The balance charge was a bit quicker the second time so about 800wH with 400wH due to the limited regen when fully charged.1.2kwh is probably the equalisation charge.. 0.3 for 4 hours...that costs less than 16 pence on a home charge. Should be done once a month.
A lot of people do charge to full every night. There's no criticism of that. It's just for information. I've not seen any analysis of the wasted energy before.6p on my Octopus Go tariff.
We have an MG5 and ZE50 Zoe and plug whichever needs the charge more in overnight on a 00:30 to 04:30 time slot to match the cheap tariff.
We use the heated seats, the air con and the heater if we feel they are needed.
We charge to 100% with abandon.
We don't have sleepless nights over battery equalisation.
We drive them exactly as we used to use our petrol and diesel ICE cars and the sooner people stop stressing about the cost (both in terms of financial and range) of using standard features you wouldn't even consider not using in an ICE vehicle and range anxiety (irrelevant for average car use if you have easy access to a charger) the more you can stress about things that might actually matter and instead treat your car as it is i.e. a means of getting from A to B and presumably back again and appreciate that is costs much less to run and is a lot more fun.
With you a 100% percent.6p on my Octopus Go tariff.
We have an MG5 and ZE50 Zoe and plug whichever needs the charge more in overnight on a 00:30 to 04:30 time slot to match the cheap tariff.
We use the heated seats, the air con and the heater if we feel they are needed.
We charge to 100% with abandon.
We don't have sleepless nights over battery equalisation.
We drive them exactly as we used to use our petrol and diesel ICE cars and the sooner people stop stressing about the cost (both in terms of financial and range) of using standard features you wouldn't even consider not using in an ICE vehicle and range anxiety (irrelevant for average car use if you have easy access to a charger) the more you can stress about things that might actually matter in life and instead treat your car as it is i.e. a means of getting from A to B and presumably back again and appreciate that is costs much less to run and is a lot more fun.
A lot of people do charge to full every night. There's no criticism of that. It's just for information. I've not seen any analysis of the wasted energy before.
The wasted energy is lost as heat. The balancing process uses switched resistors to protect the cells which are already up to maximum voltage and the friction brakes lose energy to heat when regen is limited. It's all in the video.I'm not convinced yet it is wasted energy as (ignoring the wife's Zoe which clearly has as different charging strategy which never seems to obviously balance) I've found what I assume is the balancing' portion of the charge takes longer proportional to how much lower the original lower battery capacity the vehicle started at.
I use emoncms to monitor basically everything electrical in my house and my charger is OpenEVSE so it links into that and have full data at 10s intervals since we've started charging cars last October.
In the end, if the BMS is requesting charge, it is presumably going into the battery. Where else is it going? The MG5 profile is similar to the charging of my 20kWh battery pile that timeshifts the grid usage of my house. Again, my wife's Zoe is different and I've no idea why - but neither do a care.
I'm certainly not knocking the investigation that started this thread but in the end I'm not convinced it's either necessary or worth the effort to intervene.
The battery will balance every time you charge to full if you leave it plugged in.Guys,
Am I missing something here. As far as I know the user (at least for the MG ZS EV, don't know about the MG 5 but I don't think it will be any different) can't initiate an equalization charge as it is the BMS that will tell you on the screen if and when it is required.
I, as you know are one of those strange creatures who plugs in my car every night and just let it do its own thing. Not once in the time I have had the MG ZS over a year did it say to do this, and I have NEVER had any battery related problems with either of the car's batteries.
I am also not convinced about efficiency (I did watch your video ,nicely shot and presented by the way) as no matter how hard you try it is impossible to exactly replicate two drives the same and the amount is not worth the hassle factor for me to change my habit even if it was true.
As stated in my last post I am not advising anyone to follow my habits, everyone to their own.
Have a good weekend.
Frank
Maybe I should make another video about the difference between driving on a full or empty stomach...Let’s not forget the extra 2.5 micro grams of mass in a full battery. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s probably enough to break that boot floor ?
I suspect that my 'hanger' will make me drive faster (and less efficiently). But then I'll be able to spend more time charging for free at Lidl while eating their baked goods. But then I'll be fatter so every subsequent journey will be less efficient. But then my range anxiety will lead to weight loss...Maybe I should make another video about the difference between driving on a full or empty stomach...
Some of us like to maximise our efficiency. I just noticed that my miles per kWh was always lower when driving with a full battery. I find it all quite fun.
Yes, it would be great to run the same test several times. It occurred to me that the battery was warmer at the start of the second test so that might have made it more efficient. The wind was pretty similar in both tests but the traffic and run of the lights were different.Not really an accurate test, same journey yes, but same traffic ? same wind direction ? etc.
It needs to be run several times for each scenario (100% v 87% charge) and each scenario on the same day and over a period of several days to prove anything.