Nils' MG4

An Android Automotive app for the MG4 (SAIC eh32) head unit, plus a small server: the car sends its telemetry to my own server at car.k8s.stinnesbeck.com, which stores it in InfluxDB 2 for the Grafana dashboards, and its live data straight to A Better Route Planner.

No OBD dongle and no phone in the loop: the app runs on the head unit and reads the car's own APIs.

• Repository: https://git.stinnesbeck.com/nils/mg4
• Fork of fatihdonmezdev/FatihsMG4, itself built on malys' EVABRPUploader and Leon Kernan's ABRP_Uploader.
• What changed and what is still to do: SPECS.md.

⚠️ No warranty, no liability. This software is provided "as is" and runs on a vehicle. Installing it is your decision and your risk; see DISCLAIMER.md. Not affiliated with SAIC, MG Motor or Iternio. MG and MG4 are third-party marks used only to identify compatibility.

Licence. MIT, like Leon Kernan's original ABRP_Uploader and the forks in between — except the bundled EVHardware/ library, which is PolyForm Noncommercial, so the built app may only be used and shared non-commercially. See LICENSE.md.

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Contents

• Screenshot
• How it fits together
• The app
• Install on the car
• Setup
• Building
• Server and dashboards
• Project layout
• Project documents
• Credits

Screenshot

Version 2.8.2 at the head unit's 1920x720 pixels and 160 dpi, in full screen (Android 9 emulator; no vehicle there, so every value shows as a dash).

How it fits together

car ──live telemetry───▶ car.k8s.stinnesbeck.com (Go)
 │  ──daily chunks─────▶          │
 │  ──charging sessions▶          ▼
 │                            InfluxDB 2 ◀── Grafana
 └──live telemetry─────▶ ABRP

The car sends live data to ABRP itself, with the ABRP credentials set on the Live data tab, so ABRP and the server do not depend on each other. The server only stores. The car authenticates with the server using a token of its own, obtained by pairing with a phone (below).

The app

Tab	What it shows
Overview	Battery, range, range since start and at the 5-minute average with their usage, energy since start, power and speed with their 5-minute averages; odometer, climate setpoint and tyre pressures
Consumption	Daily and period consumption, efficiency
Charging	Charging sessions and curves, cost in euro
Live data	Live data on/off, ABRP credentials for sending directly from the car, upload frequency
Server	Server URL, pairing by QR code, ingest token, installation ID, config import
Settings	Full screen, voice key, tyre pressure unit, accent colour, battery (usable capacity, manual SoH), charging price, version, update check, About
Logs	Upload log

• Opening the app: the MG4 launcher does not list third-party apps. Double-press the voice key on the steering wheel and the app comes to the front (switch on the Settings tab, on by default).
• Full screen: hides SAIC's top and bottom bars while the app is open; a swipe from the edge shows them briefly (Settings tab, on by default).
• Live telemetry: every 15 s while driving or charging, much less often while parked. A value the car cannot read is left out, never sent as zero, so ABRP is never told the battery is empty because a read failed.
• Read-only: the app never writes a vehicle setting.

Signals the MG4 does not publish (battery, cabin and outside temperature, pack energy and capacity) are listed in SPECS.md.

Install on the car

The car build (NilsMG4-unstable-<version>.apk) runs with the system UID and is signed with the AOSP test platform key that the MG4 head unit uses. It installs next to the old FatihsMG4 app (package com.stinnesbeck.nilsmg4.unstable), not over it.

Without adb, through the head unit's hidden file manager:

1. Copy the APK to a USB stick and plug it in.
2. Open Bluetooth Settings and select the car name.
3. Long-press the comma key until the keyboard settings appear.
4. Android Keyboard Settings → Languages, then search for file in the box at the top.
5. That opens the Files app: open the USB stick, tap the APK and install.

With adb:

adb push build/car/NilsMG4-unstable-<version>.apk /data/local/tmp/update.apk
adb shell "pm install -r -f -d -t /data/local/tmp/update.apk"

⚠️ Do this parked, and only with an APK you trust. See DISCLAIMER.md.

After that first install, the app updates itself: publish a build with publish-car, then press the refresh button in the app's top bar (OTA.md). The car fetches it through your car server, so the repository stays private.

Setup

1. Open the app (voice key double press, or "Open" right after installing).
2. On the Server tab the URL is already https://car.k8s.stinnesbeck.com.
3. Tap Pair with phone. Scan the QR code with a phone (or open the address shown and enter the code), and approve with the server's approval password. The car receives its token.
4. On the Live data tab, turn live data on. The service starts with the car from then on.
5. Enter your ABRP API key and user token on the same tab, so the car sends live data to ABRP.

On your phone

Once the car is paired, Enter on phone (Live data tab, and Settings → Charging price) shows a QR code. It opens a form on your server where you type the ABRP API key and user token, the charging price and the usable capacity, and send them with the approval password. The car collects them within a few seconds and saves them through the same checks as the fields on screen. The server only passes them on: they are held in memory until the car has them (at most ten minutes), never stored or logged.

Config file

Instead of typing, put the settings in a text file and tap Import file on the Server tab. The head unit has no file picker, so copy the file to

Android/data/com.stinnesbeck.nilsmg4.unstable/files/

on the USB stick or the internal storage. The app scans that folder on every mounted volume and takes the first file that parses. Format, one key = value per line, # for comments; keys left out keep their current value:

server_url      = https://car.k8s.stinnesbeck.com
token           = the server's INGEST_TOKEN (not needed after pairing)
installation_id = only to carry over history from an install older than 2.9.0
interval_sec    = 60      # 15 / 30 / 60 / 120 / 300
boost_low_soc   = true
low_soc_percent = 20
abrp_api_key    = your ABRP API key
abrp_token      = your ABRP user token
charging_price  = 0.39    # €/kWh
usable_kwh      = 50.8    # usable battery capacity, for the range estimates

After a successful import the app deletes the file, since it holds the token; credentials live only in the app's encrypted store.

The installation ID is derived from the head unit, so a reinstall finds its history again on its own. installation_id is only needed to carry history over from an install made before 2.9.0. A paired token belongs to one installation ID: after changing the ID, pair again.

Power

The app holds no wake lock and schedules no alarms, so it cannot wake a sleeping head unit and costs nothing while the car is off.

Building

With Nix:

nix develop                    # JDK 21, Android SDK, Go
./gradlew assembleStableDebug  # debug APK for a phone or tablet
build-car                      # car APK, signed with the AOSP test platform key

build-car writes build/car/NilsMG4-unstable-<version>.apk and a .sha256 next to it, and checks the signing certificate before it finishes.

Tests and lint:

./gradlew testStableDebugUnitTest testUnstableDebugUnitTest lintStableDebug

mise tasks from upstream (mise run check, mise run build) still work for the plain Gradle builds.

Server and dashboards

• Server (server/): Go, API only. Live telemetry, daily consumption chunks, charging sessions, pairing. Image at git.stinnesbeck.com/nils/mg4-server.
• Kubernetes (k8s/): plain manifests for the server, InfluxDB 2 and Grafana, applied by hand with kubectl apply -k k8s/. Secrets go in the gitignored k8s/secrets/secrets.yaml, from the template next to it.
• Grafana dashboards (k8s/grafana/dashboards/): Live, Consumption and Charging, provisioned with the InfluxDB datasource.

Project layout

app/src/main      app: upload service, server client, pairing, UI
app/src/stable    no-op update hook (no updater in the APK)
app/src/unstable  car build: system UID, updater (currently pointed nowhere)
app/src/debug     VHAL probe tools, absent from release builds
app/src/test      JVM unit tests
EVHardware        shared vehicle reads per firmware generation
server/           Go server
k8s/              Kubernetes manifests and Grafana provisioning
flake.nix         dev shell and build-car

Project documents

Document	What it covers
SPECS.md	Journal of this fork: architecture, status, to-dos, done log
FIRMWARE.md	MG4 firmware generations and how the app reads each
AGENTS.md	Context for AI agents working in this repository
DESIGN.md	The EVSuite design system (the app overrides its palette)
SECURITY.md	Threat model
DISCLAIMER.md	Vehicle-safety disclaimer; read before installing
CHANGELOG.md	Upstream release history
LICENSE.md	Licences: MIT, and PolyForm Noncommercial for EVHardware/

Credits

• fatihdonmezdev: FatihsMG4, the app this fork starts from.
• malys: EVABRPUploader.
• Leon Kernan: the original ABRP_Uploader, the car-API approach and the first working uploader.
• ABRP telemetry API: Iternio.