MG’s history goes back as far as building sports cars in the 1920s, after several different owners across 8 decades, they achieved a lot. A Chinese owner in the form of Shanghai Automobile Industry Corporation has now stepped in, building budget models starting with the six and three hatchbacks before moving into the SUV market with the GS and most recently the smaller ZS, MGs best effort yet under its new Chinese owners. Unsurprisingly the ZS is the car MG has chosen as a basis for its first pure electric model.
Special mention : Easy to manoeuvre, light and quick acceleration. Good space in the back for rear passengers. Two types of charging, CCS & DC. Nice design, good quality interior and it’s very comfortable. Hot keys & rotary dial are great to use frequently.
Needs work : Some wind noise at higher speeds, slight creak from the pano roof when open. The Infotainment system might be considered slow to respond for anyone who’s grown up with the latest smartphones.
Specs: As tested
| Max Power 144 BHP | Electric |
| 0-100 km/h in 8.5 seconds | Road Tax €120 |
Price: €28,995 As spec’d :€32,895 | Boot 448-1,100 litres |
Interior quality and fit out is pretty smart, on the dashboard it has nice soft touch material, the buttons and the dials all feel quite nice and weighty, with a nice direct click/punch feel from the hot keys on the dash.
A nice bespoke piece of trim to the electric version is the drive mode selector with accompanying drive modes; reverse, neutral and drive. The park button is also nicely situated on top of the rotary dial and you can easily cycle between eco, normal and sport. The biggest difference is how quickly the accelerator responds, in Eco mode you need to push it quite far down to get any real quick acceleration whereas in sport mode it’s much sharper. The Kers button alters the level of regeneration with levels 1,2 or 3 adjusting the amount of energy that’s fed back into the battery when you slow down. In its most extreme setting you find yourself slowing down quite quickly so you don’t really need to use the brake pedal much at all.
In the drivers seat you sit a little bit higher up than you do in a regular hatchback which means good visibility all round. The steering wheel moves up and down but fails to adjust for reach which means having to sit a little bit closer to the pedals. The infotainment system has plenty of features, with Apple Carplay and Android Auto smartphone mirroring as standard along with DAB radio (which unfortunately RTE is no longer able to support transmission of). When using the 8” touchscreen, it’s sometimes quite slow to respond. The ZS is about the same size as a Dacia Duster but is quite a bit bigger in the back. The rear seats are very easy to access and sitting three people side by side on the back bench is no trouble due to the lack of a transmission tunnel.
Boot space is only fractionally better than the petrol version of the ZS but because the battery is located under the rear seats there is a slightly bigger step up when you fold the seat backs down even so though the ZS can swallow roughly the same amount of luggage as the Kia Niro. You can charge it up with a regular type 2 charging cable and if you do this at home using the 7 kilowatt wall box that MG offers to install free of charge, a full charge from 0 – 100 % percent takes roughly 6.5 hours, rates of up to 50 kilowatts are possible using a public CCS charger which has a 0 to 80% charge taking roughly 40 minutes.
The ZS has a 44.5 kilowatt-hour battery which is slightly bigger than the entry-level Nissan Leaf or a little smaller than the battery in the Kia Nero. Range is approx 250 kms depending on whether you use a lot of Eco / Normal or Sport modes.
The ZS drives rather nicely on urban roads and handles the motorways with ease, with a little bit of extra wind noise at higher speeds. It’s incredibly easy to maneuver, you can easily see around the edges of the car with a low res reverse camera to aid in those tight parking spots.
The electric motor pumps out around 144 BHP not as much as cars like the Kia e Nero or the Hyundai Kona but then again it’s much cheaper. 0 to 100 km/h takes around 8.5 seconds. On lumpier roads you get a little bit of body roll but it’s still extremely comfortable.
The weight with the battery over the rear helps with the low centre of gravity and the ride is nicely firm at low speeds. There are a number of different levels of regenerative braking which is quite smooth, but the actual brake pedal feel can be a bit soft, you do learn over time how to adjust your level of braking.
Considering the price point MG has done a really good job, undoubtedly the most appealing thing about the ZS though is its price as it costs from as little 28k thanks partly to the government grant when buying an EV. The top of the range model brings with it leather seats, heated front seats (on or off, no levels of heat) with electric seat adjustment for the driver, an opening panoramic sunroof, a low res reversing camera plus you also get blind spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert the latter of which warns you about approaching cars when you’re backing out onto a busy road.
