MG4 pricing

[marshman]

I quite like the idea of replacing dozens of switches, their cost, the cost of fitting them, and wiring them up, with a single screen. It fits the mantra of the best part is no part.

Our Hyundai IONIQ lights up like a Xmas tree at night, must be about 50 little blue LED lights to show where all the switches are. That's a lot of parts, cost and effort ..... and failure points.

Yep can't disagree on one level BUT:

If that one "control centre screen" fails then a massive part of the "control" of the vehicle is gone and is massively expensive to replace. If a single switch fails, a) it only stops the single item it controls working and b) if you are desperate then it is "just a switch" so in the vast majority of cases a "field repair" is possible, it may look a mess but any one with a smidge of electrical knowledge could bodge something to work. With the large display/touchscreen you pretty much have to have the exact item - there are no common interfaces/pinouts despite what the datasheets may say - so finding a compatible replacement a few years down the line will be less than straight forward. As for saving wiring, that was one excuse given for introducing CAN bus into cars, Well having worked on lots of cars over the years I can safely say that the amount of wiring in a modern car beggars belief compared with cars from not that many years back and every little "module" has its own control PCB "coded" to the main ECU (computer) making repair by anyone other than a main Stealer tricky. Ever tried getting a "spare key" for a BMW 1 series (2012 on) or a Suzuki Alto or even a "humble" 20 year old Mazda MX5?? cost £££££ and a trip to the main dealer - despite what all the ads from auto locksmiths - no one can do those cars, I know I have tried, and a knock off box of tricks from eBay or Alibaba won't either, despite the claims.

Also WHY does the IONIQ need all those switches? If there were less things to control, there would be fewer switches and you would know their positions and could find them by feel thus no illumination required - less features, less wiring, less cost, less to go wrong.

Everyone seems to get blinded by the "tech gadgets" foisted on us by the salesmen. The KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!)principle seems to have been long forgotten when it comes to design of just about anything these days - along with making things repairable.

No apologies for the rant, but as the planet hurtles towards a man made implosion people need to wake up to the senseless consumerism and commercial promotion of "essential must have" over engineered, bloated products - and the motor vehicle is one of the worst offenders, closely followed by internet enabled toasters and fridges.

[marshman]

Fully charged review of the MG4



Ticks a lot of boxes, but has far too many gadgets that I don't want or need. Nice decent range on the top model and has V2L.

[Mr Gus]

& here's Jonny smith, because fully charged under its extensive team of kids presenters & dumbing down became ***t & reminds me of the gadget show (sad that)



I must say, I'm excited that this might be the power cost BEV transition trickle down started for 10 ...if the country wasn't so extremely phu--ed & in normal times.

[Oldgreybeard]

Not sure I'd want to be dependent on the People's Republic of China for key services that keep my car going, TBH. SAIC Motor Corp may have bought the MG badge to stick on their products, but it is still very much a bit of Chinese government sponsored kit at the end of the day (SAIC is owned by the government of the PRC), and frankly I have very little trust in China, not to mention that I'd rather spend as little as I can there because of their very grim human rights record.

[marshman]

Not sure I'd want to be dependent on the People's Republic of China for key services that keep my car going, TBH. SAIC Motor Corp may have bought the MG badge to stick on their products, but it is still very much a bit of Chinese government sponsored kit at the end of the day (SAIC is owned by the government of the PRC), and frankly I have very little trust in China, not to mention that I'd rather spend as little as I can there because of their very grim human rights record.

Don't disagree, but these days it is so difficult to be sure where the product you are buying is made, where its component parts come from and if a "webservice" is involved where it is based and how long it will last. If you buy a Tesla (assuming you can afford one) can you specify which factory it is made in?

HOWEVER what the MG4 may do is get other manufacturers to move "down market" and produce more sensibly sized and priced EV's, As the videos says it is a full £10k cheaper than the ID3, £4k cheaper than the smaller Zoe, etc. The reviews/feedback on the MG5 and MGZS EV is no better or worse than any other EV and they have been around for a while now.

[Oldgreybeard]

Don't disagree, but these days it is so difficult to be sure where the product you are buying is made, where its component parts come from and if a "webservice" is involved where it is based and how long it will last. If you buy a Tesla (assuming you can afford one) can you specify which factory it is made in?

HOWEVER what the MG4 may do is get other manufacturers to move "down market" and produce more sensibly sized and priced EV's, As the videos says it is a full £10k cheaper than the ID3, £4k cheaper than the smaller Zoe, etc. The reviews/feedback on the MG5 and MGZS EV is no better or worse than any other EV and they have been around for a while now.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to avoid Chinese products, partly because there has been a very deliberate policy by the CCP over the past couple of decades or so to ensure that Chinese products are sold at lower prices in overseas markets in order to pretty much annihilate any competition. This is an open policy, one that the Chinese government promote globally under their "Belt and Road" policy. Nothing intrinsically wrong with it from their perspective, it has turned China into a major world player, one that now controls almost all aspects of world trade in manufactured goods.

I think we do have to make a distinction between Chinese products that are just made by private companies within China, and Chinese products that are produced by the state. SAIC Motor Corp is a state-owned and run manufacturer. Might be nothing to be concerned about, but my gut feeling is that it is extremely likely that the Chinese government has a say in not only how the cars are made and priced to sell here, but also how all the data collection systems are run and the part that the car plays in providing intelligence to the Chinese government.

It's one thing to know that, for example, all Tesla's send data back to Tesla HQ all the time, and that data is pretty comprehensive, times, speeds, location, even camera imaging from any of the onboard cameras (including the one that looks at the driver). People may well place trust in Tesla to look after their data and to not abuse it, and that trust may be reasonably well placed, given that there are no direct government connections involved. That's not the case with SAIC, though. They exist courtesy of the Chinese government that owns them, and it's inconceivable that data is not being passed back to that government from their products.

Some may argue that this is tinfoil hat territory, but I know that the Hikvision CCTV I installed a while ago used to communicate with two servers in China all the time. I only found this out when checking a network problem with a neat little tool called WireShark. That revealed a lot of traffic going from the CCTV system to China (not the cause of the network problem, this was just incidental). Needless to say I re-arranged things to put the CCTV on its own local network, one without internet access. There have been plenty of stories of the Chinese state utilising other Chinese electronic items for data gathering, and in reality they are only doing what Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc do, with the difference that they do it for the interests of the Chinese state, rather than for making money.

[Stinsy]

Some may argue that this is tinfoil hat territory, but I know that the Hikvision CCTV I installed a while ago used to communicate with two servers in China all the time. I only found this out when checking a network problem with a neat little tool called WireShark. That revealed a lot of traffic going from the CCTV system to China (not the cause of the network problem, this was just incidental). Needless to say I re-arranged things to put the CCTV on its own local network, one without internet access. There have been plenty of stories of the Chinese state utilising other Chinese electronic items for data gathering, and in reality they are only doing what Google, Microsoft, Amazon etc do, with the difference that they do it for the interests of the Chinese state, rather than for making money.

I too have Hikvision security cameras. They were stealing my bandwidth talking to the mothership so I set my network up so that they cannot access the outside world.

Interestingly Hikvision dominates the market for CCTV in schools. They have aggressively targeted this market selling the cameras below the cost of production. Many schools have installed the cameras not-only in every classroom and corridor but also in toilets and changing rooms. It is well publicised that the Chinese government is harvesting facial recognition data from Hikvision CCTV cameras. Additionally it is easy to imagine in a decade or two the Chinese government having video footage of every embarrassing thing our politicians / activists did when they were at school. That would make EXCELLENT blackmail material.

[Oldgreybeard]

I too have Hikvision security cameras. They were stealing my bandwidth talking to the mothership so I set my network up so that they cannot access the outside world.

Interestingly Hikvision dominates the market for CCTV in schools. They have aggressively targeted this market selling the cameras below the cost of production. Many schools have installed the cameras not-only in every classroom and corridor but also in toilets and changing rooms. It is well publicised that the Chinese government is harvesting facial recognition data from Hikvision CCTV cameras. Additionally it is easy to imagine in a decade or two the Chinese government having video footage of every embarrassing thing our politicians / activists did when they were at school. That would make EXCELLENT blackmail material.

Thanks, makes me feel less like one of the tinfoil hat nutters to know that others have spotted all the traffic back to China from these cameras. Cars with data systems, cameras, etc offer an even better data gathering prospect for any foreign government than CCTV systems. Data always has a value, even if it may seem to the person having that data taken from them as if the value is low. The value of having millions of mobile cameras cannot be over-estimated, especially given just how useful images are in gathering intelligence. The war in Ukraine has highlighted this. Much of Ukraine's intelligence is apparently coming from Russian forces themselves, doing stupid things like using their phones and highlighting where they are and what weapons they have at their location. Imagine how useful it would be to have access to millions of car cameras tracking things like weapon and ammunition convoys on the roads.

[Stinsy]

I too have Hikvision security cameras. They were stealing my bandwidth talking to the mothership so I set my network up so that they cannot access the outside world.

Interestingly Hikvision dominates the market for CCTV in schools. They have aggressively targeted this market selling the cameras below the cost of production. Many schools have installed the cameras not-only in every classroom and corridor but also in toilets and changing rooms. It is well publicised that the Chinese government is harvesting facial recognition data from Hikvision CCTV cameras. Additionally it is easy to imagine in a decade or two the Chinese government having video footage of every embarrassing thing our politicians / activists did when they were at school. That would make EXCELLENT blackmail material.

Thanks, makes me feel less like one of the tinfoil hat nutters to know that others have spotted all the traffic back to China from these cameras. Cars with data systems, cameras, etc offer an even better data gathering prospect for any foreign government than CCTV systems. Data always has a value, even if it may seem to the person having that data taken from them as if the value is low. The value of having millions of mobile cameras cannot be over-estimated, especially given just how useful images are in gathering intelligence. The war in Ukraine has highlighted this. Much of Ukraine's intelligence is apparently coming from Russian forces themselves, doing stupid things like using their phones and highlighting where they are and what weapons they have at their location. Imagine how useful it would be to have access to millions of car cameras tracking things like weapon and ammunition convoys on the roads.

Exactly. My cameras cover the outside of my house and there is nothing about me or my comings and goings that is interesting to the Chinese government. However a network of thousands (millions?) of seemingly innocent and innocuous cameras could become "interesting". I noticed that my local Tesco has Hikvision cameras too. Imagine if a large number of people in military fatigues suddenly started shopping in a particular Tesco that could be indicative of troop movements. What if they capture a POW, the facial recognition could identify where the POW lives/shops, who their family is, etc.

I hope I'm not being too fanciful here. But has WW111 already begun?

[Oldgreybeard]

Exactly. My cameras cover the outside of my house and there is nothing about me or my comings and goings that is interesting to the Chinese government. However a network of thousands (millions?) of seemingly innocent and innocuous cameras could become "interesting". I noticed that my local Tesco has Hikvision cameras too. Imagine if a large number of people in military fatigues suddenly started shopping in a particular Tesco that could be indicative of troop movements. What if they capture a POW, the facial recognition could identify where the POW lives/shops, who their family is, etc.

I hope I'm not being too fanciful here. But has WW111 already begun?

I recently read an article highlighting some of the clever ways data is being abused. One case mentioned in it was of someone that had accessed Fitbit data (no hacking involved - lots of people don't secure the sharing settings apparently) and then worked out where a top secret military establishment was and who was based there. It seems the personnel there were fond of going for a run around the same track, which happened to be the perimeter, and those people were all sharing their exercise performance via Fitbit.

When all this seemingly fairly low level and useless data was correlated properly, it revealed a surprising amount of useful information, from the identities of the individuals, to their shift patterns, overall fitness, leave periods family and friend information etc. Pretty easy to estimate what the establishment was working on, too, based on the known skills and experience of all those personnel being tracked, which a fair few of them had kindly put up on sites like LinkedIn. The days of needing spies on the ground are fading fast, I think, we're willingly doing their jobs for them now.