MG4 / The affordable practical EV has arrived. And YES it's a drivers car! Full review. 

Was it expensive to set up charger at home, it all adds to the driving cost?😅

@@perpetualgrin5804 It can be expensive so you need to do your homework. Average price is about $1,200.00 plus installation & that can vary from about $500.00 to over $1,000.00. My cost was $585.00 plus $100.00 for cable & RCCB. As a retired Elec Engineer I installed it. Mine also has a 3 year warranty, most are only 12 months. I charge only at off peak rates & can charge from empty to full in that time. There are multiple options like integrating with rooftop solar etc The granny charger is free but takes more than 24 hours to charge fully. Many people just use this option.

sounds good

Hi from Australia I’m looking at buying an xpower I have an ioniq electric for the past 4 years and love it It’s time for something new I love the performance of this car but I can’t find anything about the range if driven normally on a long trip Here in Oz it’s not uncommon for me to travel 1000km I do it in the Ioniq with 3 stops I don’t want to go backwards on range Thanks in advance Wayne

@@waynekerry2115 I have the Essence 64 and get around 400km on a trip. This is mostly at 110kmh and 100kmh on the pacific highway. WLTP range is quoted at 435km & I get more than that if just commuting and urban driving. The car has quoted 505km as range after charging to 100% after just some around town use for a while. The X power with the extra motor will be a bit less I'd say. I've done just over 16,000km to date.

Enjoy, once you have an EV, you will never go back. Smooth, quiet, clean, great torque.

This car was not available 111 months ago

given the other typos he possibly meant 1.5 months ago

Hey thanks!

The MG4 64 Essence is nearly $30K cheaper than the Volvo C40 single motor. The MG4 is about the same price as a top spec Mitsu Outlander. Pick your poisons.

I’ve never had a car with vents in the rear other than rolling down the window.

@@leonkernan well it’s 2023, suppose it’s time to get onboard.

Every car has vents for the rear. You tilt the front vents up and use the specially designed rear seat airflow redirector (aka the roof) to redirect the air to the rear occupants.

Well...one can get a portable USB fan and stick it behind somewhere 😂

Thanks you, yes driving the cars properly is a big part of our channel. Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks, you have a great driving history there

Thanks we’re looking forward to bringing to you

Ah, thanks for clarification. I didn't know that.

Get windows tinted darker so you can't be seen.

So would I. Proving hard to get hold of one. Will keep trying. IONIQ 5N later this month though...

We'll let you know in early December

Thanks! Yeah be good to do one. Cheap, honest little car.

I’m a big Suzuki fan

Thanks, that’s good advice

Rubbish. The car tested here is the Essence 64 and has a NCM cathode type battery. Tesla and just about every one on the planet recommend you charge you NCM ev battery to only 80% on your normal daily basis to maximise battery life, and only charge to 100% if you are travelling far that day. This is true of all NCM batteries, eg the ones in your power tools or camera. The Samsung tablet I am typing this on has a 'limit to 80% charge' function that I have set to 80% max since new, to maximise battery life. Tesla and Samsung recommend this approach. All lithium iron batteries in every ev, appiance, power tool, etc, has always had a bms. The batteries cannot survive more than a few cycles without a bms. 2 main killers of Li NCM battery life: high state of charge, and higher temperatures. Some pro photographers keep their batteries @ 60% soc and in the fridge. And, for Li NCM, 4.2v is normally considerred 100% soc, however, 4.4v yields a few % more capacity. However, the us millitary typically charges to only 3.9v. Reliablity in the desert heat is most important. Fast charging also damages Li batteries. Fast charging causes micro fractures, where dendrites may grow and cause an internal short circuit.

And the myth lives on. Recommendations are cover-you-arse statements. But in the real world the batteries live on.

Thanks Clinton. Worth noting the base model car with the 51kWh battery has LiFeO4 chemistry, which is happy with the 100% charge, but the other models have Li NMC chemistry. I'm not contributing to the fast charge/slow charge, 80%/100% debate as my experience is limited and anecdotal. Basically that it's not a big issue.

The idea that LFP batteries aren’t worn out by 100% charging is a myth. You shouldn’t always have it at 100% as it does still put some stress on the battery. On the other hand you SHOULD charge it to 100% every week or two to ensure the battery percentage can be calculated accurately

Yeah I see that special in Australia is until Oct 31st, but already stocks are being snapped up. It's been very popular for MG and subsidised by SAIC I believe. I heard fleet buyers are buying quite a few. And if you shop around, good deals on demo Long Range and XPower versions too. If you can still find one. I noticed availability at dealers dried up a lot in the last fortnight.

Me too. Second week in December.

Unfortunately that may be a struggle since the added weight requires bigger breaks which limits how small you can go in rim sizes. Add the fact that EVs (and most cars these days) sadly don’t have a spare wheel and you’ve got a serious issue for rural folks

They use differentials. Depending on make they can be incorporated in with the motor and called a drive unit, or part of a separate reduction gearbox and differential setup.

L​@@ClintonLovell

Yeah I never put 2 and 2 together! Of course MG is owned by SAIC, and SAIC is wholly owned by the Chinese government. AI must have something to do with this

Thank you

BYD is a 2 year service. Ultimately services aren't always a bad thing - each service they check various items to ensure they are OK, especially for safety and ensuring there's no damage or wear to crucial items, especially high voltage cables, it's important. I'd be taking my Tesla in every 2 years at least if I had one.

I really don't know what's going on Randy. It' seems my replies to your emails aren't getting back to you. Maybe I'm in your spam (some might say where I deserve to be). I don't want to appear to be rude, but I have been replying. And I'm grateful for the info you shared. Yes, I was part of landsharkoz when LZ founded it.

I’d say it’s not better to drive than a model 3, but I would buy this over a Tesla just on price. And as I found, it’s actually a fun car to drive.

Personally I'd prefer a Model 3 for the better vision, performance and styling (which is debatable to many), but it's 90% of a M3 at 75% of the price.

​@inCARnationAustralia I agree to this 💯% I test drove the Mg4 51 Excite recently, my first EV drive, and the Tesla 3 after. I feel that MG4 is 90% to the M3 on the way it drives but overall package still the M3 is better. But if you are just after a good run roundabout with minimal spend MG4 is better. And for F..k sake $20 grand is alot of money for most working class Aussies specifically with mortgages to pay 😢 And yeah if they could have removed the turbo lag not just from standstill but also in the midrange, cause it makes you feel wanting more...more push back 😮

​@@inCARnationAustralia how about compared to the Cupra?

What if I can’t afford a Tesla M3, want a hatchback so I can have the kids on the back seat and the dog in the boot and a smaller car that’s easier to park in busy city street? 😃

You're not the first one to say that. But thanks for noticing.

Perhaps he needs to be plugged in ?😅

Interesting. OK as a long term owner I have to respect your assessment on the car's economy. We probably didn't do enough open road measurement to get a proper perspective. And true, it's not hard to get impressive numbers from long downhill trips.

Mike I think it's the other way around. The cheapest Excite 51 is slightly lighter at 1635kg vs 1672kg for the one we tested, but it has reduced power 125kw not 150kw, and less energy-dense LeFeO4 batteries, not the Li NMC batteries in the more expensive cars. Quoted accleration Excite 51 7.7 secs, 64kWh cars 7.2 secs, Long Range 77 kWh 6.5 secs, XPower 3.8 secs.

@@inCARnationAustralia if you have tested the cars and you get those figures that's fair enough but they have been tested in the UK by several authorities and it is the other way round, cheaper model is quicker.7.5 Vs 7.7 as shown in the table on MG UK website and confirmed in many reviews. Great reviews by the way on this and my other car Hyundai i20.👏👏

@@mikemorley2797 No we haven't driven the other models in the range, and nor did we do accurate measurement of the Essence 64 we had. We relied on local manufacturer specs. With relatively cruisy times in the 7 sec range we weren't too fussed either way. However when we get the XPower next month we will do an accurate measurement to see if it really is a sub 4 second car in local trim.

Ah yes thanks for clarification Mark. I'll make sure you get to experience the MG4 XPower!

I wasn't over-impressed with that article form the China Observer, which covered about 20 different topics - some well, but some just pejorative. But in particular it perpetuated a number of myths, one being that modern EVs are more prone to catch fire than ICE cars. The reality seems to be the complete opposite, with modern EVs being orders of magnitude less likely to catch fire than petrol and diesel. Australian firm EV FireSafe tracks passenger electric vehicle battery fires worldwide. From 2010 to June 2023, its database records only 393 verified fires globally, out of some 30 million electric vehicles on the road. (source : The Conversation) Yes, critics are quick to point out a punctured EV battery pack fire is very difficult or impossible to put out. On 3 occasions I've tried to help put out a petrol car that has caught fire. Believe me, it ain't easy. Unless you have a fire truck, once your extinguishers are empty just stand well back and let the sucker burn. As recent cases show, every time a car catches fire, some people's immediate reaction is "must be an EV" when it almost never is.

@@inCARnationAustralia Firstly, I'd like to point out that China is literally the largest early adopter of electric vehicles in the whole world and it's where eyes should be focused on. I have a history in the fire protection industry and what's got me concerned is IDTechEx's research into the OEMs and situations of 96 EV fires. Their research found that an EV was most likely to catch fire when charging, closely followed by when parked (not charging). In the USA, electric vehicle fires have already caused over $1.6bn damages to people's property. Thermal runaway does not just occur when the traction battery pack is punctured, there's various forms of abuse can cause it including overcharge, rapid discharge and even a tiny little speck of dirt in just one of the thousands of cells in a battery pack can cause the epic hazmat disasters too. With regards to vehicle fire statistics, there's a hell of a lot more ICEV that's 10+ years old in the world and therefore, as quite rightly stated in the UK Government's Office for Zero Emission Vehicles's document 'T0194 - Covered car parks - fire safety guidance for electric vehicles', "Empirical evidence relating to EVs is evolving rapidly as the EV industry is comparatively young (around 12 years old) in comparison with the ICEV industry (around 150 years). The effects that ageing (>10 years) has on fire risk of EVs and their batteries is not yet understood due to the low number of EVs of this age". Also, if you go and do some digging on EV Firesafe's website, you'll find that their research determined the average incident time for ICEV fires is 30 minutes and for EVs it's 3-4 hours. A major difference between ICEV and EVs in thermal runaway is along with the toxic smoke car fires create, EVs also release highly explosive vapour clouds amounting to 500-6000 litres per kWh that ICEV simply don't create. Oh, there's also a very real possibility of fire damaged EVs spontaneously reigniting in the days/weeks/months after the initial incident, that's why the UK government as already issued guidance for the isolating and monitoring of damaged EVs in salvage yards.

Cheap? Sure, but not significantly worse than your Toyota Corolla at the same price (at least for the base model). It’s a basic but well screwed together cabin for the most part

MG say they have a fixed price $296 service at 2 years or 20,000km intervals, and it is mainly checks. Seeing as you ask, here's their list. Looks pretty cheap to me. Check the function of the Parking Brake and adjust it as necessary. Check the operation of the Lamps, Horns and system warning indicators. Check operation and accuracy of windscreen wipers, washer and windscreen for damage - If the washer nozzles are adjustable, adjust them if required. Check the status and function of seat belt. Check various control function of A/C system. Replace air-conditioning filter. Check status and function of seat. Check the condition of bonnet safety catch, tailgate/boot lid lock, door locks, hindges, door checks etc., Clean up all the dust and refill lubricating grease as necessary. Check operation of electric sunroof, lubricate channels as necessary (If Fitted) Check the connection and status of the 12v battery. Check the High-Voltage harness for mutual interference, wear or damage. Check the appearance of the high/low-voltage connectors to comfirm surface is damaged or not. Check the washer fluid level and add to the standard level as necessary. Replace Brake fluid Check the status of cooling system pipeline and connecting parts. Check the level and concentration of coolant, and add to the standard level as necessary. Check the status of the A/C system pipelinew such as the compressor, the cooling pipeline, and the condenser. Clean relevant surfaces as necessary. Check the status of brake vacuum booster and hose. Check the appearance of the high/low-voltage connectors to confirm the surface is damaged or not and installation is in place or not. Check the high/low-voltage harness for mutual inteference, wear or damage. Check the appearance of the high/low-voltage battery pack vent valve for damage, and check installation marks to see if it has moved. Check the status of the manual service switch to ensure reliable mounting and clean up the dust on the surface. Check the mounting position of the cooling water pipe and clip to ensure reliable sealing. Check the installation marks of any high-voltage battery pack mounting bolts and ensure the bolts are fastened. Check the appearance of high-voltage battery housing (including bracket) for crack or deformation. Check the appearance of high-voltaqe battery pack grounding wire and replace it as necessary. Check the status and thickness of front and rear brake pads and brake discs, and repalce them as necessary. Check brake pipes and hoses for condition and security. Ensure that hoses and not twisted or kinked. Check the wheel bearings and drive shaft sleeve. Check the suspension and steering system for leakage or wear. Check the tyres for tread depth and signs of damage, deformation, or uneven tyre wear, including the spare tyre (if equipped). Check the four-wheel alignment data and perform front and rear wheel rotation as appropriate. Check tyre pressures and adjust as necessary, including the spare tyre (if equipped). Check if the chassis and underbody bolts and nuts are fastened or fixed, and replace them as necessary. Check the electric drive transmission fluid level, and add to the standard level as necessary. Check the electric drive transmission mounting bracket. Use diagnostic software to reset service reminder interval indicator. Check for fault codes and determine operational status of the control systems. Check software version of electronic control units and upgrade to latest version if available. Check the equilibrium state of the high-voltage battery pack and suggest the owner carry out an equalising charge as necessary. Carry out road test, and check the status and function of power system, brake, steering and other systems.

I guess Tesla's can tell the company it needs a service or not... Software updates not Automatic ... really? check tyre pressures (model Y does that automatically).... lots of this stuff are checking things that are obvious or should not be issues anyway ? Total cost across warrantee period is over 2K AUD or 5% extra !@@inCARnationAustralia