MG4 Electric

What is different between the batteries?

I have just googled it and you are right, 60,000 or 3 years whichever occurs soonest.

How does MG know its been a taxi? Albeit mileage is definitely a good indicator normally. It does create problems for the 3rd/4th owner who are expecting a longer battery warranty.

My old man has exclusively charged his on a 3 pin plug, targeting an 80% fill. His usage, charging and battery protection is probably the best you will realistically achieve for battery longevity. He will buy a car and run it for 20 years, and did with a diesel clio before. It will be interesting to see how the MG5 handles the same usage.

The one thing that perhaps in its favour is that you can bank your ICE related servicing and put it in the slush fund for when something goes wrong. When I occasionally drive it, I quite like it but the ERS on the brakes takes a bit of getting used to compared to an ICE car. I imagine more discs will end up being replaced not because of wear but corrosion through lack of use.

The MG4 is colour and spec sensitive. The orange ones are great while your cooking models do look incredibly bland. Although those are far better than that god awful MG5 estate, looks like a mid 00s Korean estate.

The new Prius is a looker too, shame that it isn't coming to the UK. My only issue is that without an ICE, car design is is getting rather blobby now bonnets aren't disguising height.

Michael

That's very much my take on it. The "SE", especially in a bland colour like white or black, is incredibly bland. Not offensive (except the weird plastic panels above the rear window, which look awful); but very bland. The Trophy in orange or red is quite a striking looking car - not pretty (I could count the number of C-segment hatches which have achieved that in the last ten years on the fingers of one hand) but striking and certainly non-unpleasant to my eye.

You have nailed it. Most folk out there are not PH types so they are interested in value for money. I noticed one of these in the metallic red which Mazda popularised, and it looked very good. It is indeed a repeat of the Japanese car invasion of the 70s and 80s.People in general tend to vote with a wallet rather than ldeology.

By comparison like for like when I was shopping last year

MG4 SE Long Range £270 month/£5k down
Cupra Born V2 £510 month/£5k down

Yeah...no contest.

I ended up with a Trophy for the heated seats and wheel. Still good value. And realistic 240+ miles in >15C weather. Around 210 in winter.

I’ve had an SE since December as a replacement for a Corsa E which I found pretty poor, I’m 7000 miles in.
On the whole it’s an OK car, it does domestic duties and the commute perfectly fine, has a decent turn of pace and doesn’t even handle that badly.
Winter range was about 150-160 and now I’d say with a light foot the 200 is probably doable.
Loads of room in the back for the kids and the boot isn’t too bad a size. On par with other similar size cars I’ve had I’d say.
The bad points, already rattles are starting to show up in the interior which are probably more noticeable given how silent an EV drivetrain is.

Infotainment not great, no speakers in the back as standard nor wiring to just pop some in easily.
It’s been back to the dealers twice for software updates already and a spurious air bag fault message that was coming up every now few mins and was driving me up the wall… dealer couldn’t find a fault but cleared something and touch wood it doesn’t do it as often, in fact it will go weeks now without pinging up but obviously not great.
There’s a few things which seem like an after thought, accessing the fuse box involves removing a few screwed in panels for example.

Would I buy another one? Maybe, but I’m certainly hoping the more mainstream manufacturers can come up with something more interesting to compete when I come to replace it.

It depends on what you mean by "terrible". They currently seem to be roughly on a par with ICE used prices, which is "terrible" compared to where they were a year ago, but as they become more mainstream probably about where they will settle. A six-month old white-goods family hatchback which was £27k new being £22k on the second-hand market feels about "normal" to me?

£10k upfront to consider in overall cost!

Which EVs are performing that badly? Sounds deeply tempting unless they're rubbish or ridiculously expensive new!