Setting target battery level issue

[Dave]

Does it mean we are safe to charge it to 100% every time? This is something really new that I've known. Wonder why they don't make other MG cars run on LFP too then? A quick read on google/wikipedia suggests they have longer life than the normal Lithium Ions. Certain Tesla's run on LFPs. Wow! This is interesting. However I still agree with @Lovemyev, I should be allowed to control my charge %. Is it possible that certain SR cars have LFP and certain dont? What puzzles me is @Merry is able to change the target battery % despite being on SR and I cannot!

No issues with charging to 100%. The Jaguar iPace is exactly the same with its huge 90kWh battery.

Personally, I prefer to be in control of the charging and the app provides a simple way of doing that if you have the LR battery.

When I had the iPace I fitted a timer relay to my home charger and prevented the car charging all the way to 100% by setting that. Bit of not too difficult maths to set the time

Although the iPace had the same charge timing facility that the ZS now has, it never really worked.

MG has the same warranty on both LR and SR batteries. I don’t think they would do that unless they were confident that no harm would come by going to 100% all the time.

 

[r0b1n68]

Does it mean we are safe to charge it to 100% every time? This is something really new that I've known. Wonder why they don't make other MG cars run on LFP too then? A quick read on google/wikipedia suggests they have longer life than the normal Lithium Ions. Certain Tesla's run on LFPs. Wow! This is interesting. However I still agree with @Lovemyev, I should be allowed to control my charge %. Is it possible that certain SR cars have LFP and certain dont? What puzzles me is @Merry is able to change the target battery % despite being on SR and I cannot!

No, every SR has an LFP batery
The problem is, a 50kwh LFP is as heavy as the 70KWH pack from the LR model, that’s why the LFP technology isn’t everywhere

It’s the same as Tesla’s model 3
If I understood correctly, the 60kwh LFP pack of the SR+ models is the same weight/dimensions as the 82kwh pack for the LR models

The Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) tech is good, but it doesn’t like to be cold, you can’t charge as fast as other techs, but, you can do way more charging cycles than an NMC pack

 

[Dave]

Is this documented anywhere in the manual or something? I can relate to what you say here. When I charged my car over the weekend using a rapid charger, it did charge to 100%.

Hi,

It’s in another thread about charging stopping at 95%.

There is a section in the manual that briefly mentions it.

 

[Merry]

@Mihir mines an LR

 

[Mihir]

@Mihir mines an LR

Ah!! That explains it all then! I've reached out to MG Customer Service who said they will check with their technical team and get back to me on this. Its a bit of a mixed feeling for me. While I am happy SR is on a technically superior technology of batteries giving more battery cycles atleast theoritically, I am not very pleased that I cannot control the battery SOC on SR.

Ohme charger lets me set the target % I want to add. But I would need to keep changing it everytime I charge as it cannot read my current SOC. Bit of a pain but that's the only way out as I see it for now!

Thank you everyone for your inputs, help and knowledge share. I definitely learnt something new and interesting today!

 

[r0b1n68]

Ah!! That explains it all then! I've reached out to MG Customer Service who said they will check with their technical team and get back to me on this. Its a bit of a mixed feeling for me. While I am happy SR is on a technically superior technology of batteries giving more battery cycles atleast theoritically, I am not very pleased that I cannot control the battery SOC on SR.

Ohme charger lets me set the target % I want to add. But I would need to keep changing it everytime I charge as it cannot read my current SOC. Bit of a pain but that's the only way out as I see it for now!

Thank you everyone for your inputs, help and knowledge share. I definitely learnt something new and interesting today!

The biggest issue for me is the lack of regen when the battery is fully charged.
I see the difference on my commute : 24-25kwh/100kms when the battery is full and no regen ; 18-19kwh/100kms when I can regen

 

[rdyksman]

I have the same issue . I can't control mine either. Went back to the dealer and explained it at home it does not work on app ore car i will go back to the dealer to fix the problem. Also a standard range

 

[Mihir]

I have the same issue . I can't control mine either. Went back to the dealer and explained it at home it does not work on app ore car i will go back to the dealer to fix the problem. Also a standard range

According to all that is mentioned above, I won't be surprised if there would be no fix for this on the SR. Keep us posted though if your dealer comes back with a solution.

 

[Harry]

Does it mean we are safe to charge it to 100% every time? This is something really new that I've known. Wonder why they don't make other MG cars run on LFP too then? A quick read on google/wikipedia suggests they have longer life than the normal Lithium Ions. Certain Tesla's run on LFPs. Wow! This is interesting. However I still agree with @Lovemyev, I should be allowed to control my charge %. Is it possible that certain SR cars have LFP and certain dont? What puzzles me is @Merry is able to change the target battery % despite being on SR and I cannot!

I may be wrong about this, but I understand the short range batteries are of a different type because they need less sophisticated management and are more robust to charging "maltreatment". They are used for short range as they are less energy dense and so take up more space for their range than the LR batteries. The LR batteries need to be higher energy density to provide the range.

 

[Lovemyev]

I think then that the new face lift SR models find themselves in a similar situation as the original ZS EV Gen1 models ?.
When the original ZS EV was released, it would commence charging as soon as you plugged it in !.
Delayed charging was not possible as the car would go into a deep sleep ? and forget to wake up.
Strangely enough, the two wall boxes recommended for use with the ZS EV was the Pod Point and the Rolec unit.
But neither would perform delayed / timed charging !.
A software fix prevented the cars from diving into a deep sleep, but delayed charging was either not possible or very patchy.
Of course there was NO App on the Gen1 models of course.
Owners on a cheap rate tariff found themselves waiting until after midnight, to plug in their cars !.
Then this would give them a full 100% charge, even if they did not want it.
To me and other owners, this was a major disadvantage.
My dumb Rolec wall box was in installed in 2015 and was therefore of the pre-smart type.
We where lucky enough to have a very clever electrical engineer who also was a early adopter of the ZS EV.
He wanted to control his charge times also, and cleverly came up with a plan that would give owners this facility.
By installing a Wi-Fi relay inside of the wall box, this could be controlled by an App from your phone !.
This was an absolute game changer !.
I have been using this feature for over two years now to delay charge or car.
You have to perform a bit of “Man Math’s” to control just how long you wish to charge to hit your required percentage, but this is fairly straight forward.
One hour on a 7 kw wall box will give you roughly 25 miles of range added to your battery.
Most Smart chargers do now offer Apps that can facilitate scheduled timed charging.

 

[Mihir]

I think then that the new face lift SR models find themselves in a similar situation as the original ZS EV Gen1 models ?.
When the original ZS EV was released, it would commence charging as soon as you plugged it in !.
Delayed charging was not possible as the car would go into a deep sleep ? and forget to wake up.
Strangely enough, the two wall boxes recommended for use with the ZS EV was the Pod Point and the Rolec unit.
But neither would perform delayed / timed charging !.
A software fix prevented the cars from diving into a deep sleep, but delayed charging was either not possible or very patchy.
Of course there was NO App on the Gen1 models of course.
Owners on a cheap rate tariff found themselves waiting until after midnight, to plug in their cars !.
Then this would give them a full 100% charge, even if they did not want it.
To me and other owners, this was a major disadvantage.
My dumb Rolec wall box was in installed in 2015 and was therefore of the pre-smart type.
We where lucky enough to have a very clever electrical engineer who also was a early adopter of the ZS EV.
He wanted to control his charge times also, and cleverly came up with a plan that would give owners this facility.
By installing a Wi-Fi relay inside of the wall box, this could be controlled by an App from your phone !.
This was an absolute game changer !.
I have been using this feature for over two years now to delay charge or car.
You have to perform a bit of “Man Math’s” to control just how long you wish to charge to hit your required percentage, but this is fairly straight forward.
One hour on a 7 kw wall box will give you roughly 25 miles of range added to your battery.
Most Smart chargers do now offer Apps that can facilitate scheduled timed charging.

Thats a very good info to know!

Like you rightly pointed out smart chargers these days do offer apps now. Ohme is one of them! They have app integrations with most EV cars which means we do not need 2 apps(Ohme and the car app) to control/manage charging. MG ZS EV integration is on the way.

Since they cannot read the current SOC without integration, on the charge schedule we need to add the additional SOC % we want via their app. So say on the first day I am at 40% and I want to charge to 80%, I need to set 40% on the app and the finish time(usually 2.30am in my case). I plug in the cable at 9.30pm when my off peak starts (they do not offer start time setting) and it starts charging immediately.

If on the next day or next time, if I am on 30%, I need to manually change the schedule again to now say 50% to make it to 80% and repeat the cycle! Its a bit of a pain to keep manually adjusting the numbers every time I need to charge but it atleast lets me control the SOC.

I am hoping that once the integration for MG ZS EV is in place, it can automatically read my current SOC and I wouldn't have to bother about iSmart app for charging!

 

[navneeth1986]

Whenever I try to set the target battery level both in the car's infotainment screen or on the iSmart app, it seems to be jump back to 100% and due to this I am never able to charge upto only say 80%. I have to either use Ohme's charging app to limit my charging(They do not have integration with MG ZS EV charging yet. So its again manually done in a complicated way!) or have to manually hit finish charging when the level hits 80% on the iSmart app/car infotainment screen. If I set to charge at night, this means I need to stay awake till it gets to 80% to manually stop it!

Also when I try to set to a different level, the estimated range number never changes. Here is a video on the issue. The same thing happens on the iSmart app too :



Anyone having such issues?Or managed to resolve it?
@navneeth1986 ? I vaguely remember you having mentioned this at some point. Did you manage to resolve it?

Sorry for the delayed response. Yes I still have this problem. Booked a diagnostic with the dealer in march. But looking at this thread, it looks like there is a reason for it.

 

[navneeth1986]

Thats a very good info to know!

Like you rightly pointed out smart chargers these days do offer apps now. Ohme is one of them! They have app integrations with most EV cars which means we do not need 2 apps(Ohme and the car app) to control/manage charging. MG ZS EV integration is on the way.

Since they cannot read the current SOC without integration, on the charge schedule we need to add the additional SOC % we want via their app. So say on the first day I am at 40% and I want to charge to 80%, I need to set 40% on the app and the finish time(usually 2.30am in my case). I plug in the cable at 9.30pm when my off peak starts (they do not offer start time setting) and it starts charging immediately.

If on the next day or next time, if I am on 30%, I need to manually change the schedule again to now say 50% to make it to 80% and repeat the cycle! Its a bit of a pain to keep manually adjusting the numbers every time I need to charge but it atleast lets me control the SOC.

I am hoping that once the integration for MG ZS EV is in place, it can automatically read my current SOC and I wouldn't have to bother about iSmart app for charging!

Yes planning to have a hypervolt myself. Hopefully I should be able to control the SOC through that. Given ismart is terrible

 

[Mihir]

MG wants to deliver ID.3 competitor this year - electrive.com

This article mentions that all SR ZS EV's are on LFPs. And all LR's on NMC's. Unless the charger apps lets us control the SOC, it would surely not be possible via the car/iSmart app to control the SOC. It will always remain at 100%. Thanks to @r0b1n68 for shedding light on LFPs here.

 

[Mihir]

Left my car to charge overnight to charge to 100% as I have a long journey today and saw the remaining range on iSmart app this morning. This is on normal mode. Eco would add another 8-10 miles. Better weather?Battery balancing?Haven't seen it cross 200 ever even when I received the delivery of the car and its a pleasant surprise!

 

[Dave]

Possibly your driving style and the conditions of where you drive it.

 

[Merry]

It's just guessing off your previous journeys and/or average. It'll drop when you turn the heater on too when you get in the car/preheat....

 

[Dave]

It's just guessing off your previous journeys and/or average. It'll drop when you turn the heater on too when you get in the car/preheat....

I have HVAC set to AUTO with 21 degC target. Not sure how preheat works as it only seams to be for 10mins and only for the cabin. There does not appear to be anyway to warm the battery from the APP?

 

[Merry]

The heater won't be on in @Mihir s post as he's not in the car and I'm assuming it isn't preheating. So it's showing range with the heater off.

What I'm saying is if you look at predicted range on the ismart app its likely to be predicted range with the heater off.

See - heater off

Heater on

 

[Dave]

Well…..

Mine showed 264 miles range. On that charge I actually drove 218 miles and had 20% SOC when I returned home

So the GOM, if anything, was pessimistic in its range

It’s all down to how you drive an EV to get the range out if it. When it warms up later in the year I would expect it to easily do over 300 miles on a full charge.