Absolutely Baltic

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Absolutely Baltic

Audi S5

Audi S6

5 Renault 5

Polestar 3

Polestar 4

Tesla Model

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Cybertruck

About this episode

Original notes