MGS5 EV – MG’s best yet?
The old MG ZS. It was one of the first and also one of the most popular cars that we featured on AutoEV. And it was easy to understand the appeal with the car because here was MG, the new face of MG, if you were bringing out a frugal, nononsense, cheap to buy, cheap to run, decent family SUV. The problem was however a lot of its competition started to produce similarly priced better family SUVs and data suggest some of the cracks in the ZS started to shine through a little bit and of course MG as a company they started to change their models quite a bit and of course to give us the Cyber they started to focus on bringing us sports cars again and then of course they turned their attention to their combustion engine cars. There was a new HS. There was a new MG3 hybrid. And eventually they got round to replacing the ZS, but it was a hybrid. There was no electric version of the new ZS. What was going on? Well, this was going on. The new MG S5 EV, the ZSE’s replacement. And this isn’t content with being a cheap to buy, cheap to run, frugal, basic family SUV. No, this is getting very serious indeed. And this intends to make some waves in the market. Does it? Let’s find out. As I say, welcome to this week’s road test review. Welcome to the new MG S5 EV. And as always, welcome to AutoEV. [Applause] [Music] Now, before I get started on this week’s review of MG’s new S5 EV, I had time to just be a little bit boring because rumor has it there are some people out there who have still yet to subscribe to the AutoEV channel. Now, if you’re one of those people, could I urge you to become a subscriber, please? We’ve got some, but we’d obviously like a few more. Once you’ve done that, make sure you turn on your notifications because then you’ll get an alert when the next video’s uploaded and it’s gone live. And of course, once you’ve watched the review, if you enjoy it, and obviously I hope you do, make sure you give a little thumbs up. And of course, don’t forget, leave me your thoughts in the comment section down below. Let me know what you think about the cars I feature on the channel, such as the S5 EV from MG and of course on the AutoV channel overall. Now, as I say, the old ZX, good car, very popular car, big seller in the EV market and easy to understand why because it just offered basic family transport in a small crossover style of car for not an awful lot of money. It was very easy to live with. It was very cheap to buy. It was very cheap to run. But the competition quickly caught on to that and all of a sudden it started to look well data suggests not such good value for money anymore and it started to feel its age a little bit especially with the likes of things such as the Scoda Lrock and the KEV3 turning out and when the MG themselves sort of like started to move away from the car and turn their attention to sort like pushing up market a little bit of course we saw the Cyber the sports car and of course we had the MG4 hatchback which is a brilliant car and that’s important because it’s the MG4 for hatchback that provides the underpinnings for the new S5 EV. This is not an electrified version of the new ZS which is a hybrid. Now, this is a bespoke EV on a bespoke EV platform. And that’s important because it means there’s no compromises to be had with that you get with a multi-energy platform. It’s EV from ground up. But have they forgotten a little bit what made the ZS popular in the first place? In other words, is it still as good to drive? Is it still sort of, you know, easy to live with? Is it still a decent family hold for data suggest not a lot of money? Well, time to find out. However, before we start the main review, let’s take a look at the bullet points of the new MG S5 EV. So, the new MGS5 EV replaces the previous ZS is the company’s compact electric C SUV. It sits on the same dedicated electric platform that underpins the MG4, thus having no compromises associated with the previous multi-energy ZS. Two battery sizes, a 49 kWh1 or a larger 64 kWh1, offer driving ranges from 211 to 298 mi depending on model. All cars are single motor rear wheel drive with power ratings of either 170 PS or 231 PS depending on battery size and model. And prices start at just over £28,000 and go to just under £335,000 depending on that model chosen. So like its predecessor, it continues to offer good value for money. But data suggests there’s a loss of cars in this class that now offer good value for money. So, what else have MG done to make sure that the new S5 EV remains just as competitive and data suggests just as desirable as the old ZS was? Well, of course, the only way we’re going to find that out is by putting it through the road test that actual car buyers trust when it comes to choosing their next electric vehicle. It’s still the auto EV one. Yeah, it still is. Sorry, but yeah, still ours, right? So, let’s start with how the car looks, which is a world away from where the old ZS and dare I suggest even the new ZS is. This is a thing with MG. They’ve really got into their stride when it comes to their styling. I loved the MG4 hatchback when it came out. And of course, you can see a lot of similarities with this car and that’s no surprise because it sits on the same platform, the modular scalable platform. Um, so it’s I say a bespoke EV. There’s no petrol or hybrid equivalent to this car like there used to be of the old ZS. that’s taken care of with the new ZS. This is a completely different car and therefore it’s a completely different style and it looks very much like as I say the MG4 even hints of the side in here as well and I think it’s a really good looking car. I really like it. Um you get this a lot of manufacturers are doing this this sort of split level headlight type of thing here. So you get main headlight units here and these are DRLs and they’ve got little sort they’re designed to be like checkered flag motifs in them that’s mirrored in the back as well. I quite like that. That’s quite a nice little nod to old MGs. I like that. That’s quite cool. It’s quite shark like at the front, isn’t it? Really sharp nose. This like really sharp crease that runs over the top of the sort of like the DRLs. And then, as I say, these sort of like main lamp units are sort of inset into this sort of bulging sort of like area here that has an a vent at the side there that takes air flow around and then down the side of the car. So, it’s really quite air efficient, especially with having that low nose as well. Of course, you get the big MG octagon at the front as well. So, that’s quite cool. I quite like that. You know, that’s grown in size. That’s like the MG Cyber stud. It’s got the big option there as well. Neatly integrated uh forward- facing camera there. Lot of tech on the car still. They’ve increased the number of things in terms of advanced driver assistance systems on the car, which we’ll go through a little bit later. And then down at the bottom, this is areas very like the MG4. You know, your cooling down here and then the central sort of spine uh just in this bit here with a slightly jutting front sort like a sort of like air dam. I really like it. I think this looks really really smart and as I say a world away from where the old ZS was and as I say even the new one. Well done MG. Now size has grown over the old ZS. It’s now firmly a C SUV this car. So it’s 50 mm longer than the old car. So it’s just over 4 1/2 m long. It’s also wider and a little bit taller. And as I say, you can see in design-wise it’s completely different. Now there’s two trim levels available. There’s ether the SE or the Trophy. SE cars get 17in wheels. Trophy like this one gets the 18-in wheels, but they all get the sort of integrated satin solid silver finish roof rails. Uh Trophy gets rear privacy glass and as well as I see you can see a lot more tech on the car now. Get little camera sort embedded in the mirrors there. Um the doors don’t quite wrap underneath the sill, but they go literally almost to the bottom, which is decent enough. So again, it’s quite easy to get in and out of the car, but it’s much more upright as well. So, of course, getting in and out of it, it’s no loading children into it, which is obviously what you do in a family car, is a little bit better. Now, there’s no real sort of big dramatic creases or slashes down the side of it, but there’s some nice formwork on the panels as well. And I think it’s just a handsome looking car. It’s maybe a little bit dull looking in this dark gray color, but you know, I mean, obviously, you can buy other colors for it, but I think it looks quite smart. I really do like it. Now, you see this light bar across the back here. I think that remind that’s very like the MG4, isn’t it? The hatchback, the way it kind of goes down at the back and there’s your little checkered flag motif again. Really like that. I think that’s a really nice little detail. But I tell you what, you cover that MG badge. Don’t have to look like a Volkswagen SUV at the back. Do you know what I mean? I think that looks a lot like solid T-Rock and Tigo and whatever other things they call it as well. There’s a little nod to that. No bad thing there to suggest. You know, neat, really nicely designed. Nothing fancy, nothing superfluous, nothing you don’t need, you know, neat. But it does to me remind me a lot of a Volkswagen. There we go. Um, I do like the fact that as well as this like highle spoiler here, the the high level rear brake lights actually integrated into that. It felt a bit cheap on the MG3 hatchback. The way they stuck it to the back window on the inside. They don’t in this. I think that’s better. A nod to the quality of the car. And we’ll talk a lot about the quality on the inside of it. Of course, you get a rear wiper. Brian’s a happy man. This nice little sort of like almost like spoiler area here at the base of the rear window as well. your MG Octagon, you get reversing camera tucked underneath here, and you still obviously get reversing sensors as well. So, that’s good. Now, the badge, now this is the only thing with it. Okay, it’s an awful long name in some respects, especially when you look at some of the trim levels because the full name of the car is the MGS5 EV, but then if you go on to the price list, it it says there’s an MG S5 EV long range or MG5 S5 EV standard range. Why does it need to be such a long name MG? Why did you just not call it the MG5 like you’ve got MG4? Why VHUD S5? for why does it need to have all this and then standard range and long range and SE and trophy? I’m exhausted just talking about it. Anyway, that’s just me. Um, but I like it. I like the look of the car. I think it’s a good-look car. I think MG have really, really hit the nail on the head with this one. You know, it doesn’t look like a basic car. It doesn’t look compromised. It looks like a really smart car that you’d be proud to own. Well, that’s what I think anyway. But let’s be honest, we all know it doesn’t really matter what I think. It matters what you think. What do you think about it? Have you got the old S ZS? Would you trade up into this? You know, is this exactly what you expect? Have you never considered MG before because you didn’t like the style of them and then all of a sudden you’re going, “Oh, actually, hang on a minute. I really like the look of that.” Whatever the case, let me know in the comment section down below what your thoughts are. Now, practicality, it’s good. Good. I think 453 L of boot space. And if you fold down the standard 60/40 split rear seat, it takes total capacity up to 1441. That’s bigger than the old ZS, if not quite as big as a Scoda Lrog. However, it is bigger than a new another new entrance into this class, the Toyota CHR Plus, which I’ve done a sneak peek with. So, make sure obviously you catch that video. Being subscribed to the Auto EV channel will help you do that. So, maybe go and subscribe. Right, boot space. Right, good. I think in terms of this class, the thing is you’ve also got a nice flat load entry in and because of the height of the boot floor, if you fold down the rear seats, it will be a flat uh load all the way through. However, if you need a little bit more space, you can actually is a variable height boot floor, okay? So, you can actually knock that down. There’s a couple of issues if you do that. Not massive problems, don’t get me wrong. So, you can lower it down. The downside then is you got to find somewhere for your cables to be. Now, you’re probably not going to use that all the time. you know, it’s only if you’re going somewhere, I don’t know, maybe you’re going away in holiday or something, there’s a destination charger that you need to take that’s untethered and you need to take your cable with you. Okay, so that’s that’s maybe not a downside. The other flip side is, however, you then have a small drop down uh from the load lip and also then if you fold down the rear seats, it creates it’s a well, so there’s a step up into the rear seats. But genuinely, you don’t need to actually knock this down to get the suitcases in as I shall now able demonstrate uh for you here. So, if you put that into its highest position, then you’ve got storage for that cable. Oh, you’ve also got tools, by the way, neatly in integrated into the floor there as well. I like that. And there’s some little bits down the side that I’ve got my my um my one of my little camera gear bags just tucked down the side there. The only downside is there’s no there’s lashing points at the back there, but none here. That would be disappoint. That’s a bit disappointing. Anyway, but by the way, what do you have to do to get this in? Now, I did this earlier, so bear with me a we second, folks. So, there’s a large suitcase that goes right up at the back. Bear in mind that’s at its highest level. that suit there floor. If you then put your carryons here, you see? And then you get your medium suitcase down the side there. You’ve also then got a tiny little space in there if you had, I don’t know, like a rucks sack. There’s my camera bag. Will that go in? Yeah, there you go. There we go. So, the four suitcases plus camera bag goes into the boot with the floor at its highest setting. So that’s a decent amount of size for the car. The only thing is and again it’s a just a little note MG maybe for your next car. Take a look at Scodel Rock with all the nice little sort like hooks and the hangers and things like that and the little sort of like nets that hang below there you can put things in and the way that you’ve got other little nice bits and pieces because as a family car those little things really do make a difference. But otherwise I can’t complain actually about the size of the boot on the S5. Now, rear seat space. Impressive, I would say. Now, you got to think about it’s a CS SUV, you know, proper family car. Wow, what a load of space this is. This is excellent. That’s my driving position. I’m 5’8. The seats all the way down. I can get my feet under it and I can still dance them around. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Loads of headroom. No panoramic sunroof available. Don’t know why, but there’s no panoramic sunroof available, so that helps. Well, obviously headroom, but if you like a sunroof, forget it. But look at loads of space across here. There’s absolutely tons of space. And there’s a flat floor across, remember, because it’s on that um MSP platform. So, of course, you know, there’s say there’s no compromises to be made. So, you get this flat floor across. So, even if you are the third wheel, you know, you can sit in the center and you’ve still got loads of space. You’ve still got loads of foot room. All right. It’s not the most comfortable of cushions, but, you know, if you weren’t going far, you know, you wouldn’t want to go down to Cornwall in it from, you know, from the from Yorkshire or something. But if you were to sit here for, you know, going down the pub or something or you, you know, dropping more of your kids off at school or your kids friends, there’s certainly enough space for them. That’s excellent. Really good amount of space. The only downside is you got to go to the trophy to get the center armrest, which is a bit stingy, MG. I thought you might have just to put that on the SE as well. But anyway, you’ve got the the flip down armrest if you go for the Trophy. It’s got two cup holders in it, which is decent. Um, you’ve got door bins as well, which are a good size. They’ll take extra water bottles. Plus, you’ve got mat pockets in the backs of the front seats. Only one USBC charging port, however, just the one there uh just underneath these uh vents just here. So, that’s maybe a wee bit of a downside. And again, it just wouldn’t look, this is me just being pedantic, okay? It’s it’s a brilliant size for a family car. Just don’t get me wrong, but just, you know, little things like the Scod has got, you know, little sort of pockets and stuff like that, you know, extra bits and pieces and stuff, you know. So, I’m just saying for the next car MG, just think about it. But, you know, otherwise, what a load of space you’ve got. um easy enough to get to is fix points as well, you know, so again, they’re nice and easy to get to. And the seat itself is good, you know, in terms of the cushion length. It’s nice, you know, it sort of slopes a little bit up at the front, so there’s good support underneath the thighs there. You know, you get head restraints there. Yeah, this is everything you’d want in a family car. You know, maybe a few extra bits and pieces, but otherwise, absolutely fantastic. Plenty space. Now, one of the biggest changes to the MG is up front to this interior. Now, I’m just going to be say it here and now. Yes, maybe it lacks a little bit of I don’t know, like some of the modernity of of, you know, some of its rivals such as the Kia EV3 or, you know, the new Toyota CHR and, you know, like the LRO feels a little bit more solid and robust inside. But, I tell you what, what an interior from MG. This is a world away from the old ZS and data suggest a world away from a lot of their other products as well. This is a fabulous interior. Now, I’m going to talk a little bit more about quality and stuff a little bit later on. So, let me just go through the basics of it. So, you get two trim levels. You get an SE and a Trophy. This is a Trophy. Um, you you get different you don’t get a smaller screen on a Trophy or anything like that. You get slightly different equipment levels, but the SE is still a well equipped car. you know, you get high grade uh more speakers on the audio system. Uh with the Trophy, you get inbuilt um things in entertainment apps into the the screen as well. So things such as YouTube, tech talk, Spotify there on the Trophy. Both cars get heated seats as standard, but the Trophy gets the heated steering wheel. It also gets a 360° parking camera rather than just a reverse camera. Um as I say, obviously gets the privacy glass on the back. It gets this sort of half leather style. Well, it’s not leather, but it’s that pleather style, you know, so the cloth seats. Quite nice. Be nice to see maybe a different color. It is a predominantly gray in here. But, you know, again, not complaining at all in terms of, you know, the way it sort of like looks, the way it feels and everything else is that. So, on the whole, massive step up than we’ve seen from MG, you know, up till now. And, you know, some of their interiors have been good up till now, but this is another level up. I want to talk quickly about this infotainment screen here. So 12 and a half inch uh screen as I see. You get inbuilt infotainment things such as Tik Tok, Amazon Music, YouTube, Spotify on the trophy model. You get wireless Apple CarPlay, Android Auto as well in the car. Um and it’s really fast, you know, to respond. So the actual like how quick it is is very very good. So you know, you’re moving into sort of like things. The response time is a lot quicker than we’ve seen from the old infotainment from MG. It’s a little bit bigger as well. So, it’s one of the things I’ve noticed with some of the cars I’ve been driving of late, some of the the sort of the icons and and things, they’re quite small. You know, they try and cram a lot of things in. MG have maybe gone slightly the other way. They’re making things a bit bigger, which is great considering that you control so much of it from the screen. So, it’s nice and easy to get to. So for instance, you know, when you go into your car settings and you want to change driving controls, you can change these by the there’s two favorite buttons on the steering wheel which you can program to have like you’ve done that in MG4. Uh you can have various different things but for instance they’re driving controls. So normal, sport, comfort, snow and custom, one pedal drive, on or off, energy save mode. Um four levels of regenerative braking as well, low, medium, strong and adaptive. auto hold, held descent control, ESC, comfort braking, trailer mode, all that’s in there. You go into your MG pilot to change things such as your speed limit recognition, your lane keep assist, that type of thing. Now, remember I was saying they’ve increased the number of ADAS systems on the car as well. So, you get speed limit recognition, over speed audible warning, speed limit change audible warning, front collision assist, assist mode where it’s just an alert or actually it breaks. Then you got three levels of sort of like sensitivity to that lane departure assist. Um again you can change the sensitivity of that vibration. Um emergency lane keep you know rear drive assist blind spot detection you know in the little mirrors and stuff like that. So there’s a huge amount in here. Oh and a driver fatigue monitor as well. I must admit I was at Goodwood with this car because it was the festival festival of speed last weekend when I’ve had this car and I took it to Goodwood and I was quite tired and I was driving back and I did yawn and it started to go a bit mad at me because I’d yawned when I was in the car. But yeah, that’s basically what it’s doing. So yeah, there’s a huge amount that you can have there. So much more ADAS systems into the car. Now the other thing with that remember is as I say you can program one of these buttons to take you straight to one of these menus. So, for instance, if you want to turn off your lane keep assist and speed limit warning, you could program it. So, you press that button and it brings you straight to that screen. So, that’s good. But, yeah, I have to say really impressive with the screen, MG. Really, very good. It’s a world away from what we’ve seen before. The graphics are good. The graphics are better. It’s much quicker to respond to things. You’ve got heated seats, heated steering wheels, I see in this trophy, which are embedded into there as well. So, see you Apple CarPlay. If you flick on the Apple CarPlay, you know, you can use your Google Maps and such like, you know, and again, it’s just nice and clear. It’s really good. I really like it. So, well done, MG. That’s a world away. But the big thing for me that I’ll now move on to is the quality of the controls. So, if you’ve come from the old ZS, for instance, and you’re going into this new S5 EV, you’ll see things such as the gear uh selector is the same, but it doesn’t feel the same. It feels like they’ve tightened it up. You know, things don’t move around in your hand anymore. It the the damping of everything feels much better, much better quality. That’s the little It’s a little things like that that I’ve noticed. The switch gear just feels like they’ve really fine-tuned it to make it feel really good. Now, you know, it’s a you get you do get some physical controls. Obviously, you’ve got your gear indicing controls here. Now, this is odd because you think this one’s going to be fan speed cuz it’s got the little fan symbol on it. It’s not. That’s temperature. But by turning it, you won’t be able to hear it, but it’s got a nice little click to it. And it’s got a real positive action. This is your fan speed one here. But again, that rocker switch, it’s got a really nice action to it, you know. Then the volume control, you know, again, the way it clicks is just nice. And the same with direction control there. So your air con controls is a little bit confusing to start with, but that they’re nice the way they feel. And then you get three physical buttons in the middle here for for full defrost, heated rear screen, and then obviously your hazard warnings as well. Again, just the the way the buttons move. So MG have really concentrated on sort like, you know, improving the switch gears the same, but it just feels better. And that is the whole theme, I think, of this interior. Everything just feels like a real step up from where they were. You know, again, I’m not so keen on all the grade, but that’s a personal thing. But, you know, squidgy material on top of the dashboard, this perforated leather type material thing on the binnacle. This almost I don’t know what it’s like a it’s like a textured plastic, but it’s like carbon. It just looks nice, you know? It looks different. It’s nice. I like the way they’ve done that. And then down here, there’s no shiny gloss black. There’s a tiny bit of piano black around the gear um selector. That’s it. I am not going to criticize them for that. The rest of it’s covered in the sort of like the pleather material and then you’ve the the Alcantara around here is where your wireless charging pad is. There’s another little slot down there you can drop a phone into or your wallet into your sunnies into. That’s excellent. You get two decent size cup holders there, plus a big storage area that’s lined with a rubber mat underneath so things don’t slide around. Big door bins. No, they’re not lined, but they feel robust. Way more robust than some other manufacturers do. So, absolutely well done MG. You really have elevated the the cabin quality right up there. This is as good as you get from, you know, like people like Kia, Hyundai, uh you know, some of the Japanese manufacturers. Not quite Skoda yet. You’re not quite there yet, but you know what I mean. Way better than you you you’ve been before. So, absolutely fantastic. Um, this slightly quartic style steering wheel that you get on the MG4. It’s a really nice size. It’s perforated sort of like leather on the side, smooth leather on the top and bottom. Little bit little node to the the front section of the the front air dam there, you know, with the third spoke. I like that. That’s quite nice. And then physical buttons on the actual steering wheel here. Um, you know, so for, you know, helping with the steering. Yeah. There’s your one of your favorite buttons there. That’s This one’s been set up for the brake regen. So, you can change that. the other one. What’s that? Oh yeah, that’s the drive mode on this one. Now, you also get a 10 and a/4 in driver’s display which you can configure a little bit as well. So on your left, you get your battery percentage and your range. Um then you get sort of like obviously where the cameras are bit like Tesla do. It shows you all the surrounding traffic that you’ve got. So that’s excellent. So you can see where things are. You get your speed right in the middle and then you’ve got this little um section across the right hand side that you can change depending on what you want to see. So you can have it as a trip computer, you can have it as navigation if you’re using the inbuilt nav or you can have it as your multimedia um to show you what you’re playing, you know, on that as well. Plus, you get a little level indicator there to show you what level of brake regen you’re on. Really very good. Really very good. The seats The seats are The seats are okay. They’re a little bit oversted at the front, I would say. And I think they’ve done that to overcompensate for the fact they’re not maybe as long or not as adjustable as some of its rivals. Um, so they’ve stuffed it quite a bit at the front, which is good because it does give you support, but it is just they’ve just made them really, you know, very cushiony at the front. They’re very kind of soft. That’s that’s the only downside. Um, you obviously got an adjustable steering column that adjusts for reach and for rake. Um, you get four window controls over on the side of the door there. You got your electric mirror control down by your right knee as well. And just everything’s just neatly laid out. It’s just really simple and really nicely laid out. I just like it. You know, you got a nice armrest here. You know, there’s one in the door as well. So, you know, it’s comfortable. The only slight Again, I’m being pedantic. It’d be nice to see a catch on that. It just opens and closes. It doesn’t doesn’t click into place. You know, you can’t, you know, shut it. But it’s a deep well of a a center armrest. You know, you certainly get plenty of Malteser bags in there, but it’d be nice if it just clicked shut. That’s it. That’s all I can really complain about. I mean, they’re small points, but as I say, the interior is way above what we’ve seen from MG. I mean, the Cyber is good. Don’t get me wrong. I like the Cyber interior, but that’s a sports car. As a family car, this is excellent. My only, as I say, real criticism for me personally, I just like to see a nicer range of colors. Just feels a bit drab, you know, in times of just being a bit gray and black. But let’s be honest, if that’s the only complaint I can find, real complaint I can find about it, then they’ve really hit the nail on the head with this interior. Well done, MG. I’m really impressed with this. Now, you get two battery a choice of two batteries uh with the MG S5 EV. If you go for the MG S5 EV SE standard range, then it comes with a 49 kWh battery for up to 211 mi according to WLTP figures. Okay, that’s the only car you can get that smaller battery in. Okay, so if you go for that one, that’s what you get. The charging speeds on that are 120 kW. Okay, but but because it’s a slightly smaller battery, it means a 10 to 80% charge will only take 24 minutes. So that’s good. I think that’s decent. Um and if you’re charging from a 7 kW wall box, then MG quot 10 to 100%. I suppose you never really get it absolutely flat, do you? So 10 to 100% on the small batteries, 8 and 1/2 hours from a 7 kW wall box. Okay. Then you move up to the long range car. So you get the MG S5 EV SE long range. Uh and that comes with a 64 kWh battery. And that one there is is the best range. 298 mi according to WLTP figures, just shy of the magic 300 mark. Um but that’s because that’s on 17in alloy wheels. If you go for a trophy like this car, it gets that battery. That’s the only battery you can get in the trophy spec. But because it gets 18inch wheels, then the mileage on that drops to 288 miles. Okay. Um the charging speed is slightly different on the bigger battery as well. 139 kW uh charging speeds, but that because it’s a bigger battery that does the 10 to 80% charge actually slightly longer, 28 minutes, but it’s still under the 30 minutes benchmark that I always say. And again, if you’re charging that car from 10 to 100% on your uh 7 kW wall box, that’s going to take 11 and a half hours for that one. Now, it’ll depend on the battery size you get as to what power you get. So, if you go for the smaller 49 kWh battery, you get a 170 PS motor. Now, it’s rear wheel drive. Um, and that will do naugh to 60 and run about 8 seconds. So, you know, decent data suggests for a family car like this. But if you go for the bigger long range battery, the 64 kWh battery, that ups the power to 231 PS and that gives you an 0 to 60 time of about 6 1/2 seconds. That’s brisk. That’s okay. That’s decent. I like that. That’s good. You don’t need to go that fast, a family car, but the fact you can do it, you know, credit. Um, how does it feel out in the road? Well, yeah. Okay. So, the rest of the car, as we’ve said, we can feel a real move on for MG. This is This is as well in terms of how it drives. It is a step up from what we’ve had in the product. Now, the MG4 hatchback I love. I think it’s a great car. I think it’s one of the I think it’s better than an ID3. I really do. I think it’s a nicer car to drive an ID3. And it’s sort of the same here. Sort of. Now, as I say, this sits on the MG4’s platform, um the MSP platform. So, I think what they’ve actually done is they’ve said, “Right, well, we’re going to take an MG4 and we’re going to make it taller and we’re going to make it have a high a bigger body because it’s going to be a crossover style of car. So, what we need to do is reduce roll. So, we’re going to make the suspension stiffer.” And that means it ride quality is quite fun. So, roundabout town or at low speed, you’ve got quite an unsettled ride. It really does. And the problem with the unsettled ride is everything that it finds, every little shock that it finds on the road in terms of, you know, pothole, expansion joint, drain hole cover, whatever, not only does it happen into the suspension, but then the suspension transmits it through the actual body and the structure of the car. So, you really feel it. You really do feel it. Now, I’m not saying it’s uncomfortable. That’s not what I mean. Don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying that it isn’t as compliant or as refined in the chassis department as something like the Scodell Rock for instance, you know, or, you know, or some other cars in this class. They just deal with, you know, the like imperfections better than the MG. They would have been better off actually making it softer because whilst you would get a little bit more body roll, let’s be honest, nobody’s buying this car to sort of like string a set of hair pins together. No, you’re buying it because you need a nice comfortable family car. So, that would actually have been better if they’d gone the other way. If they’d actually softened it off from the MG4, that would have made a world of difference. I think as it is, it’s okay. It’s fine. But just be aware that other cars are better uh when it comes to sort of like ride comfort. And I think that’s primarily ride comfort for me is one of the big things for a family car. It’s got to be comfortable. And it’s just verging on sort of like getting a bit harsh for me. That’s the only thing I’ll say. Okay. And it’s like that roundabout town. And then when you get up to speed and then sort of like, you know, you hit more of those bigger longer sort of undulations, it just feels a bit I don’t know. It just doesn’t settle. It just never feels quite at ease with itself. So, it’s a real shame because it’s nearly there, you know, you know, it’s just nearly just, you know, there. The other flip side as well is the other issue that I’ve got with the car is it lacks a little bit of refinement. Not massive, but as I say, I’ve got this car the same week I’ve been to the Goodwood Festival of Speed. So, I I’ve been down and up to Goodwood in the car from my house. And sorry, so you know, on the M25, the the A3, things like at higher speed, there’s a lot there’s a lot more like noise, vibration, and harshness comes into the car, you know. So, you know, you you know, at town speeds, it’s all nice and quiet, and you think, “Oh, this is lovely.” Soon as you build the speed up on the motorware stuff, you just notice it a lot more. So, it’s not as good as the Lrock when it comes to the refinement. Absolutely no not up close in fairness, but it is very good. Okay, I want to make that abundantly clear. This is a very good car. Okay, the steering. The steering’s nice. Quite like the steering. There’s a there’s a weight to the steering that I wasn’t really anticipating. I did think it was going to be a little bit light, you know, a little bit fe, you know, like almost fingertip light. It’s not. There is quite a nice weight to it and you can feel it build as the as the speed increases um which is good, you know, so you get a real positive um feedback from the steering. So that I do like. It’s not heavy at low speed, don’t get me wrong. You know, you can still easy enough to park and with all the cameras, especially if you go for the trophy model with the 360 degree parking camera, that’s good. So, it’s not like that, you know, but as I say, it’s got a nice weight to the steering that I wasn’t quite expecting. And I do like that. Oh, you see there that just that little ridgel in the middle of that roundabout. You could really feel it through the whole car. That’s what I’m talking about. Um the brakes. Okay, the brakes. Now, you’ve got three levels of well actually four levels of regenerative braking in some respects. So, if I press this, uh that’s Oh, sorry, that’s the drive mode. Hang on a second. We’ve got low, medium, strong, and adaptive. So depending obviously on how you feel with uh how much you want in terms of your one pedal drive regenerative braking, how strong you want it, you can change it. So it’s in strong at the moment. So if I leave it in strong, there’s nothing behind me. I don’t actually know if it brings it to a halt. Hang on. It’s not as aggressive as I thought it would be. I thought strong would have been much stronger than that. No, it doesn’t bring it to a complete halt and hold it. So, it’s not true one pedal driving, but it’s it’s good enough, you know, as I say, it brings the the speed right down. You know, you can then go on to the the brake itself. If you take it off, uh when you go to low, you can’t It doesn’t seem you actually take it off. Please focus on driving. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, that’s it pretty much, you know, as as low as it’s going to be. If I come up to this corner, let’s build some speed up. If I get on the brake. Yeah, that’s good. That’s a nice positive feel. Yeah, the brakes are good. Yeah, there’s a nice positive feel through the pedal. They’re not sharp. They’re not grabby. There’s just enough. There’s maybe a slight bit of travel right at the top of the pedal, you know, if you were trying to be really quite delicate with it, but I don’t think it would really bother you, you know. I don’t think that would be enough. But no, impressive brakes. That’s good. Yeah, quite like that. That’s nice. But yeah, this is a really good car. And I know I shouldn’t seem surprised because MG have given us good cars before. And as I say, there was nothing wrong with the ZS. Nothing wrong with it at all. It was a perfectly fine car, but it was just that it was fine, you know, and as I say, it was good for the price when it came out. Excuse me, my width restriction. It was good at the price when it came out. It’s just that some of the competition just, you know, came into that market and went, “Oh, actually we could do the same for a similar level of money and all of a sudden it just didn’t look that competitive anymore. So, they really needed to change it.” Now, I’ve driven the ZS, the new ZS, the hybrid, and it’s good. Again, it’s it’s it’s absolutely fine. This doesn’t feel like the same car. This doesn’t feel like that ZS hybrid. This feels like a much better car, a much better engineered car. It’s like two different engineering teams have done them and this feels really good. It really does. You know, as I say, if they could just get those last little bits right, if they could just get that ride quality just to be slightly better. If they could just do some I don’t know, they just it’s the last 5% or so that they just need to do. You know, you would sit there and go, “Yeah, this is every bit as good as an EV3. this is every bit as good as an LROG. It’s not, you know, because it just lacks the sophistication of those two cars. But, you know, you think about where people like Sakia and Scoda were 10, 15 years ago. It’s not taken MG 10 or 15 years to come from building good but average cars to building a car at this level. That’s that’s that’s the real thing for me. This is a really good car. This is if you take the Cyber out of the equation, forget the Cyberster because obviously it’s a sports car now. It’s a very good car, the Cyber. I really like Cyber. Forget that. If you look at just like things like the ZS, the HS, the MG3, the MG4, if we just look at their core products like that, this is by far the best yet. And the MG4 was superb. This is I’m really impressed with this car. really impressed. As I say, there’s, you know, you here, here is an MG that you’re not just going to go, that’s what I can afford, so that’s what I’m going to buy. This is an MG you’re going to go and say, actually, I’m buying that because I prefer it to the Scoda. I prefer it to the Kia. I prefer it to the Peugeot, the Citroen, the Vauxhall. Whatever it is you’re looking at, this is a car that you would you would use that phrase with. you prefer it to those cars because I’ll tell you now, they’ve done a really excellent job with this car and it’s every bit as good as I would say the majority of the cars that it’s going to compete with. Well done MG. This this is superb, right? So, effectively there’s three cars you can have. Okay, two trim levels, choice of batteries allowing for three cars within the MG S5 EV range. Right, so where do we start? Well, you start with the MG S5 EV SE standard range. Okay, and that kicks it off and and that’s with a smaller battery. Okay, so that’s with a 49 kW battery. That comes in at £28,495. 28.5 grand. That’s a good value for money for this size of car. That’s a good with this quality. Good value for money, I think. Okay. If you want the SE trim but with the long range battery, you can have that and that takes the price up to £30,995. Okay? Or if you want this trophy model, which only comes with the long range battery, then that’s 33495. Okay? And of course, remember you get MG’s 7-year warranty uh with those cars as well. Now, that’s good value for money, I think. You know, it’s not a cheap car, and there’s a very big distinction, I think, between the word cheap and value. Okay? And I think this offers great value. But, as I say, remember the the original ZS was always lauded because it was, you know, it was quite a cheap car. When electric cars sort of first came out, there wasn’t a lot around this price. But remember, Scodel Rock starts at just over £30,000, you know. So this car is priced exactly like that car, but it is now class competitive in that sense. So I don’t have a problem with it being that car. But 28 1/2 grand is all you need to get into an MG S5 EV SE standard range. I think I need a drink now. Right, there’s some healthy competition for MG in this market sector. And that is why, as I say, it’s good to see them really up their game when it comes to the product. They’re not just selling you sort of like I dare to suggest a non-competitive car for a cheap price and just like saying that’s what we’re offering. They’re not doing that. They’re offering a class competitive car with this but it is a very very strong class Elrock Kia EV3 to name but two cars that are in this. The Volvo EX30. I mean it’s a bigger car than the VolvX30. And don’t get me wrong, you know, as I say, you know, if you watched our triple test, uh, that we did a few weeks back, you know, there are some very good cars starting at just over that £30,000 mark there. Uh, so it’s good to see MG, you know, really step up to the plate and compete with those. There’s another couple coming because bear in mind, as I say, this is a C SUV. So, as I say, you’ve got things such as uh the Hyundai Kona as well that you could consider perhaps as a rival. I know we said K EV3. there’s still some Konos around and that’s a car I think is you know would you know you’d go from a Kanero into something like this car as well you know that’s a that’s a good car as well so that’s a consideration as well but there’s two more that are coming onto the market one of which I’ve done a sneak peek on which is the Toyota CHR plus now that’s Toyota’s entrance into the CSUV segment and I think it’s a really impressive car I’m really looking forward to driving that you know a lot of people have criticized Toyota’s products up till now you know their electric offerings and I I think we’ve maybe sort of misjudged them a little bit. So, I’m looking forward to seeing what the CHR Plus does. And of course, there’s uh the Nissen Leaf, which is based on um Renault’s CMF uh B platform as well, which also includes such as things such as the Renault Scenic E Tech. So, that could be considered as a competitor. Certainly in the top of the range trophy, guys, you could also be looking at a Renault Scenic. So, as I say, MG have really stepped up to the plate. They’ve really sort of like pitching this car against some very, very strong competition. But dare I suggest they’re every right to because this is a good car. This deserves to sell on more than just its price. So here’s what we like and also what we don’t like about the new MG S5 EV. Well, we like its design, its space and practicality, the big improvement on quality. There’s a choice of batteries to suit different needs. Big improvements have been made to the infotainment system to make it snappier and easier to use. And yet, despite all of that, it still offers, we think, good value for money. We don’t like, well, the ride can be a little bit settled around town and a little bit too stiff away from the town. And whilst better quality, the cabin does feel maybe a little bit unimaginative inside. And whilst the range and electrical architecture is okay, it’s not exactly class leading and in some areas it does lack the refinement of the Scoda and some other key rivals in this market space. The old MG ZS was a car that sold because of its price. It was a perfectly fine car. It did nothing particularly wrong, but then again, it didn’t do anything particularly brilliant either. It just offered really good value for money. It was a cheap, easy car to live with that offered a sensible family style of crossover for not an awful lot of money. If you wanted to get into electric motoring for not a lot of money, the MG ZS was an easy car to recommend. But this is a very different car. This is not just fine. This is not just average. This is not a car that you buy on affordability. Here is an MG that you can buy on desiraability as well because this new S5 EV stands head and shoulders next to cars such as Kia, Hyundai, Scoda, uh Volkswagen, the Stellantis group. In fact, in some respects, it’s better than a lot of those cars. It doesn’t shoot straight to the top of the class, don’t get me wrong, because there are some key rivals that do things a lot better than this car, but all of a sudden it doesn’t need to sort of like just sell on value alone. It has other strengths. It has other reasons that you would buy this car for. And I think that’s incredible. The fact that MG have really, really stepped up to the mark and they’ve really really elevated their game up to stand next to those key rivals. As I say, if the old car was bought on affordability, this car can be bought on desiraability. And not only do we have a car that’s very class competitive, but we have MG’s best product to date. And the fact that they can still do it for the price that they’re doing it at, well, that just makes it all the sweeter. Thank you for watching another road test review on AutoEV. As always, please make sure that you are subscribed to the AutoEV channel. And then when you’ve done that, make sure you turn on your notifications so that you will get an alert when our next video is uploaded and it’s gone live. If you have enjoyed this week’s review, please give it a little thumbs up. And of course, as always, let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below. What do you think of MG’s new S5 EV? Despite the really long-winded name, would you choose one of these over a Scoda Lock or a Kia EV3? Have you Have you Have you gone and bought one instead of one of those rivals that I mentioned earlier? Why have you got the old ZS? Is this now tempting you to trade up? Have you never considered MG before, but all of a sudden you’re thinking, “Actually, now there’s an MG that I drive.” Whatever it is, let me know your thoughts in the comments section down below. Now, remember, we’re across on all social media platforms as well. So, if you’re into things such as Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, X, uh even LinkedIn, you can follow us over there as well. And it certainly does help the channel. And if you’re in the marketplace for an electric car, maybe it’s not a new MG S5 EV, maybe you’re thinking about a secondhand ZS, that’s a really good value for money secondhand electric car, but you don’t know much about it and you need to know a little bit more. How do you find out? Well, here’s how. Stay on the OTV homepage on the YouTube channel. Just at the top up there, you’ll see a magnifying glass. If you type the name of the car you’re interested in there, of course, if it’s been a new electric car launched in the UK in the last 6 years, then we’ve subjected it to the road test. that actual car buyers trust when it comes to choosing their next electric car. And that’s the auto EV one, believe it or not. All that remains for me to say is thank you once again for watching. Thank you for your continued support. I’ll see you again soon.
MGS5 EV – MG’s Best Yet? | Full Electric SUV Review
Discover everything you need to know about the new MGS5 EV, MG’s latest fully electric C-SUV that’s shaking up the UK EV market. In this full review and walkaround, I cover the design, technology, performance, electric range, charging times, practicality and value for money that make the MGS5 EV one of the most talked‑about electric cars of 2025.
The MGS5 EV could be a popular choice for drivers looking for affordable electric family cars, and this latest version aims to be MG’s best yet. I take you through the interior comfort, boot space, infotainment system, safety features and real‑world driving experience so you can see if it’s the right EV for you.
We’ll compare the MGS5 EV to rivals like the Kia Niro EV, Hyundai Kona Electric, Nissan Leaf e+, Škoda Elroq, Kia EV3 and Volvo EX30, to find out how it stacks up on price, range and practicality. Whether you’re looking for a cheap electric car, a family‑friendly EV, or just want to learn more about MG’s latest electric model, this review will give you the answers.
If you’re an EV enthusiast, car buyer or just love detailed electric car reviews, make sure you like, comment and subscribe for more MG car reviews and EV content.
📌 Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
01:35 – Titles
01:43 – Meet the car
05:18 – Styling
10:56 – Practicality
16:11 – Interior
27:05 – Usability
28:54 – Performance and Handling
38:28 – Pricing
40:12 – Competition
42:15 – Pros & Cons
43:13 – Summary
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Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and drop your thoughts on the MGS5 EV in the comments – is this the best value family EV crossover on the market right now?
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