MGS5 review: The family-ready electric car
The allnew all-electric MGS5 has just landed in New Zealand. It’s a car that starts at 45 grand, which is not bad for a car that’ll never need the gas station. But as you’re about to find out, it’s not perfect. Yes, you join me in the MGS5, a new electric car from MG that’s now available on the New Zealand market. And it sort of strikes me as a mobile vin diagram between value and features. The question is, I don’t quite know where the overlap is yet, but I’m sure I will by the end of this video. Now though, let’s talk price and range. And this car is available in four flavors with two battery sizes. And it starts with the MGS549 Excite. And that is the base one. The problem is the base one has fewer toys than a Victorian orphanage, but it does have good value. 45 grand it starts at for 340ks on a charge. It’s not bad. That’s WLTP range. Then you can get the next level up, which is the MGS549 Essence. I know what you’re thinking. Essence, it’s just got the essentials. That’s the base one. No, no, no. The Excite’s the base. The Essence is the top spec. Yeah, whoever MG came up with that naming system clearly needs a holiday. The next one up is the MGS562 Excite. That’s the base spec, bigger battery version. Goes a little further per charge, costs a little more, but if you can afford it, go for this one. This is the MGS562 Essence. This has got everything built in. This is the one that will impress your friends. That might be a bridge too far. Oh my god, the map’s got trees. As for motor power, it is powered by a 125 kW electric motor driving the rear wheels with 250 new m of torque. And if you’re thinking, well, hang on, that sounds exactly like the entry-level MG4 motor. Well, you’re right. It is exactly the same motor. The only difference is there’s only one motor option in the MGS5, and this is it, the 125 kW motor, which means while it’s not slow, it doesn’t exactly feel like it’s just done five lines of Edmond’s self-raising. Not that it matters. We’re in Oakland. When are you ever going to get up to 50ks an hour in this city? Today is moderate rain, 14° C in Penrose. Please pay attention to driving safely. Thank Thank you. The hell did that come from? I’m not kidding when I say the MG4 and the MGS5 are really similar. They’ve got the same length, the same width. The only difference is that the MGS5 is taller, 11.7 cm taller, which means you’ve got more room. It feels like a bigger car when it’s not that much bigger. Also, the entry-level MGS5 and the entry-le MG4 weigh exactly the same. Back to the car, though, and to sit inside it, like I said, it’s a very different car to the MG4. It feels much more spacious, but feels much more car-like, not quite as scary for non-car people, not quite as futuristic feeling as sitting in the MG4. This feels just a bit more familiar. That being said, in my opinion, it’s nowhere near as good-looking as the MG4. This feels much more sensible. So, let’s talk design. And like opening an avocado, let us give it a squeeze and start from the outside working our way in. And we have to start with the exterior design. And it’s it’s not radical, is it? It’s not bad. It’s just painfully sensible. There’s nothing about the exterior design that leaps out at me as being sexy or wonderful. It’s just kind of sensible. It’s very sleek. It’s very rounded. Like if you were to try and battle this car in Greek or Roman wrestling, you would probably lose cuz it’s got nowhere to purchase. Even the wheel covers are painfully sensible. And the back is it’s not bad. The front, however, I kind of like. Uh, look at the LED daytime running lights and the LED headlights that are actually just set a little bit lower into the body, into the bonnet, into the bumper. They look quite good. I think overall the car’s not bad. And something else that’s interesting is it’s available in seven different colors, including champagne, which aside from brown is one of my favorite car colors. I know I’m 200 years old. German car makers. Pay attention. That’s how you do it. As for the inside though, it is dark. It’s black in here. And if you’ve watched my videos, you know I’m not a fan of dark dashboards. They show up all the dirt. They get hot in summer and they’re just kind of depressing. You know, it’s got seasonal effective dashboard. But you should know that this is available with a light color interior. According to the spec sheet, I’ve not seen one yet, but the spec sheet says you can get this with a light interior. I would choose that one unless of course you got kids. Jokes aside though, from a driver’s perspective, this car feels designed for families. It’s designed for space and comfort, and it is a spacious, comfortable car. On that note, let’s talk comfort. Starting with what’s it like to drive from here where I’m sitting in the driver’s seat. And the seats are very comfortable. They’re a little short. I think the seat padding, the cushions feel a little like they could be an inch longer, but overall there’s heaps of leg room, heaps of headroom. I mean, what’s there to say? It’s also easy to get in and out of because the seat height is great. If you’ve got limited mobility cuz it’s an SUV, you just slide sideways. Slide sideways in and out. You don’t have to fall into it like a early ’90s Honda. That being said, I do have one complaint. The entry level versions get all cloth seats as if it’s a bad thing. Whereas, if you get the topsp spec one like this, it’s a little cloth with a lot of vinyl or PVC, which means you’re going to sear your thighs in summer in this one if you get the dark interior. As for winter time though, I’ve got some good news. With the topsp spec ones, you get seated heats. Yep. Seated heats in both the drivers and the passenger seat in the front. Plus, you also get a heated steering wheel. So, roll-on winter, although it’s now spring. As for ventilated seats, however, not an option. But look at the back room. If you got kids, heaps of room in the back there. Look at the size of the back seat. Look at the width of it. Look at the leg room and the headroom back there. Look at the amenities. It’s not bad for a sensible, relatively affordable family car. This is decent value. So far, so good. And if you go into the boot, it gets even better. First of all, on this topsp spec one, you can open the boot just by waving your foot underneath it. Bit of lock should or you can push the button on the remote. And then look at the space back there. There’s a decent amount of room. The mafia test passes with flying colors. And if you drop those seats down, look at all the room you got. You could almost fit a mattress in there and go camping in this car if maybe you are Danny DeVito. The boots also got hooks in there for both tying luggage down or for just putting your shopping bags on there. Plus, it’s got a false floor so you can store extra stuff in there. But if you want more room and you’re thinking, well, hang on. What about a fart or front compartment under the bonnet like so many cars have? Well, if you pop the bonnet on this one, you will be greeted with disappointment. There is no fart. There’s no front compartment. If you are hauling extra stuff, you’re just going to have to chuck it in the boot. Oh, I should point out you can chuck it in one of the 30 compartments in this car. 30 compartments, man. That’s brilliant. Like the center console. Look at all the space back there. USB charging, cigarette lighter, sorry, 12vt outlet, that’s what we call it these days. Heaps of pockets, heaps of storage. Overall, this car is big. Let’s move on to gadgets now, though. This is my favorite section cuz, you know, guys, toys, what’s there not to like? We start with what’s right in front of me, a 10.25 in instrument cluster with a decent font size, so it’s relatively easy to read. Good news if your eyes aren’t brilliant or if you’ve been around the sun a few times. But what controls the car is this. So, this is the 12.8 in central display, which is touchscreen, and it’s got everything in it. And it’s a bit of an improvement from the MG4. MG’s put some better software in here. So, for example, we’ve got stuff like navigation built in. It’s got native maps. Finally, the only problem is it takes a second for it to come up. It’s not like a BYD, which is super fast. Look at that. Wait, is that It’s got live animated ripples. And then when we get back to the main screen, we can see you can load your videos. You can look at your online service. You’ve got Spotify now. You’ve got YouTube. And it actually works. But again, like some of the other things, it doesn’t have the fastest processor in this car. So, it does take a second or two for these things to load up. But the fact is, it’s got it. That’s brilliant. It’s also got wireless phone charging right here in a brilliant spot. Plus, check this out. It’s got a smart little place here for an extra phone. Or if you just like to have your phone there, it pops upright. Of course, it’s also got wireless robot and fruit connectivity. So, you got Apple or Android devices. It’ll connect wirelessly to both those services. But one thing you’re going to absolutely love about this car is this. If we go into the car settings and then go to MG Pilot, go down here and press MG Pilot Custom. Thank you MG for doing this. You can just turn that on and it will lock whatever settings you’ve got. If you want to turn off the annoying beeps when you go over speed, for example, because sometimes the car makes mistakes and sometimes you do, it will do it and it will stay locked. Other cool stuff you’ve got is a bird’s eyee camera system that’s 360°, which actually looks pretty good. It passed my eye test that I did. Well done, MG. The car’s also got a mobile app from MG, which is quite comprehensive. that lets you find your car and check your car status and set up charging schedules and stuff like that. I like that very much. But the piece of resistance for these cars is of course V2L, vehicle to load, that lets you treat your car like a mobile power station. Brilliant in a power cut, brilliant in an emergency or just brilliant when camping. You can boil your kettle and stuff. And you can get the adapters. It’s an extra price. I don’t have word on the prices just yet. Maybe they’re like, well, that will come to the think about it. I haven’t. It’s also got one pedal driving and regen braking. Now, one pedal driving lets you drive the car just by using the accelerator in most situations. It’s a little weird to get used to at first, but once you get used to it, you’ll never go back. So, the regen works good. It’s got one pedal driving. It’s smooth. It’s comfortable. It’s quiet. But what’s it like on the motorway? Well, there’s only one way to find out. And welcome to the motorway in Oakland. And so far, for a recap, we’ve established that visually the car is as exciting as four rolls of beige wallpaper. But it does have good value for money. It’s got quite a lot of features. But now, let’s talk safety and motorway features. in particular, level two autonomous driving. This car can drive itself. Technically, you’ve got to keep your hands on the wheel legally. You’re still in control. But let’s turn on the self-driving feature. Okay. First of all, we set our speed. There we go. Set to 100. Maximum of 100. Oh, automatically the lane keeping assist or lane centering has turned on. I’m taking my foot off the accelerator. It’s now braking, steering, and accelerating by itself. And it’s keeping to the middle of the lane. Very good. So, right now my hands are just resting. The car is breaking because the vehicle in front’s slowing down. This gives me a good chance to talk about safety. And this car just underwent its Euro NCAP and Acap safety tests. And it got very good ratings. Five stars in both tests. Well done. But what about cabin noise at 100ks an hour, especially on our coarse chip roads? Well, I’m doing 100 ks an hour right now on course chip road and it’s 87 dibels. That’s what the meter says, which is absolutely normal. Not bad at all. But what about acceleration? Well, let’s find out. We’re on an empty slice of road. I’m all by myself. I’m going to put the car into sport mode, which I won’t lie to you, doesn’t turn it into a raging beast of a thing. This sport button is kind of like that turbo button on a 1997 computer. We’ve got the road to ourselves. Let’s test that zero to 100 time. 3 2 1 go. Foot down. Okay. So, yeah, this is not a Bugatti Veyron, but it’s not slow. The 0 to 100 time is it’s going to be right there on the screen. Wait for it. There we go. Okay. Good. Respectable. Not terrible. But what’s the handling like? My top secret driving road is just in front of me. Let’s find out. And you know what? In the corners, it feels exactly how I expected it to feel. It’s relatively secure. The center of gravity’s nice and low. The weight distribution is fairly balanced. It’s a lot like the MG4. In fact, it’s got the same power. Like I said, it’s just got a little bit more weight than the MG4 cuz this is the bigger battery version. But overall, it feels excellent. Power delivery is smooth. Yes, I wish it had a little more power, but it’s fine. For a family car, it’s really good. Another thing this car has got going for it is the fact it’s rear wheel drive. It feels kind of natural. You know, you’re you’re being pushed off from the lights instead of in a front-wheel drive car. You get pulled off at the lights. You know what I mean? So, this feels good. You know, you’ve got your power delivery in the rear. You’ve got your steering and the braking on the front. It just feels right. But we have much more to cover yet, including efficiency, real world range in New Zealand conditions, charging speed, and of course, spud capacity. Stay tuned because coming up next is the Spud Score. Starting with performance, and what can I say? You won’t get many speeding tickets in this car. So, four spuds out of 10. Handling’s next, and it’s very decent for a family car. So, six spuds there. As for comfort, it’s pretty good. Handling bumpy roads with ease. It’s quiet around town, and there’s heaps of room, too. So, seven spuds. Let’s talk efficiency now. And around town, it used 13.7 units of electricity per 100 ks, which means a full charge with city driving in this bigger battery version should get you that official 440ks per charge. On the highway, however, it was thirstier, using more power to push through headwinds, using around 17.5 kwatt hours per 100k, giving you around 350 ks per charge on the highway. That’s not great, not terrible. Five spuds. Gadgetry is next. And this topsp spec one is pretty comprehensive. Having everything from a mobile app to YouTube to Spotify to vehicle to load. The screen’s just a little sluggish at times. I know how it feels. So, eight spuds for gadgets. But is it good value, you ask? And the answer is yes. 45 grand for the entry-level version or 55 grand for this topsp spec big battery version is a good price comparatively considering how even once cheap cars are expensive these days. And so, I’m giving this MG seven spuds for value. As for charging speed, I reckon this part will impress you cuz I honestly expected it to be a little bit crap because more affordable cars generally charge pretty slowly. But this was impressive. I ran it down to 10%. Then I plugged it into one of Chargenet’s hyper rapid charges which can pump out 300 kW of fat-free electricity. Then I timed how long it took to get to 80%. Believe it or not, it did it in 25 minutes. And that’s getting into Tesla territory. Not bad at all. Eight spuds for charging. Also, if you’re new to EVs and charging is all a bit unknown and kind of daunting, don’t worry. It’s as easy as plugging in your phone, check out the link in the description to see a plain English charging guide for new EV drivers showing charging options, speeds, and what they cost. Now, let’s talk style. And I don’t think Pinfirina is going to be too worried about competition considering the MGS5 has a body like mine after International Potato Day, which is the 30th of May, by the way. But it’s not ugly or offensive. Kind of envy it. So, I’m giving it an average five spuds. But is it fit for purpose? Well, yeah. I mean, the purpose is to carry you and your family around town safely, cheaply, and comfortably. And it does all that fine. Plus, it’s got a 10-year battery warranty, which is exceptional. Honestly, the battery is going to outlast the car, and it even toes 750 kilos, so eight spuds. But it is the PSC, which is paramount, and testing revealed that the MGS5 has an unexpectedly high PSC of 80, making it neck and neck with the Kia EV6 for in dash tuber holage. Not bad at all. which gives the allnew MGS5 a total spud score of 67. Now, that’s not a bad spud score for what is a painfully sensible car. And it had me worried when I picked it up. I was thinking, how am I going to make an entertaining video about a car that is this sensible? But after driving it for a few days, that’s the point. It’s supposed to get you and your family to work and to school and to the mall and all that safely and comfortably and affordably. And I reckon that is the most painfully sensible thing of all.
The MGS5 is one of those cars which does everything quite well, from comfort to amenities to range to value, but no car is all things to all drivers, so Gav went on a voyage of discovery to see what makes this particular vehicle different.
The first factor worth mentioning is the car’s value. The MGS5 starts at $44,990 and delivers 335 km (WLTP) of range. From there you have three other model variants, each increasing in range and amenities, going up to the Essence 62 at $54,990 with 425 km (WLTP) of range per charge.
From there you’ll find yourself driving a suite of safety systems, comfort and gadgetry in a wide selection of exterior colours and optional interior, too. It’s a vehicle that’s been designed with families in mind; sometimes making it almost painfully sensible at times, as Gav found out!
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📽️IN THIS VIDEO:
0:00 – Intro
0:18 – Tech Specs
2:50 – Design
4:17 – Comfort
6:39 – Gadgets
9:09 – Motorway
9:58 – Safety
10:11 – Road Noise
10:26 – 0-100
10:58 – Handling
11:46 – Spud Score
14:22 – Outtro
💚MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO:
How to charge your EV
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