They had the MG on display in our town centre before lockdown. Not electric one. They look ok for the money. They used to assemble MG here but now made in China although they have a design place here.
I will stick with Hyundai or Kia,maybe Toyota known quantity and reliable.
I would consider a hybrid maybe plug in as they can tow .
The Toyota RAV hybrid has good towing capacity and they are going to sell a bigger suv , the Highlander soon. Its about Sorento size and there should be hybrid models.
If I was still working I would probably get a small BEV as it would do for work shopping etc. Probably Hyundai Ionic.
I looked at one while our Santa Fe was in for service, nice car. The sales guy was using the demo as his car and said the range is pretty close to stated figure.
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The Ioniq is great for efficiency. Agree Kia, Hyundai, Toyota are the only brands I’d really consider for reliability buying again. Hard to look past the longer warranties they offer, otherwise would put Honda in there (our tow car is a CRV).
Went from putting about £100 a month in fuel into the Honda to less than £4 to cover the same mileage in the Kia EV. That is using 5p EV tarrif to charge it. Would have been even less now we are into spring as the solar panels would also charge it, but it’s sat on the drive not being used now as working from home.
MG has a 7 year warranty but when you look into it most bits are covered for 3 years!
Yep the MG ZS EV is maid by SAIC in China, the worlds largest manufacture of EV’s they also make many fossil cars as well.
At the initial launch it was said at the press conference that it would have towing capacity although this was not said on camera, check out Bjorn Nyland on youtube he filmed the press conference which was quite a cheesy affair and did not inspire confidence in the product or the MG brand for that matter.
Although the MG ZS EV is a bargain at around £21k which for a new BEV is a shockingly low price.
Anyway MG have missed a trick omitting towing, but I guess it could be down to the small battery size, the MG ZS EV is of course based on the fossil version of the same car, and this is the problem you get when the car is not designed as an BEV from the ground up, I would imagine the MG ZS EV will have a shortened production run, and that a model with a bigger battery is already on the drawing board and that will be the one that gets the towing specification.
On the upside, the Tesla Model Y is available with a tow capacity of 1,500kg and nose weight of 145kg, the only downside is that it’s three times the price of the MG.
Yes, saw that Tesla Bjorn video at the time, also I was on the MG ZS EV Facebook group started by James Coates (James and Kate youtube) and dealers were saying towing of 750kg braked at the start. I crawled under the back of the EV and the petrol ZS and they were exactly the same, even had the bolt holes for the tow hitch. Most likely they felt it wasn’t worth the cost to them of getting it homologated for towing but for a family SUV I think they should have done. I wasn’t the only one on the FB group to cancel my order because of the towing.
The MG is a great price, but the quality was not on a par with our CRV, my Soul EV or my wife’s Nissan Leaf (24kWh). Also, there are a lot of features missing from the MG that EV drivers would really consider essential. For example, the MG doesn’t tell you what percentage battery you have remaining, just a guesstimated range based on your recent driving. There is no way to preheat the car or charge the car on a timer, again pretty useless when you are going to likely want to a) set the car to start charging when your cheap night tariff starts or b) get it warmed up and defrosted in winter before you get in it. No heat pump for the heater and aircon, not good for winter range.
Despite being a heavier car, and having the aero efficiency of postman pats van, my Soul EV is averaging 4.8 miles per kWh (October until lockdown) on the trip computer and well over 5 when calculating miles travelled for percentage battery used (the trip computer is always conservative on the Soul). This was good for 135-150 miles over winter. MG owners were often getting low 3’s miles to the kWh. Not an efficient car.
Got the Soul EV at auction bought for me by Jonathan Porterfield at eco-cars.net and delivered to my door. Was a great way to buy the car and cheaper than buying from a main dealer or even privately.
The I pace and Model 3 can tow, I think the etron and EQC can too, but all mega bucks.
MG are bringing out another EV this year, the MG5 EV. It’s an estate car with a 600 litre boot. Battery is 52kWh apparently so 200ish miles range and will be cheaper than the ZS EV. You can put a holding deposit on one for when they arrive in a few months. Looks a little like a Kia Optima sportswagon from the side.
Yep Jim, the Kia Soul is a good BEV, but again not designed from the ground up as a BEV, being based on a fossil car.
Of course for the legacy auto makers, starting again on design is a huge investment, that they can get away without doing, and why not if the tooling is already in place.
This is the main advantage that Tesla have, in that they have no legacy fossil car to rework, apart from the very first Roadster that is, and that was a Lotus in any case, but they only built a small number of those as there first ever BEV.
You have probably seen Sandy Munro doing the tear down of the Tesla Model Y, that car is years ahead of what is already out there, and will sure make a nice used buy in a few years time.
Tesla really have got the secret sauce when it comes to batteries, inverters and motors, I don't think any other automaker will ever catch them up.
Very true, good examples being that the fan for battery cooling the Soul is located in the spare wheel well, so can’t have a spare wheel. Also, there is lots of space under the bonnet, if it was designed ground up the bonnet could have been shorter to increase cabin space.
Tesla as you say are on a different page to everyone else. I wonder if VAG will be able to compete given how much they have had to throw at the R and D to deal with dieselgate. The ID range could be good. The ID3 does have the option of a tow bar and power outlet but for bikes not trailers sadly.
The other massive plus with Tesla is the supercharger network. The worst thing at the minute is the charge network for other EV’s, having a Tesla takes all that faff away!
Yep, Tesla did reach out to other BEV manufacturers with a view to sharing the cost of the Tesla Supercharger infrastructure which would have benefited just about all BEV drivers whatever make of BEV that they have, but Tesla have had no response up to now.
European Tesla models use CCS fast chargers and most of the Tesla Superchargers have been updated to have two charging leads a Type 2 and CCS, and I recon it will only be the legacy S and X models that will require Type 2, and that new models of the S and X will also be CCS for the European market that is.
The VW iD3 will be a major game changer for mass ownership of BEV’s, it is basically the VW Golf but electric, interestingly although around the same size as the existing Golf on the outside, the cabin is the same size as the Passat.
Although not having a towing option for the iD3 is a big mistake, crazy that they did not factor that in, especially for the European market.
You’d like to have thought by now everyone would have agreed on one set of charging connections but we still have new cars being sold with Chademo rather than CCS, the new Lexus UX EV will come with Chademo for example, while most other cars apart from Nissan have opted for CCS.
Might be a bit of a Betamax scenario. Chademo apparently is the better connection and also allows vehicle to grid (Japanese tech) whereas CCS has less tight protocols leading to charging issues and glitches but is winning out. CCS is tidy on the car as only need one port whereas Chademo requires a separate type 2 connector. China has its own connectors, which are similar to Chademo, but not the same.
Nuts! Our Leaf and Soul are not only Chademo, but have type 1 not type 2. When we move to a type 2 car we’ll have to change the cable on the home charger as it’s tethered type 1.... really we’ll need an untethered unit as potentially will have type 1 and type 2 cars at the same time (fortunately they are all type 2 at the charger end so atleast an untethered unit will work with type 1 and 2 cars). All this nonsense will put people off buying them.
Yep, Jim1977, CCS will win in Europe, and you can get CHADeMO to CCS adapter in any case, so those with a CHADeMO only BEV will be fine, and it will only be a matter of time before the a Tesla CCS Supercharger network is open to one and all.
The Chinese Tesla’s are quite odd in the fact that they have two fast charge ports, Type 2 and the Chinese fast charger port, type GB/T I think it’s called, housed under what looks like a regular filler flap mounted on the rear side panel.
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Topic: MG 2S EV tow car
via mobile 17/5/2020 at 10:39am
