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About this episode
A chilly morning sets the stage for an engaging discussion about the MG6 EV launch. Hosts Alex and Jim share their first impressions of the vehicle, highlighting its spacious interior, improved fit and finish, and the significance of MG's commitment to electric vehicles. They also touch on MG's hybrid sales success and compare the MG6's efficiency under cold conditions. The conversation shifts to the Tesla Model Y, discussing its performance and features, including the integration of Apple Podcasts. The episode wraps up with reflections on technology in cars and homes.
Topics:
mg6 ev
electric vehicles
hybrid sales
tesla model y
car efficiency
infotainment systems
apple carplay
vehicle technology
Cars:
Audi S5
Audi S6
Polestar 3
Polestar 4
Renault 5 E-Tech Electric
Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla Model 3
Tesla Model Y
In this episode, Alex and Jim are inside an MGS6 EV having just filmed their reviews. They chat about what the car is like, how far MG has come and also, what the new Tesla Model Y is like to live with.
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Car
Audi S5
"...h, obviously the MG5 disappeared. We then got the S5. We've now got the S6 and obviously the IM came o..."
Car
Audi S6
"...isappeared. We then got the S5. We've now got the S6 and obviously the IM came out very, very recently..."
Car
5 Renault 5
"...cause that's a really cool feature on my website. Renault 5 over two years was about seven and a half grand a..."
Car
Polestar 3
"... Polestar's at the moment. The Polestar 4 and the Polestar 3. I mean, it's not too long ago. The Polestar 4 wa..."
Car
Polestar 4
"...nsored by them. The Polestar's at the moment. The Polestar 4 and the Polestar 3. I mean, it's not too long ago..."
Car
Tesla Model
"... 124 litres of frunk, which is bigger than on the Tesla Model Y, and the all-wheel drive one, you've got 102 li..."
Car
Tesla Model 3
"...ing at other cars on the road, especially the new Model 3, like the one you've got. I do think that the new..."
Car
Tesla Cybertruck
"...itely the light bar looks exactly the same as the Cybertruck, which is quite funny. I definitely prefer the lo..."
Select text to request an explanation
I'm Alex, he's Jim, and this is the Charging Status EV podcast. How are you doing mate? I'm
all right, how are you? Not too bad. Your coat's yellow, isn't it? Yes, thanks for putting that
on. It's very yellow. Yeah, thanks for putting that on. That's all right. Did it come from
the council or something? No. My brother calls me a lifeboat man. That's a nice thing
of it. I've never met my brother, but I like him. Yeah. I'm wearing my woolly wig today
because it's bloody cold outside, isn't it? It's not great. Two degrees this morning,
and we're at a launch of the MGS6, which you've probably seen both of our videos by
the time this podcast comes out. I don't know. Yes, probably. I was pretending on
the order that they get put out, I guess. But yeah, it was absolutely bolted this
morning. Yeah, minus seven at my house, I think. Not ideal, is it? No. Nope. MGS6 then.
So I've driven it and I've finished my filming and stuff. You haven't driven it yet, have
you? Well, more than a couple of miles. I've driven it down the road somewhere
over there to film, and I haven't really properly driven. The speed bump thing
you mentioned, I checked it out on the way back and I didn't get it. But obviously, I was in
the all-wheel drive, you're in the rear-wheel drive, so maybe it's something around that.
Strange. I was saying to you earlier that when you go over a speed bump in this car,
it seems to be a little bit all over the place. It seems to push you over the
speed bump. It's strange, but yeah. Tell you what, it's got a massive amount of
storage, isn't it? I got in the rear seats and I was like, it's huge. It's so big. And the
headroom? Yeah. I think you'd be fine in the back there at six foot four. Oh, I think 100%.
Yeah. Sorry, I forgot we're in one now. I'm not getting any younger, folks. I forgot we're
actually sitting in one. Oh dear. Yeah. Pretty good. But yeah, like bags of headroom, fit
and finish has come a long way as well, hasn't it? Yeah. And I love the fact we've got these
physical buttons. Like you've got one here for the, it's a dual purpose. You've got one for
the home button, but you twist it to do the temperature. Yeah. That's pretty good. 50-watt
while it's charging, we're seeing that a lot now. So I think it's pretty decent. MG's
definitely come a long way in the past few years in terms of their, as you said,
the fit and finish they do. And they seem to be doubling down on EVs. We had a presentation
this morning and they were, they mentioned EVs a lot. I know it's an EV launch
day, but they were focusing on it a lot and saying this is part of our, a big part of our
future. So that's a good sign. I think it's because in the past they've outperformed nearly
everyone in terms of EV sales in the UK. They've done incredibly well with EV sales.
And in the last 12 months, they introduced hybrids. And now hybrids are their biggest
selling vehicles. Not plugins necessarily, like just standard petrol hybrids, mild hybrids
if you like. And they've sort of surpassed EVs. And they're still going to hit the ZLEV
mandate because of the way that's all calculated. But I think they'd probably be a lot happier
if they had more full battery electric sales as part of their mix. And obviously that,
the fact they've sold loads of hybrids means that the percentage sales of EVs have
gone down, even if they've stayed the same or gone the other way. I think we've also
got to remember that for a large part of this year, they only had the MG4 available, didn't
they? It's a fully EV.
Yeah. Was the Cybuster launch this year? Was it bad, doesn't it?
Oh, well, the Cybuster. But yeah, you can't really count it because I think they expect
to sell like 200 a year or something. But yeah, obviously the MG5 disappeared. We
then got the S5. We've now got the S6 and obviously the IM came out very, very recently.
They said that's done really well so far, wasn't they? Was it 2,000 orders?
2,000 orders so far, yeah. And we saw those at Goodwood, which, yeah, pretty good.
Not terrible.
Yeah, not driven one of those yet, so I can't really comment too much on it. But
it's pretty cool.
No, same here. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't driven one either, but I had a poke around at
everything electric and at Goodwood. And I mean, when you look at the numbers and stuff
on paper at least, it all looks fairly impressive, doesn't it?
Yeah. I mean, this podcast isn't sponsored by anyone, but I was looking on leasing.com
the other day. And I like to look at the total price of the car because that's a really
cool feature on my website. Renault 5 over two years was about seven and a half grand
and it's a 27-gram car, the one I was looking at. MG IM5, the Saloon, like a 50-something
gram car. It was about a couple of gram more total than that car.
Yeah.
The same amount of time and the mileage. So that was quite impressive.
If we're talking about leasing.com, so I am sponsored by them. The Polestar's at the
moment. The Polestar 4 and the Polestar 3. I mean, it's not too long ago. The Polestar
4 was north of 800 quid a month on the normal profile I look at because lots of the leasing
companies you'll see will advertise its really low prices, but it's like a four-year lease
with 12 months down and 5,000 miles a year. And I always look at three months up front,
three years on 10,000 miles a year, which is I think a more realistic profile to look
at and a more popular one in the real world. But yeah, you were looking at Polestar 4,
8,900 quid a month. Polestar 3's were well over a grand a month. And the Polestar 3's
about £78,000 I think the one I was looking at in my video yesterday.
So expensive.
And that's come down to like 600 and something. And the Polestar 4, like 450-ish. I know Polestar
evidently are in deep financial do-do, but I think they've got so many cars out there
already and they're producing quality cars. And they have done for a little while, but I
can't see that company ever going to the wall. I think the brand's strong enough for someone
else to pick it up.
And they've got Geely behind them, so.
Yeah, but I think Geely have been trying to sell it for a while from what I understand.
Okay.
But who knows?
Yeah, who knows.
A lot of people are probably thinking, oh God, what happens if Polestar go bust and I've
got a Polestar, you know. I think the aftermarket will exist for it because there are enough
of them on the road. But I also think any brand would pick the bones of that and quite
happily take up that existing customer base and the brand. I mean, if you're a Chinese
entrant to the market, why not buy Polestar? Everything's already here. They've got a network.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah. So the MGS6, so yeah, your reviews already, well, our reviews are probably out
at the moment, but what are your final thoughts on it, really?
It's a really hard one to do because, you know, the more time goes on, there aren't
bad cars anymore or they're very, very rare.
Yes.
Yeah.
And this is one of those cars where it's sort of, I think, I don't want to colour your thoughts
on it at all, but I think it's very good in every respect. The only place that I did
think it wasn't too good was its real-world efficiency, but I put it to a fairly extreme
test, so it was two degrees outside. I was outside doing stuff to camera. I didn't have
any gloves and I was just absolutely frozen. So when I got back into the car, air con on
maximum, full-heated steering wheel, full-heated seat, and I got two or 1.9 miles per kilowatt
hour in a car where they say it's up to 4.9, which is obviously not fantastic.
No.
Once I got to a normal sort of living temperature again, I put the air con down to 21 degrees,
which is where it normally sits for me, turned off the heated seat and the heated steering
wheel and I got up to 3.6 or 3.8, I think, in the end, which I don't think is too
bad on a day when it's two degrees outside.
It's also a car.
It does suggest, I didn't look up to see if the car's got a heat pump or not, but it would
suggest that maybe thermal management's not exceptional, or perhaps there isn't a heat
pump.
No, I don't think anyone mentioned it. I think if there was one, they probably would
have mentioned it.
Yeah.
I really should have looked it up before I filmed my review, but I'm sure you will
now.
Yeah, I think the styling's good. It's not offensive in any way. It's quite nice from
the rear end. As you said, there's a load of space in here. So yeah, a pretty decent
car, really.
I mean, the styling's fairly typical MG at the moment. I mean, you could say
it's bland, but it actually fits with the rest of the range. The front end looks
unmistakably MG. It's just inside profile, a lot of cars now.
They look very, very similar, don't they?
Yeah, they do.
Yeah. And the front end and rear end, I think it's quite a good looking thing, but side
on you're like, meh.
Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah, another sort of generic SUV. Huge though.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's very big.
It's 647 litres of boot, and I think if you've got the rear wheel one, you've
got 124 litres of frunk, which is bigger than on the Tesla Model Y, and the all-wheel
drive one, you've got 102 litres of frunk, which is still pretty good. It's a nice
shape as well.
Yeah, quite curved.
Yeah, you could actually get a couple of fairly decent rucksacks in there or
something.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe even a carry-on bag.
I think so.
Possibly.
Speaking of the Model Y, that's what I actually drove in here today. We've got
the new, technically the Juniper, the refreshed Model Y, long-range battery, been living that
as a recording for the past five or six days, so I've been really impressed with that car.
But I think I've been looking at other cars on the road, especially the new Model 3, like
the one you've got. I do think that the new Model 3 looks a lot nicer than the Model
Y.
Yeah, it does.
And I think one of the new Model Ys came up behind me yesterday in the dark, and
definitely the light bar looks exactly the same as the Cybertruck, which is quite funny.
I definitely prefer the look of the new Model Y over the outgoing one, the one I've got.
Yes.
But I still don't find it a particularly pretty car.
No.
And yeah, as I said, I've done quite a few miles past few days, and loads of Model
3s, as I said, the one you've got has passed me, and I was like, that is a really
nice looking car.
The older Model 3 wasn't a great looking car either, but I don't know, I still wouldn't
give it a 10 out of 10 on the looks front, the new Model 3, but I think it's a lot better
looking, shall we say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But as cars go, there's a lot of space in the Model Y. I've done loads of motorway
knowledge.
It's pretty efficient.
The Tesla network's great at the moment.
You've been saying earlier you charged at Warwick, didn't you?
On the way here, I charged at Warwick, and I literally, I think I had not shown you miles
of range I had, but I think I had like 5% range, 5% left in the battery, maybe 20 miles
left.
And I went to the Starbucks, which is next door to the Chargers, went for a
wee, got a coffee, came back out 160 miles.
Yeah, it's pretty impressive, isn't it?
And it only took 15 minutes.
See, that's what I always find, and they're not the newest
Chargers either, are they?
No, they're not.
No.
I did a long trip.
Where was I?
Also, your car can only do 175.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
But you'll actually get that.
Like, I mean, I stopped at Gloucester services a while ago.
Oh, yeah.
And I had preconditioned, but I'd preconditioned for about five minutes
before I got there, so I just thought I'd do a quick splash and dash or go near
a quick splash and dash.
And it was one of those occasions when it was annoying because I hadn't
set a maximum charge limit on it.
And I actually didn't want to put that much in.
I just wanted, like, maybe a 40-mile buffer.
I went into the services, had a Jimmy Riddle, and then, of course,
at Gloucester, you've got that lovely big farm shop, so I had a little
look around that.
And then I got the message from my phone, you know, return to your car
because it's going to reach 100%.
And I was like, oh, okay.
Spent some money.
Yeah.
Well, I've spent some Tesla credit.
Oh, is that what you're using your credits for now?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's not the end of the world, is it?
No.
At the end of the day.
But if I'd have been paying for it, I would have been slightly
annoyed.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But how'd you find the drive?
It's good.
Do you feel like it's night and day difference to the old one?
Because I've heard a lot of people say, like, it's like this massive
improvement over the old one.
And I thought the suspension felt a bit better.
It was not, it's a bit more assured on the road, but I didn't
feel like it was such a massive difference.
I felt there was more difference, actually, between the outgoing
Model 3 and the new Model 3 than the Model Ys.
Yeah.
I've only driven the old Model Y once.
I had a test drive ages ago for a few days, and that was the
performance edition.
So from that regard, I can't really comment on it.
Yeah.
But it does handle really well.
Yeah.
Like, turning performance is great.
It's really agile.
Some of the bumps in the road seem to upset it slightly.
Right.
Especially the rear end of it.
Yeah.
But it's fine.
I did stop using autopilot the other day because it was really
I don't know if you use autopilot that often, but it was really
sort of squirrely on one of the motors I was using.
So I just turned it off and used manual mode for a bit.
Because on the press ones, they come with like, do they come
with the full self-drive?
They come with the enhanced autopilot.
Enhanced, yeah.
Which I don't know, like, I've had it on my press version
of that car.
Yeah.
And I've just found it weird.
And in both of my cars, I've just got the standard
autopilot basically cruise control.
Yeah.
And it works brilliantly well.
And I felt like I was less inclined to use it.
Yeah.
The enhanced one.
Yeah.
It's like a sixth grand option on those cars, isn't it?
Mm-hmm.
And it's, yeah.
I mean...
I mean, in this country, obviously it's not allowed to do
its full thing.
No.
And if it could.
It probably would be a bit better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They are testing it.
I think there was some stuff a while ago where they're
testing it out.
Testing it in London, I think.
Yeah.
It's quite impressive.
But I suppose test it in extreme situations.
Yeah.
Certainly the stuff I've seen in China from X-Peng and
Cherry.
Oh, yeah.
That's exactly what they do.
They try and test it in the most extreme situations they
can.
Yeah.
And that makes a great deal of sense, really, doesn't it?
Yeah.
But yeah, it's so easy to drive.
The Apple Podcast integration is great.
It's like, I'm going to choose my next episode I want
to listen to.
Yeah.
I want to listen to it on its SIM card or its phone
service where my phone doesn't.
So I can stream something where my phone can't stream
something and it will be able to do it.
I heard a rumor the other day that they might
finally give it Apple CarPlay.
Yeah.
But I'm guessing, I bet you would still have to
pay the 10 quid a month for your premium
connectivity to get it, which you need to
access, I think, those Apple apps.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't know if it's...
Obviously, you live with two Teslas all the time,
but I don't really think it's that needed.
No, I don't because of the way everything
integrates.
Yeah.
The only annoyance is if...
I mean, I'm not someone that uses it, but if
you use Waze, that would be a bit annoying
because there's no Waze app.
And the Tesla sat nav system, although it's
all Google-based, sometimes just wants to
take you a longer way than necessary.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Not always, but sometimes.
I wonder if that route it picks is more
efficient somehow.
Yeah.
I'm guessing that's what the score is, but
sometimes I don't want to go the most
efficiently.
I don't want to go the quickest way.
I don't know.
I don't know how true it is.
No one from Tesla has commented.
I don't particularly think it's not
necessary, but I'd imagine if someone's
in the market for a new car and they're
just looking for the list as like,
no, this doesn't have carplay.
Yeah.
So if you use the carplay.
Carplay is great.
It's really easy to use.
But once you take a little bit of time
to use the infotainment system if you're
new to it, it's amazing.
And of course, once that next gen of
carplay comes in, where it's going to,
I mean it might be, they've got that in
mind, where carplay is basically going
to take over all the software of the
car, but Tesla is so good on the
software front.
How good's the app?
The app's great.
Like hands down?
Yep.
I mean I never even carry the
backup key or anything.
I didn't bring it today.
No, I mean.
I've driven all the way to Reading from
my house and I haven't even
just got my phone.
Yeah.
And I mean you just set the
temperature to car wherever you
want.
Last night, you know, I'm just
looking for this place, stick it
in the sat-nav, send it to car,
get in the car this morning.
Don't press anything.
You just drive and you'll go in
there.
It makes me want a door lock on
my house that has got a phone
reader on it.
Because I have to carry some keys
for the house.
Which you can get.
I know, I know.
But it makes me want one of
the keys.
Every time I drive a Tesla, I
think, oh, this is great.
I haven't got any keys.
Do you know the weird thing,
right?
I feel comfortable with my phone
being able to control my car.
Yep.
But the phone being the thing
that lets me into my house,
I'm not that comfortable with.
And I don't know why,
because obviously I used to
work in property insurance and
I know that a normal
Yale lock can, I mean,
I don't know how to break
one in about four seconds.
Yeah.
And you can do it on most of them.
And then you just straight in.
So probably putting a level
of technology in there will make
it too complex for a lot of
people to bother with.
But I don't know,
considering people are now
spending 20 grand on something
to steal cars with,
it's like you get into your
house as well.
Don't know.
Interesting.
A digression.
Yeah.
What do you think, folks?
I know in the comments,
if you're watching this on YouTube
because there are comments there.
Yeah.
Would you feel comfortable
opening your house with your mobile
phone?
I think that's it for this episode.
I needed a week, actually.
Oh, thanks for that.
Yeah.
I need to go and film my driving
section.
You need to go and film.
Yeah.
So thanks for watching this
episode of the Childing States
podcast or listening to it,
actually.
Where could people find you
online, Jim?
My YouTube's definitely not a
guru.
My Instagram's not a guru,
Jim.
My Twitter's not a guru
in my websites,
not a guru.co.uk.
Smooth.
Thanks.
My website's TheInterface.uk.
I've got YouTube from all my car
reviews, TheInterface cars.
You can subscribe to this
podcast in audio,
on Apple podcast,
and on YouTube in video.
Thanks, everyone,
for watching or listening,
and we'll see you again
next time.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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