All the reviews suggest the MG4 is a disruptor in the EV market. The reviews suggest its well designed, decently put together and very fun to drive, but at an extremely attractive price.
But the platform is also going to be used for the MGC roadster. Based on the reviews of the hatch, Mazda might well be worried.
Its gotten me interested. My time with the Jaguar is coming to an end. And I’ve had the MX5 a long long time.
the only thing British about it its because the Chinese bought the badge and have a small base in the UK. 
the plant is 1/6 th the original so my estimate its all assembly that goes on there (if that’s happening)
I see it every day as I live 5 minutes from it. And as long as it doesn’t have an engine, personally I’m not interested.
It’s another Electric Vehicle, about as interesting as a microwave or a washing machine. Sorry but I’m old and cars have an engine, not a motor.
Yes, I get the environmental bit etc. but electric cars just don’t interest me
Just to put a spanner in the works. 
“People use both interchangeably, but the difference is that motors run on electricity and engines run on combustion . The engine converts various forms of fuels into mechanical force, while the motor transforms electrical energy into mechanical energy.”
I’m not concerned about the origin of the badge (and the transaction in 2005 was rather more than buying the rights to a nameplate, including the transfer of many MG-Rover engineers to China), nor was that the objective of the thread. But I think I might replace my Japanese copy of a Lotus and my Indian-owned Jaguar, which has Chinese parts, with maybe a Chinese/Thai-built car that has a familar badge, and which was styled and engineered with some British input. Or at least my interest is piqued.
And the question remains; is the MG4 a significant car?
ie.
Significant because its not a SUV
Significant because of the spec and price
Significant because it is a MG where the designers have taken note of some of the heritage in the chassis design (and listening to reviewers, there does some to be a competant chassis there, something MG-Rover was rather good at…)
Significant because its a ground up EV that doesn’t cost the earth
Significant because its a MG that can be judged on its merits, rather than trying to figure out which cast off MG-Rover part was there (the K-Series soldiered on for many years as the N-Series, and the MG6/Magnette was actually a rebodied Rover 75)
In terms of names, lets see what happens next year with the MG4 Triumph; this is the twin motor AWD version with 400hp. BMW own the Triumph car name…
Longbridge is not an assembly centre anymore. It is home to the SAIC Motor Technical Centre, which employs about 100 British engineers and designers who are mostly engaged in MG development work. Longbridge is the location of Advanced Birmingham, which was SAIC’s first design centre in Europe. In 2020, they opened Advanced London, which is more ficused on MG development work rather than Roewe.
Longbridge last assembled a car circa 2012, when they were doing some sort of work with th Magnettes.
Carl Gotham is British (and now at Ora, which we are going to hear a lot of in the coming months). Robert Lemmens came right out of the heart of the British car industry, a graduate of Coventry University.
Cars are very international in nature. The Fiat Spyder was built in Japan, using Italian parts, and styled by an Austrian. But everyone believes it to be an Italian car, and worthy of the badge. The famous Nissan 350z, which revived Nissan’s Z-brand, we think of as Japanese as Sushi, But it was styled by a bloke from Leicester, of Indian heritage, living in California.
Exactly, something with a roar, explosions, internal combustion, that’s interesting to me. I own a number of cars, they all burn fossil fuel, the youngest is 12 years old, the oldest is over 40, they all run reliably. I don’t know anyone with an electric car over 7 years old but a member of the family owns a Nissan Loaf on a 16 plate which has a range of 35 miles because the batteries have died, so he has to go everywhere in his Transit van. I’m struggling to understand the benefit to the environment or his finances?
Electric vehicles may one day reach maturity, or maybe they will be overtaken by Hydrogen or some other technology. But I don’t want one at the moment.
What was Alexi Sayle on about then?
(a real used car dealer in Peckham, with stock that included an Ambassador, Mk3 Cortina, Volvo 240, and a Dodge Charger…)
Milk Floats ran for years.
I’ve no idea as I can’t understand a word he is saying/singing! 
I just googled the difference between Engine and Motor as Robbie to keep the debate going.
“Motor/Engine” generally have the same meaning probably by the vast majority in todays climate.
Milk floats only ran for years with various Lead Acid battery changes in my opinion.
For me electric cars are okay, but they have a limited life span (probably shorter than most) due to the battery service life and the actual expense of changing them.
Again, why the vast majority lease them perhaps.
Also, why would you buy a second hand EV say around 4/5 years old…
So not really a significant car in that respect perhaps.
Just an opinion.
Hydrogen is and always has been the way forward for many reasons.
Perhaps for a separate debate on that in due course.
But for a bit of history perhaps…
I think it’s a hugely significant car. It’s the first decent EV that competes price wise with a similarly specced ICE car.
My daughter has Kia e-Nero company car; it’s an amazing piece of engineering and for this 71-year old it’s the future I was reading about in my Dad’s science fiction books back in the 50s.
I love my Five but the Kia is fun too, in a different, futuristic way. There’s room for both while the oil lasts.
Very dubious of the longevity and residual value of EVs. However the MG4 does look so much better than a lot of other EVs. If you really do want an EV then I’m sure it will be really attractive.
The new MGC will be very interesting to see and if the MX-5 does go electric then could be a strong competitor.
No thank you, leave them in China, the whole build quality is terrible on Chinese cars regardless of them using a brand name.
M-m
Yeah, Volvos have such a terrible reputation .
But the Chinese, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group own Volvo and the build quality is pretty top notch on my PETROL V60.
But agree with you, a friend of ours made a huge mistake and bought an MG SUV and couldn’t wait to get rid of it.
My Volvo S90 was built in China and has been reliable and well built, a very good and solid car so I think your statement is perhaps a little harsh.
Poor quality products comes out of every country not just China, a quick trawl of the internet will show some significant issues with German built vehicles.
A fellow MX5 owner is many thousands of pounds out of pocket running a ‘German Premium’ brand.
I think the MG4 is definitely a significant car. At long last we have a “normal” sized EV at a reasonably sensible price, rather than the seemingly never ending release of yet another oversized SUV that very few people actually need. If sales reflect the very positive reviews the MG4 has received so far, perhaps it will make other manufacturers question whether they should be working on something similar and the “fashion” for big inefficient vehicles may at last start to wane. I hope so!
I’m not financially quite in a position to get an MG4 at the moment, but may be next year I’ll be able to update my Renault Zoe (which I love) for one. Who knows, MG may have even used their scalable platform to release an even smaller/more interesting car by then!!
EV as a family car:
I get that EV cars is a good solution for city, start stop situations and when we get to the level of car autonomy that they will drive us around, its probably easier to integrate an electric vehicle platform. Its also currently cheaper to run if you “forget” that electric cars cost more to buy. If you take a similar sized hatchback, lets say the Skoda Fabia IC version starts at £21125 where as the MG EV starts at 28K. Delta of £6875 is worth a lot of fuel if you were to save that over the purchasing costs…
I wanted to work out the cost to charge the EV per mile.
I used this website, How much to charge an electric car at home UK - Zap-Map
Took the VW ID.4 as an example with a 7KW home charger and this is what spit me out.
Your charging time 7.4 hrs
52 kWh added
170 miles added
£15 cost
Your charge cost (£15/170 miles) = 8.6p per mile
How much money will I save?
The website says that Fuel for a typical petrol or diesel car costs around 12p per mile (I calculated that works out around 60 mpg at £1.65 per litre for petrol) - so the cost for driving the same distance (170 miles) would be around £20.40, giving you a £5.84 saving with this VW ID.4.
ok but we have a delta of of £6875 that we need to save up… So it turns out that if we assume the costs above are correct you will need to have travelled 202205 miles to achieve the £6875 saving… and if we assume 10k miles per year you will need approximately 20 years. I’m not sure whether the Fabia will work after 20 years (but it has a fair chance) but I’m pretty sure the MG EV wont be.
So thanks but I will pass…
EV Roadsters:
I get that its an option for a family car, together with hydrogen cars and IC (for the time being)
However I cant for the life of me understand what you will get driving an electric roadster. The whole point is to feel connected with the car and enjoy the ride. For most the car has to be able to make the right noises in order to achieve the desired driving experience. An EV will never do that (unless they come with heavy duty speakers that mimic engine noises)
My NC is a 10y old car, and I think is just as good compared to the car that left the factory and it has a 400 miles range.
I have spend money on it, both on performance upgrades and undersealing but I have not spend any money to fix the engine. Change oil and filter every two trackdays or 10k miles whichever happens first. When I drive it it feels connected and the “prehistoric piston” IC engine makes the most amazing noises that invites you to drive the car some more.
As for longevity, when these EV’s get 10y old I want to see whether they will work just as good as they left the factory.
Agree with others plug in EV’S generally are OK around city environs where they will obviously cut the emissions down very significantly…out cycling i ran into a friend used to be the biggest and oldest Honda dealer over here, in a cyclist cafe with his son both on Indian motorcycles with 1900cc engines, his son regaled me with, Will ,i got myself a Tesla, my retort was i hope you didn’t use your own money, his father like me an old school motor dealer, smiled, naw, we leased it, they run a significant hotel business now, Honda reorganisation in the noughties decided them to get out and have an easier?? life… he allowed nobody he knew in the trade would trade any EV in cause of battery life and condition, so many EV pilgrims will be adding to the fields dumped full of 3/5 year old EV’S, like in France… in their area theres 5 charging ports at the swish Hotel…
You omitted no/reduced road tax for EV’s in your calculations.
And don’t forget little to no servicing costs other than worn tyres for an EV
compared to ongoing oil/filter cam belt changes etc on an ICE.
And don’t forget that EV’s don’t wear their brakes out due to regenerative motor braking. Most EV’s can go 100k+ miles before pads need changing.
Try running the numbers again with these factors included.
P.S I think ‘real world’ 60 MPG out of a petrol is unlikely unless I’m totally out of the loop with the latest petrol engines?
We have an NC2 a Jaguar XF 3.0d and a Tesla model 3. Even with the increase in electricity for home charging and excluding the servicing on the Jag (I do my own on the MX5 of course) the Tesla is still half the price of the Jag to drive around. Oh and the Jag manages a measured 55mpg on the motorway which is where it gets used most but the Tesla is still cheaper by far with todays fuel prices.
Both cars were comparable list prices at purchase but I will concede the Jag has a better ride and the interior is more solidly put together than the EV.
