MG4 SE review: Impressive in all sorts of ways

China pulls out all the stops with the MG4, one of the nicest cars on the road this year

Tangerine dreams with this affordable electric car (MG)

There’s a lot of talk at the moment about how the energy crisis is actually making electric cars uneconomic to run. Well, there’s obviously some truth in that because if petrol and diesel prices continue to subside, and electricity costs remain at their current elevated level, the savings you make on fuel for your car are obviously going to be lower than they might otherwise be, or even wiped away. And of course that’s just looking at the day-to-day running costs – quite apart from the “premium” you still pay for going electric over a diesel or petrol when you purchase or lease the vehicle.

On the other hand, you might find that the resale, residual, value of your electric vehicle is higher in a few years as the mandatory transition to electric power gathers pace from 2030 (after the ban on new solely internal combustion engine cars) and 2035 (from when new hybrids are also banned).

So it’s complicated. But a few factors are constant. Even with the current freakish conditions, a smaller electric car is still going to be cheaper to fuel than one with a petrol or Diesel engine – provided you charge at home (slow but cheap) rather than at a public commercial charging station (fast but expensive). It’s also an abiding truth that the more miles you cover per annum, say, the more switching to electric makes sense (because you make up for the higher purchase costs in petrol savings). Electric cars are inherently greener, indisputably, and they are also, more arguably, nice to drive.

It also helps if you can buy an electric car as economically as possible – not a Tesla, in other words. This is where the MG4 comes in, and you get into the MG4. MG is now a Chinese business, owned by the giant Shanghai Automotive, or SAIC, and China is one of the world leaders in battery and electric vehicle technologies. This all-new, all-electric MG4 is a testament to the progress the Chinese industry has made, basically abandoning internal combustion engine tech and leapfrogging Western brands in pushing ahead on the electric future.

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The MG4 is impressive in all sorts of ways. A compact model, it’s about the same size as a VW Golf, or all-electric VW ID.3, more to the point, and is about £8,000 cheaper to purchase. The VW ID.3 is more stylish inside and a nicer place to be, and actually its set-up is marginally more fuel-efficient than the MG, but otherwise the new entrant from China gives little away to its Western rival. Much the same goes for the likes of the Nissan Leaf, Vauxhall e-Corsa, Peugeot e-2008, Kia e-Niro and other excellent rivals. You have a very wide choice of electric cars now, you see.

THE SPEC

MG4 SE

Price: £25,995 (top of the range at £31,495)

Propulsion: Single electric motor, rear drive powered by 51kWh battery

Power (PS): 170

Top speed: 100mph

0-60mph: 7.5secs

Economy: 3.8miles per kWh

Range: 218 miles

CO2 emissions: 0

To me, the MG4 feels just right – size, comfort, handling all more or less ideal. They’ve obviously done a lot of development on making it good to drive, so it has well-weighted steering, very tidy handling and it is responsive without falling into the usual electric vehicle trap of being a bit too violent when you put your foot down, especially from rest. It’s all very calm, and you feel quite at home in it. There’ll probably be a more powerful “performance” variant in due course, more in line with the sporty MG name, but for now it’s rear-drive with a rear-mounted Elric motor, batteries across the floor and an optimal 50:50 weight distribution front to rear, like on a supercar. The rear boot is a bit mean, but there’s a little trunk in the nose too, just the right size for a couple of shopping bags.

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It also looks a bit like a supercar. The previous Chinese MG models have been a bit anonymous, but this MG4 looks much more like the future. My test vehicle was finished in “Volcano Orange”, a lairy kind of shade that you’d associate with Lamborghini. That tangerine colour is highly recommended. The designers have also had some fun with a split rear spoiler, some sort of lattice effects on the rear lights, and lots of random jagged styling lines. It’s got shades of the VW ID.3 and Kia EV6 about it, two other futuristic-looking electric machines. The MG looks quite proud of itself, and its owners should also feel very proud of the car. It doesn’t, in other words, look like the value-for-money bargain it is.

There are three main “flavours” of this tangerine dream (and it does come in more sober hues), with variations in battery size and design and equipment levels, though all have driver aids such as cruise control and the usual Apple and Android connectivity. The base SE model has a range of about 218 miles on a full charge in its lithium iron phosphate pack but lacks a few luxuries such as a reversing camera. Next up is the same ideal but with a larger, more advanced battery pack (nickel cobalt manganese) giving a 281-mile range (on average... it’s always worse in cold weather and/or on the motorway). The top-of-the-range Trophy model comes fully loaded, and thus has a slightly narrower range (270 miles), and tops £30,000. All will take about a half hour to top up from 10 per cent charge to 80 per cent on a fast commercial charger.

The MG4 is one of the nicest cars I’ve met this year, and it just feels like it’s been designed to slide into one’s life as smoothly and quietly as it is able to make progress on the road. It’s a pleasure to drive and easy to get along with, day-to-day. MG’s electric sales, driven by its existing, very capable, offerings, the ZS SUV (also available with petrol power) and MG5 estate car), and the MG4, should push things along even further. You might also appreciate the generous seven-year/80,000-mile warranty and prospectively good trade-in value.

MG has changed a lot since it made those cute roadsters and sporty saloons long ago in Abingdon and Birmingham, and I can’t help feeling how things might have been if MG Rover and its predecessors hadn’t been so unlucky back in the old days. We are where we are, though, as troubled football managers always say, and one of the best electric cars in the world is a Chinese MG. A funny old world.