MG4 XPower: Performance, range, price

It’s also nice that MG doesn’t play games. That it is not trumpeting to the world that it has come up with the sharpest of electric hot hatches that will change the rules of the game. He emphasizes that the MG4 XPower is still mainly a normal road car, albeit with higher performance, but it is not a sports car. Understandably, they don’t want to compete with MG with the new Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, as you’ve surely read here, the Korean competitor is somewhere else after all. And the price, after all. The Ioniq 5 N is sold from 1,799,990 CZK, the MG4 Xpower in the special Green Editon edition (you can’t buy it anywhere else but in the Czech Republic) costs 999,900 CZK. These cars will not compete.

… polygon. This also indicates where the MG4 XPower is headed. We did get an invitation to Most, but we drove exclusively on the polygon, the fast MG is completely unsuitable for the circuit. The brakes have been strengthened, we can find 345 mm ventilated discs in the front (the car really brakes well!), the designers have also worked on the chassis, the shock absorbers and stabilizers are stiffer, there are different arms on the front suspension, there is an electronic differential lock, but – it’s still “just” a faster version, not a completely redesigned car like the aforementioned Ioniq 5 N. A regular race track would be too much for the MG4 XPower.

Even on the polygon, however, the organizers were able to lay out an interesting circuit for us, especially the passage by the sliding surface was fun. You may know, along a relatively narrow and twisty road, one climbs right up to the slippery surface, the car has to shift quickly between the turns, a wheel will lighten up here and there on the gradient.

There was a bit of a problem with this one. As soon as the car realized that it was not firmly on the ground on all fours, it rather indiscriminately “turned off” the gas. In short, you stepped on the right pedal and the MG4 XPower became unresponsive for a while. Very similarly on a slippery surface – even with the stabilization turned off, it happened that in the starting skid the vehicle suddenly limited the supply of torque and I… well, just slid. I understand, a normal car, not a sports car for drifting, but a little more care would be needed to tune the software for these situations.

Even considering the attractive price tag, many might think that adding an electric motor to the front axle is the end of MG. We already said that it wasn’t quite like that (bigger brakes, modified suspension, new front suspension…) and the MG4 XPower also confirmed the design interventions in practice. It’s definitely not overly understeer, which was what I was most afraid of. That you turn the steering wheel and the MG4 XPower will aim bluntly out of the curve with its bow dipped. Not at all. I didn’t even have to hit the brakes particularly quickly, despite the crushing acceleration.

Thanks to two electric motors (each on one axle, together they provide the aforementioned 435 hp), the MG4 XPower can get off to a crazy start, after all, it reaches 100 km/h in 3.8 s (for comparison, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N can handle this discipline in 3.4 s) , more importantly – and a bit surprising – however, is that it brakes reliably before a corner and then turns quickly. The simple fact that the MG4 XPower weighs almost nothing by electric car standards plays a huge role here. While you work with a mighty 2.3 tons in the Ioniq 5 N, the MG is half a ton lighter. And you know the hell by now.

The difference is definitely more than noticeable compared to the standard, even top-of-the-line version (apart from the slightly independent XPower version, you won’t buy a better MG4) with a 77kWh battery and a 180kW electric motor. For a while, I changed to a more ordinary MG4 and the difference was diametrical, mainly in acceleration, of course, but the XPower really had a sharper, stiffer impression. The steering was also, I wouldn’t say more natural, I didn’t experience or remember real feedback from the front wheels in a modern car, but the XPower steered at least more accurately between turns.

If MG claimed to have created a sharp hot hatch and were going after the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, the XPower version would be a disappointment. But they don’t have such ambitions at MG, the XPower is a very powerful, but still primarily a comfortable electric car that tickles your stomach with acceleration and does not disappoint in corners. No one will ask for more from him, and if they do, he should, among other things, remember the basic price tag under a million. You can’t ask for a sports car for this money.

A Czech specialty is the XPower Green Edition, which is 65,000 cheaper compared to the default non-green XPower with the same equipment. And in addition, it will offer, in addition to a few plaques, the nice poster green matte color.

With this color, the faster XPower variant is the easiest to recognize, otherwise you have to look for details, the specific eighteen-inch alloy wheels or sports seats upholstered in synthetic leather and alcantara are also a decent hint.

I still owe you the battery capacity, which in the case of XPower is 64 kWh. As you noticed above, the MG4 is also capable of 77 kWh, but the engineers decided to save some kilos on the sports version and settle for a lower, but still decent, capacity. Even so, the MG4 XPower should manage 385 km on a single charge, of course in more ideal conditions than the ones we created for the electric car at the polygon in Most. Here, we were unsurprisingly far, far behind the otherwise achievable averages of around 18 kWh per hundred kilometres. For the sharpest driving of the polygon type, feel free to count on double or more.

I myself am curious how this powerful electric car will perform. After all, we perceive MG as a brand with a price/performance ratio, XPower with its focus also ventures outside this comfort zone. We’ll see. But 435 hp per million, that could be liked!