Yes I think so. The new replacement MG model does have changes in the rear braking so I guess they recognised it as an issue.
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One of the few things thst gets stripped, inspected, cleaned and lubricated are the brakes on my i3s. That and a pollen filter change.
Saying thst it is difficult to drive any journey without using the footbrake. Unless you are able to predict and use regen.
I think this may be mentioned above but on my Kia EV 6 if you turn on zero regen (or I suppose turn off regen) the first 10 times you press your brakes will clean them presumably via friction. After these first 10 uses the brakes revert to using brake plus regen to stop.
On some Kia’s it can be activated via the auto hold button I believe.
.sjb
It’s not just electric cars it applies to many modern ICE cars too with disc brakes on the rear. The brake balance is heavily biased to the front meaning that the rear rotors get corroded.
Glazing of the friction material may occur with lightly used brakes and this stops the brakes working to maximum effect in an emergency. This can be prevented by doing a couple of 50mph to 30mph as hard as you can obviously making sure the road is clear.
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or have drum brakes on the rear. I am not sure all EVs suffer this way but the rear are indeed used less I think the MG ZS EV is just a poor setup.
I have an old Jeep I use mainly for towing my sailboat and in Covid lockdown, it got almost no use (until they let us travel to exercise) and when I took it for an MOT the rear brakes failed the test and needed new discs and pads. The chap showed me the removed discs and they did look very scored and rusty. Oddly enough I hadn’t really noticed much difference in performance of the brakes.
The rear brakes provide stability during hard braking making things less ‘twitchy’. Indeed this is how modern ESP systems work when understeer or oversteer is detected.
The wife and I are planning to retire in a few short years, so we thought we would try out an EV to see if it would be suitable for us travelling around Australia. This one has about 570 klm range & is currently one of the fastest charging EVs. Absolutely loving it at the moment. XPENG G6 Long Range
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Let us know how you get on.
Am I right n thinking that Australia doesn’t apply tariffs on cars from China and so they are much more keenly priced than in Europe?
.sjb
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I’m not to sure what the prices are in Europe/Uk. I paid about £29,000 all up on road. Just sorting out the charging with our solar panels. Now scheduling recharge every few days between midnight and 0.600.am. We did our first fast charge 180klw the other day that cost about £12 for 50% of a full charge. Seems to be averaging about 11.4 KWh per 100km Just doing city work driving. I think XPENG may have used the Porsche Macan T as their inspiration. Very similar design specifications and performance.
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I have in mind do a post about one year ownership of my Kia EV6 – must get around to that some time.
I’ve watched several YouTube videos and channels about Kia EV 6 and general EV channels and thought I would highlight this for @BruceW as I seem to remember you saying that your sound system was less than stellar.
Apparently, it could be due to out of phase subwoofer wiring.
.sjb
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My eldest is loving her EV6. No issues so far and they even took it down to Provence over the summer. I’ll be interested to read your thoughts on your first year of ownership.
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Just reached 40k with my EV6, and approaching 3 years. Still very, very happy with it.
We sold our ageing BMW i3 for an EV3 in January (my wife’s car) and that has been excellent too. Not quite as enjoyable to drive but extremely comfortable and easy to live with plus a bit more energy efficient and longer range than the EV6. Kia quality/reliability appears excellent and the 7 year warranty is a real bonus. We’ll keep these for a while I am sure.
Thanks for the clip re the sub-woofer. I’ll explore that at some point.
Bruce
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We took our Megane down to Nice - or rather it took us - last month with no problems at all, other than an issue with the locking pin on the charge socket that the local garage fixed for us. We found a charger near the Allianz Azur stadium that charged only 28c per kWh, which makes U.K. prices look a bit of a joke. Driving long distance with an EV is no problem if you aren’t in a rush and are happy to stop every hour or two. We stuck to about 115 on the autoroute, above that the efficiency really takes a knock.
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The lower efficiency at higher speeds affects petrol cars too because it’s basically about increased air resistance. In a trip to Arcachon and back two years ago, I took a very big diversion to avoid holdups that the satnav estimated at several hours on the main autoroute. The diversion added 100 km but the roads were nearly empty so I did most of it at 130 kph, whereas on the way down, I had been driving at more like 110 kph. The full consumption of my then BMW 128ti soared about 20%.
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Another thing that people don’t realise about EVs is that weight doesn’t make as much difference to mileage as it does in an ICE car. What you lose on the uphills or in accelerating is largely won back on the downhills and slowing down. With ICE vehicles, you lose on the uphills and acceleration, and don’t regain at all elsewhere.
I watched a YT video with someone trying some experiments using two Ford pickups, one EV the other the equivalent ICE one. They had a large flatbed trailer. They compared a round-trip journey with no trailer, then the empty trailer, then the trailer with an 8 by 4 sheet of plywood mounted upright at the front of the trailer, then with a large vehicle on the back of the trailer. The plywood, of course, produced the largest difference in range. Otherwise the difference wasn’t too bad - and the ICE pickup suffered with all trailer options.
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I find that lately, as in the last 6 to 8 months I suppose, that I have been noticing air quality when cycling or walking much more so than I would have normally. If you said to me that the petrol and diesel sold in Ireland had been adulterated with contaminants in that time it would tally with what my nose seems to be sensing.
I’m wondering whether this is just me getting older or idiosyncratic or could it possibly be due to the fact that I’m driving an EV all the time? I don’t get the first whiff of fumes as the car is started and undoubtedly there must be some level of fumes that actually get into the car and perhaps driving a car like my previous Lexus you become somewhat desensitised to fumes whereas I have now become sensitive to them again?
.sjb
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Well I switched the connecting wires on the sub as suggested and absolutely worthwhile! The sub is now more audible but it is also helping the whole sound balance. Not sure I would rate it as amazing but far better than it was. A very easy job to do by the way, just need a tiny screwdriver and maybe some needle nose pliers.
Bruce
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I am sure I have seen the same video on YT it was an interesting exercise/experiment.
I also have seen demonstrations on energy recovery by regen that shows it amounts to about 60% of energy expended. This was done by repeatedly going up and down the same long hill in different cars. Although as one could imagine there was variation between models but they were all close to the 60% average.
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That’s interesting - I haven’t come across that one.
Of course, it will depend on the charge state of the battery - if you do that when you are at, say, 90% of charge, then I would expect it to be rather less than 60%.
Sure, above 90% charge regen will be less. This was an experiment to get the maximum possible regen. The cars were charged to 80% at the start and as the cars charge was used the regen % did not really change on repeated runs up and down the hill.