First drive: MG ZS EV
Friday, 16 September 2022
MG ZS EV
Price range: $49,990 to $53,990 (Clean Car rebate: $8625)
Powertrains: Permanent magnet synchronous motor with 130kW/280Nm, 17.1kWh/100km, 320km range, FWD.
Body style: SUV.
On sale: Now.
The MG ZS EV has been one of the most popular new EVs in New Zealand, as well as being the cheapest. Now a refreshed version has arrived with more tech, a bigger battery and a slight price increase. It’s still the cheapest new EV you can buy, but is that still enough in the face of increasing competition?
Make me an instant expert: what do I need to know?
Cards on the table here – I totally fell in love with the MG ZS EV after living with one as a long-term tester last year. It was a cheap and cheerful little EV that belted off the line in a hilariously eager fashion and was ridiculously easy to live with.
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I never got a chance to go on a decent road trip, thanks to Covid lockdowns, but it was a surprisingly comfortable open-road cruiser that was also perfectly suited to daily urban commuting. And it seems a lot of other people felt the same way about MG’s little EV, with it ticking up some impressive sales numbers since its launch in late 2020.
So I had high hopes for the refreshed version that has just launched here, particularly in light of the actually meaningful upgrades it has received.
Previously available as a single model, the ZS EV is now available as two forms, albeit both packing the same revised drivetrain and a bigger 50kWh battery – the old model packed a 44kWh battery, giving the ZS a range of 263km, the increase sees the new model’s range bumped up to 320km.
Where the old car retailed for $48,990 (meaning it cost a whisker over $40k with the $8625 Clean Car rebate applied), the two new models arrives slightly more expensive than that, with the entry level Excite costing $49,990 and the up-spec Essence costing $53,990, both before the rebate.
The Excite drops in at roughly the same level as the old car (minus the sunroof) and includes 17-inch alloy wheels, LED auto-dimming headlights, a reversing camera and a 360-degree camera, a 10-inch floating touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and satellite navigation.
The Essence adds extra fruit like artificial leather upholstery, heated front seats (the driver’s also being electrically adjustable), a wireless phone charger, rain sensing wipers, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, an upgraded six-speaker audio system and a panoramic sunroof.
While the last EV was largely based on the standard ZS, the new one is more in line with the ZST, inheriting that cars nicer interior, complete with soft-touch surfaces and large 10-inch infotainment touchscreen. The new car also features MG’s app-based software architecture, called iSmart, that is backed by Amazon’s AWS cloud-based system and allows owners to perform over-the-air updates, remote climate control and door locking, real-time navigation, ‘find my car’ parking lot search, live weather updates and stream audio from Amazon Music.
Exterior tweaks in the form of new bumpers and deletion of a grille give the ZS EV a far more individual and distinctive look and while it looks a bit awkward in photographs, it is a far more cohesive and attractive design in the metal.
Where did you drive it?
On the back roads north of Auckland. After setting out from the fancy waterfront hotel where the presentation was held, we wound our way through mid-morning traffic and headed up towards Riverhead.
The first thing that struck me was… slight disappointment.
While the ZS EV now gets more power, MG’s engineers have dropped the maximum torque in order to refine its power delivery, which means – you guessed it – the ZS EV is no longer the traffic light race-start hooligan I adored so much.
I mean, it makes sense, as the power delivery is now far more linear and refined, and also likely far more palatable to its target customers. Of which I am probably not one. So my adoration of the last car’s mad, frenetic energy as it blasted off the line was probably not necessarily shared by all of its potential buyers…
Still, that extra refinement is obvious right through the entire package, as the ZS EV is a quieter and more polished car than its predecessor, with improved ride quality and noticeable better NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) suppression.
The ZS’s handling remains broadly similar, with a tendency towards understeer and nicely controlled body roll, as you would expect. The low rolling resistance tyres still start to lose grip relatively early in enthusiastic proceedings, but it is all nicely telegraphed and utterly predictable.
What wasn’t quite so predictable however was the ZS’s upgraded land keep assist system, which was wildly over-reactive, needlessly aggressive and totally unpredictable as to when it would actually react. However, it can be turned off, and definitely it should be…
Another electronic niggle is one that has always haunted modern MGs – the sluggish responses from the touchscreen and infotainment system are still present and correct, however they are improved and not quite as sluggish as before.
However, both of these issues are hardly a deal killer, particularly given the improvement in what was already a very good package.
What’s the pick of the range?
While the extra kit in the Essence is nice, the best value for money still lies in the entry model Excite. It packs everything you really need and offers up as much range as the more expensive car.
While it is shorn of the sunroof and fake leather upholstery of the previous ZS EV (both of which the Essence gets as standard), I would say this is a good thing, as the fake leather is very obviously fake and quite hot and sweaty on a hot day, while I just hate sunroofs. You may feel different about that.
The increased range, more refined nature and higher quality interior more than make up for the $1000 increase over the old car (which is technically more, given it has been shorn of the sunroof and fake leather) and the impressive nature of the entire package remains.
Why would I buy it?
For all the same reasons you would buy the last one – it is good value for money, it is an EV and it is enjoyable to drive and pleasant to be in (when the lane assist isn’t wrestling with you, of course). But now you can also add “because it has a bigger battery” and “because it has a nicer interior” to that list.
Why wouldn’t I buy it?
The newcomer in New Zealand’s small EV segment is the elephant in the room, with its entry level 50kWh model costing $52,990 before the rebate. Despite being the entry model, it features roughly the same level of equipment as the top-spec MG, has arguably a nicer interior, better assist and more tech.
That doesn’t mean the MG isn’t still a solid choice, it’s just that it doesn’t shine quite as brightly as it used to, and serves to reinforce the idea that the entry model is the pick of the ZS EV range.