MG ZS EV Review incl running cost v petrol / diesel. Is this £20k family electric car still good?

My name is Richard and with me here is an mg Zs EV, a practical family electric car available on the market from about 20 000 pounds, and so in this video. I want to give you a bit of a review in my opinion on this car. Is it good value and will it suit you as a family? What are the running costs like? What are the pros and cons? Well, hopefully, this will be a useful video to you if youre, considering one of these cars. So what is this model exactly this one here is actually a two year old car, its not the latest refresh version. This is a pre refresh available on the market today, from about twenty thousand pounds, this is actually the exclusive model, so it should be a pretty good specification inside well show you that there is, and now a newer version available, but, as I say, these are on The market from about twenty thousand pounds so consider its got over 42 kilow hours of usable battery. It should represent pretty good value for money if youre looking for a practical family, electric car so start on the outside and look at the size of it. It carries this kind of SUV body style. So again, hopefully we see that practicality on the inside now I happen to be parked here. Next to us, go to any yak and its not too dissimilar in height, and in fact there behind me is a Hyundai ionic.

Five similar to that, but it is much smaller than those cars in length. It seems narrower as well, but it is a little bit bigger than the Hyundai Kona and the front here weve got a fairly conventional, looking Grill. In fact, you wouldnt really know his electric car. Would you this car does share its platform with combustion Vehicles as well, so there are petrol and Diesel versions of this mg available as well. So maybe theres some compromises because of that, what theyve done with the front? Grille here is actually incorporate the charging port behind here. So if we go like that, weve got a CCS rapid charge and type 2 Port under here now. This is one of the kind of complaints from a number of owners. This is kind of a little bit awkward to to get into and plug it in there, but nonetheless Im sure you get used to that. Keyless entry and folding Wing mirrors. Yes under the Bonnet any storage. No, unfortunately not – and there is plenty of space here – you can imagine its normally being filled with other engines and stuff. They should really put like a little tray in give you a nice bit of storage space under there, but, alas, nothing to be had there lets get into the inside electric seat adjustment. Yes, I do leather trim, yes, or is it leather, fake leather? I dont know its a pretty good trim, though its nice, its convincing lets, have a look on the inside keyless start, yes, okay, so from behind the drivers seat, you know this steering wheel here.

I think this is from a Volkswagen Golf or Passat from a few years ago, no haptic buttons, which is good and so thats, all nice, conventional dials, with a little color display in the middle, and then we have the main screen in the center of the dashboard. Here, which yeah youve got navigation, it can be a little bit. Slow to load can be a little bit laggy, but it seems to do the job. What you do have is Saving Grace will be Android, auto Apple carplay, so youre probably going to use those anyway. Its not wireless, you do need to plug your phone in Via one of the two USB a ports underneath the sensor console here and then, with apple carplay under itll, say: youve got all the apps available to you. There so Im sure thats, fine weve got conventional air vents in the middle here and then some nice little round ones at the sides, a bit kind of mercedes esque. At the side there, no climate control air conditioning, yes, temperature adjustment, yes, but actually not automatic climate control. Even on this, it exclusive Model A couple of driving mode settings here, so youve got Eco, Sport and normal and that just sharpens up the throttle or dulls the throttle doesnt really make a great deal of difference to efficiency. From what I hear, Drive selector here again fairly conventional part with an auto hold function, Center, armrest couple of cup holders in here and a little bit of storage down in here its all fairly well, trimmed to be honest, nothing too, exceptional, but functional plenty of pedal Space which I like to see so loads of room to move your feet around and the reason I say that is, I do find some vehicles that share their platform with combustion Vehicles.

Theyll leave a gray big space in here, which would normally be for a gearbox, and then you can end up with a smaller pedal space, but this ones got a nice good pedal space. So, as I sit here and now its comfortable its functional its practical sensor, Matt does have a little cable slot. So if you are plugging in your phone, you can just clip it in here and put it in there. Ive got heated seats too. This model actually does also have Lane assist and radar cruise control, so youve got sort of a version of autopilot for what I hear it actually doesnt work too badly at all, and you do get an electric sunroof and an electric blind here. It comes roof rails for easy, fitting of roof racks getting into the back seat. Behind my driving position well again, just easy accessing it now, its a nice height car for easy entry and exit and look at this. This is good space. This is a seat in my position. Im six foot tall and Ive got plenty of knee room room under the seat for my feet and plenty of Headroom, even with the sunroof, its well trimmed in here nice materials and good, to see theres a USB charger in the back. There may only be one, but there is one, so you can charge up a device in the back a little bit of storage here, a bit in the back seats, and it actually is nice and comfortable kind of a strange kind of rare pillar.

Here with this little tiny window in the back, but seeing here the seats are comfortable. Ive got no problem with this at all. You can squeeze three people across because again, what I like to see is, although it shares the platform with ice cars, it is not bogged down by a big Central transmission tunnel, so you could have three people in the back here. If you needed to its a bit narrower than some cars, but two adults in the rear, absolutely no problem at all. This is good two isofix in the back seats here, no ski hatch, but we do have split folding, rear seats that drop down easy enough. Not quite flat, but opening up to the boot lets have a look at it. At the rear, yeah non offensive looks pretty good. Ive got parking, sensors Ive got a reversing camera tucked under here, Ive got a rear, wiper blade seems obvious, but something like the Holland, ionic 5 doesnt have one of them. Lets open up the boot and have a look. So in here is a pretty sensible, practical load space for the size of the car, which is, as you can see now much smaller than the enyak in length. Theres, no bag hooks theres, no 12 volt socket theres, not quite a flat load floor here, but you do have some good underfloor storage and what I do like is. You can then take that floor out, lower the height of it and then youve got a much deeper boot going right down there, so that is a practical load space okay.

So this takes quite out for a drive and then Im going to talk to you about efficiency and running costs and such like lets start off with this bit, though, this is my turn in circle challenge: will it make this in one? Go? Oh, not quite! No! So it doesnt have a turning circle like some cars, pretty good backup, camera there and then were back around so this car here has a top speed of 87 miles per hour. Mind you speed limits and cameras. These days, you said you cant, do more than 70 notes. Are 16 8 point something seconds its equivalent to 141 brake horsepower. So if I put my foot down still headline figures, but that picks up speed really nicely and its just reminded me to speed them its 40 miles an hour as I just nodded it there officer back to 40 now so effortless pickup. I guess that thing with that. You cant really convert the brake horsepower. That was a petrol diesel car. You had to go out for a couple of Gears, but it just got that smooth effortless power and torque as we pull away, and then I come along a bumpy section of Country Road here and its absorbing the bumps really well its a very comfortable car road Noise isolation from the wind noise. I just turn the fan down a little bit there, its pretty quiet, thats, okay, the steering is actually quite directional as well.

They dont really get any feel from the steering wheel. Electric rack not uncommon. Like a lot of cars, you dont get much steering feel the steering wheel, makes the cargo left and right absolutely, but actually in terms of body control and the actual turning is actually nice, its softly damped and its absorbing the bumps really nicely so lets summarize what Its like to drive very reasonable, comfortable quiet does what it says in the tin. Okay, so lets plug it in top up the charge and talk to you about real world range efficiency and running costs. So bear with me Im going to talk at you over some figures, so this has got a real world range of about 130 150 miles. If youre sensible, you could make it do more. If youre really careful, it could easily be less if youre thundering down the motorway at full speed, but youre going to get about 130 miles quite easily out there, so youre going to average anywhere between about three and five miles per kilo hour. These do suffer a little bit of higher speeds. Those Motorway speeds can bring it down to the low three miles per kilowatt hour, but you can make them do five miles per kilowatt hour. Lets take a kind of middle of the road efficiency and talk about running costs per mile. Now you may have solar energy at home and you may get the charge for nothing. You may have cheap overnight tariffs, in which case this car is going to cost you about two pound 80 to fully charge if youre, just on Standard Electric domestic towers and youve Gap, the cap of 34 Pence per kilowatt, the maximum you can pay in the UK At the moment, its going to cost you more, like 13 pounds 50 to completely charge this car so lets break down some average efficiency and running costs.

You get a running cost of about eight and a half Pence per mile. Now, if I compare that to a reasonably efficient diesel, say 45 miles per gallon again real world efficiency thats going to break down to about 18 Pence per mile, in fact, probably slightly over 18 Pence per mile, so an electric car is still cheaper to run. Lets. Add as well the less maintenance and running costs, theres, no clutch, no exhaust, no oil to change in there, so much cheaper, running costs and lets bring into residual values as well. I mean EVS can be more expensive than petrol and Diesel versions of the same car. But youre going to save them running costs, youre going to save and servicing end of the month for EVS is still strong. This car here, remarkably, is worth more than it was a year ago, yeah. So in fact, that demand is keeping the value strong its. We want more affordable, EVs and, as the cars get cheaper theyre in demand, they just hold their values really well. So, in fact, anyone with one of these is probably going to find they can sell it today for more than they bought it for what it was worth uh year ago, so theyre cheap to run its good space drives nicely all seems pretty good. So far lets wrap up the video never mentioned they even come with a seven year, warranty from mg. So even as a car like this couple years old, you still get that peace of mind as well, so theyre, obviously very confident about build quality.

So lets wrap this up then its not the most dynamic car hasnt got the biggest range in the world, its not the fastest charging speed in the world and theres a few little bits you could pick apart, but it is pretty good value. I reckon it is spacious, practical comfortable, and I think it represents good value for money, especially when you consider its running costs can be so low as well. So the mg for me used car a couple years old for 20 000 pounds. I think its good value. So I hope thats all been okay and informative, useful quick review of the mg. Let me know in the comments below if youve got mg, what you like and dont like about it, will you be sticking with the mg brand? Are you going to be changing it to something else soon, mg have done really well making the strong path themselves in the UK. Reviving The English brand will be under Chinese ownership. We know, but its good value drives well and I think its a cracking car for the money. So there we have it.