult court case.

That Dashcam is also in my drawer, did not need it for the Tesla for obvious reasons, so now it will be mounted in the new ZS EV, when/ if we buy it.

 

[Coulomb]

There is really no reason NOT to make it [ the GOM ] accurate, I know its not as easy with NMC batteries as the battery voltage does not drop a lot over a large range of the SoC,

Actually, it's fairly easy with NMC, and it's LFP that is harder with the very flat voltage versus SoC curve.

But there are still effects from temperature, driver habits, auxiliary loads, elevation changes, weather, and so on. I believe that Tesla takes almost all if not every one of these into consideration somehow. I doubt that many other manufacturers do it as well.

 

[fred12345]

Has the ZS EV received regular map updates, i remember ours got one at about summer 2022, is there anything newer...And how many have there been ?

This would be the last of my worries - best to use Google maps via phone - you get live traffic updates and fresh maps. i would think you still get 2023 maps on ZS and you need to update them yourself

Has the car actually received any OTA's ? Is there any outstanding faults of the kind that requires going to a MG garage to get them done or did they iron out the ones that were there in 2022

I have 2022 model that I got second hand and everything works fine. we don't get OTA on ZS, you get them when you service your car (if we remind our garage to do it)

Oh yeah by the way....Did they do any updates to the GOM ?

Not that I know but then again, not a problem for me, I never leave it too low to recharge the car. When you compare Tesla to ZS, you also need to compare what you pay for it ...

Well i plan on using it with a dongle that makes wired AA, wireless AA so maybe not the biggest problem

I was just curious as I found several silly Chinese "Google translate" texts that made little to no sense in Danish and I Hoped they had fixed it. The dongle was a Christmas gift back in 2022 that i never used due to the long delivery time, prompting me to Get a Tesla instead and the questions about updates, was also because you get a bit spoiled with the Tesla that gets updates "All the time"

Dongle is simple to use, just plug in, connect to your phone Bluetooth and it works. Any problems (if any at all) will be between your phone settings and dongle.