Being caught off guard by a hard-to-control cable is rare in modern cars thanks to their advanced driver assistance systems.
However, this is not the case with the Chinese MG4 electric car, which exhibited a truly moody behavior during We Car owners annual winter test.
Can suddenly get a cord
“Never before have we driven a car that so quickly changed behavior from full control to a real drag despite all the safety systems in operation,” said We Car owners test driver Nils Svärd.
It all revolves around the car’s brake regeneration, which charges the car’s battery by braking with the electric motor instead of with the service brakes.
The system is activated when the driver lets off the gas pedal, and since the car is rear-wheel drive, it brakes only the rear wheels.
According to Vi Bilägare’s test, this can therefore lead to sudden, strong throws with the rear trailer.
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Not a problem according to MG
MG’s response to the criticism is to inform in the instruction manual that the weakest strength of regeneration should be used in slippery road conditions.
However, Nils Svärd believes this does not do much good, because the system is still activated as soon as you touch the brake pedal and causes the same scary behaviour.
Instead he says the only real solution is to put the car in Snow drive mode, but the car reverts to Normal mode every time it is restarted.
If you forget to change the driving mode, or if you do not perceive that it is slippery, there is a risk of accidentally rolling onto slippery roads with the dangerous regeneration activated.
MG does not say that it will update the car’s system, but will design new routines so that the information about which driving mode to use goes out to the customers.
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MG4 has several problems
That the regeneration can cause strong, unexpected throws is not the only problem that We Car Owners note.
The car’s lane keeping assistant, which is supposed to ensure that the car stays on the road, is also dangerous on winter road conditions, according to the newspaper.
– With snow on the road, the system thinks the car is in the wrong lane and turns the steering wheel with brusque force – either towards the ditch or towards the oncoming lane. We have rarely experienced the kind of abrupt intervention, writes Vi Bilägare’s test driver.
Here, MG takes the criticism to heart and forwards it to the European headquarters, but what the actual action will be is unclear.
If the software needs to be updated, this cannot be done wirelessly, but all owners must take their cars to a workshop.
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Not an isolated case
For the systems in a modern car to behave so badly is extremely unusual, and one could therefore imagine that the problem was specific to Vi Bilägare’s test example of the MG4.
However, a number of MG4 owners have contacted us Carup to confirm the information. The owners tell how their car has violently jerked the steering wheel, which in several cases has led to them ending up in the oncoming lane.
Several owners also confirm that the rear wheels can lock if you let off the gas in a curve with a violent skid as a result.
One owner describes it as “a matter of time” before there is an accident with an MG4 on our roads.
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