This is the mg4 and it is the latest electric car from the resurgent and revived mg brand brought back to life by the Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation, or s. A ic and reintroduced to Europe as a sort of uh familiar point of the spear for a massive Chinese vehicular invasion in the coming years months and even decades um. This is not the first electric car that mg has produced weve already driven the fully electric Zs crossover and weve already driven the fully electric mg5 estate, the mg5 estate itself, due for an update in the coming months. But this is, this is a bit of a second New Beginning for mg. If you like, this is an all new EV exclusive platform. This is an all new structure. This is basically the beginning of what mg is going to be building in the next five to ten years, and I have to say, even though this isnt a proper road test. This is this is a kind of quick acquaintance test. Really weve only got the car for a couple of hours at the moment, but it is our first chance to drive it on Irish roads, um and so far I have to say its pretty wildly impressive. Now, obviously, a huge amount of the focus on the mg4 is the price tag, because it has a starting price of just over 27 000 Euro. Now that makes it pretty pretty much the most affordable electric car you can buy in Ireland right now.

In fact, it makes this, which is the same size as a Volkswagen ID3 cheaper than the cheapest Renault Zoe, which is a much smaller car. Now for that money you dont get the biggest battery. You dont get the longest range. This one Im driving this bright orange. One, this is an exclusive spec. Car comes only in Long Range forms, so you get the biggest 64 kilowatt hour battery. You get the longest theoretical 450 kilometer range and you get the 204 horsepower motor mounted between the rear wheels at the back driving the rear wheels. As well and pushing the car along – and it has to be said, a very brisk clip – this is not specifically a performance version. There is a performance version to come, which will have four wheel drive and even more power um. But this this thing, I have to say, feels nicely quick, its not the quickest car on paper, but I dont think you need an awful lot more Grunt in a car than this, certainly in a family car, and it is very family friendly, because this interior is Very nice, its very spacious, theres plenty of leg, room and Headroom in the back theres plenty of legroom, Headroom and comfort up front. These are very good seats. Overall quality is basically excellent. I mean yes, you can find some cheap and nasty bits. Of course, you can but thats true also of its main Rivals from Volkswagen and Renault, the the primary bits, the bits you deal with every day like the gear selector like the steering wheel like the column stalks, they all look and feel really nice theres more than A little bit of BMW IX about this squared off steering wheel, actually, maybe even a little bit of Austin Allegro.

Dare we say the old cortex steering wheel thats for thats for the older viewers among you um. But it looks and feels really nice to hold its really good to use. Youve got a digital display, uh instrument panel here behind the wheel, which is its very busy theres a lot of information coming at you, but its actually all quite well presented. It looks nice and Slick ditto the big touch screen in the middle, which is big enough to be reasonably easy to use, but not so big that it gets in your way and its not too distracting its actually quite well positioned. Now that comes with a few caveats, some of the controls, particularly the heating ventilation and air conditioning controls, are way too fiddly way too small. All the buttons are kind of tucked away on one edge of the screen. Its not great youll want to set everything and just leave it on auto before you leave because fiddling around with it when youre on the move, its not the easiest thing. There are a few physical shortcut buttons here for the for the demisting and for the home screen button for the stereo volume it could do with a few more physical controls because it, although its quite a nice, attractive screen and its its reasonably good to use it, Could be a bit better then again with pillory Volkswagen for its appalling touch screen in the ID3, so I mean its not that far behind what VW are doing, lets face it um, theres loads and loads of storage space down here on the console, theres, more storage Space here under the armrest theres, decent sized door bins, the boot is a bit on the small side.

363 liters is not great. Now, its nice and square and flat floor and thats all good, but ultimately youre getting less boot volume than you get in a conventional Volkswagen Golf then again, this car in its base form, is three grand cheaper than a conventional Volkswagen Golf and yet is fully electric. Now there is a caveat to that too, on the basis of the driving weve been doing here today, and I accept that it may not be fully representative of what most people do uh. The total range of this car is working out around about 350 kilometers thats. Not brilliant thats 100 clicks less than what it says on paper. So thats a little bit disappointing were averaging 22 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers. The spec sheet says it should average 16 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers. Yes, with a bit more urban mileage Im off out in the countryside today and driving around nice twisty roads um a bit more urban mileage would probably bring that down. But even so I have to say that that gives me a little niggle of worry for how well its going to do on longer Journeys, but it is very nice to drive. Refinement is extremely good, theres, very little road or tire noise. Its all well suppressed theres. A bit of wind noise around the top of the windscreen one of the tops of the doors here, but I have to say its a very windy almost slightly stormy day today, so that may not be entirely Fair.

Um the steering has a slightly rubbery sensation to it. It theres not an awful lot of feedback, but quite good feel it. It turns in very nicely and actually on a really twisty Road in sport mode. You can just tip it into a corner on the brakes. Flick the wheel in and it tucks in nice and tight to the Apex, its actually quite sporty to drive in relative terms. I mean, ultimately, its a sort of you know: tallish roomy, family hatchback, with quite a lot of weight in it thanks to the big battery. So you know theres only so far we can go down the sporty road, but it is actually very good fun, in fact, Id say, while its overall, not as quite as refined and as comfortable as the ID3 or as the Cooper born, which is of course, the Same car with a different body, the EMG is a bit more fun. Uh the ride quality gets a bit fidgety. Its a little bit over firm in places does smooth out a bit the faster you go, though so thats good. I have to say on the whole, this is the top spec model and this is costing 35 Grand so in other words for the same price as the cheapest ID3 and for two grand less than the cheapest Renault Megan youre. Getting all the bells and whistles youre getting the big battery youre getting the longest possible range. I mean its just really impressive.

It looks good too. I mean Im not sure I go for this bright orange, but it definitely emphasizes the slightly lamborghini esque styling of the nose and I dont think thats too much of a fanciful leap to make. There are some Lamborghini overtones to The Styling, its its pretty good. Looking um, I mean mg, says MGR and says: theres huge interest in theyve got two boatloads of these coming one late in December and one early in January and apparently theyre all spoken for already pretty much. So if you want one of these in 2023 Id be getting an order in pretty darn quickly. Theres a press release came out this morning, just as I was picking this car up from transporting environment that said that Chinese cars are taking over in Europe.

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