MG4 2025 review: Essence 77kWh long-term | Part 1

Ok, I'm going to be totally honest with you. And I feel that I really need to be, because the world of electric cars can be plenty polarising.

People either love them, or love to hate them, with nobody seemingly in the middle. They can either do no wrong, or do absolutely nothing right. They'll either save the world or hasten its demise.

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So let's kill the noise and get down to what really matters. What is living with an electric car really like? And just how easy is it to make the switch?

To find out, I'm spending two months behind the wheel of the MG4 Essence 77, or Long Range 77, which lists at $50,990 (at least in August), and offers the longest driving distance of MG's game-changing EV family.

And I do mean game changing. I remember first slipping behind the wheel of the cheapest MG4 variant – the Excite 51 – when it landed in Australia, and I was pretty blown away by the engaging drive experience it offered. MG had gotten plenty right in the past – value, ownership, design – but driving dynamics had never been a strong suit. The MG4 changed that.

Anyway, the idea is to weave the MG4 into my life and all it involves, including regular long trips down the south coast of NSW, relying on a combination of home charging (I recently had a Tesla wallbox installed at home, giving me access to a 7kW power source) and public charging.

First things first: anyone who tells you that an EV is every bit as easy to live with as an ICE vehicle is lying. It's really that simple.

In my first weeks with the vehicle we had planned a trip down to Callala Bay – just over two hours from home in Sydney – and I left my place with about 75 per cent charge in the MG4's 77kWh battery.

The plan was simple. Head down the coast without stopping to charge, plug the MG4’s included home charger into a regular power point, drive home.

But on arrival, we discovered the flyscreens couldn’t be removed from the home’s windows, making running the cable from the driveway impossible.

Okay then, Plan B. We located a slow charger in nearby Nowra, plugged in, and – over about two hours – took on enough charge to make it back to Shellharbour where an ultra-fast charger awaited.

Once there, the charging screens were blank, causing some mild panic that they were all out of order. Apparently not, one helpful shopper told me, the screens had died not long after they were installed, and nobody had bothered to fix them. Still, plugging in worked, and over about 30 minutes we were mostly topped up and ready to head home.

All of which was annoying, but not catastrophic. But it did add a total three hours to our driving day, which we didn’t love. And yes, you can accuse me of poor planning, but I’d argue that it is also planning that’s simply not required in an ICE vehicle.

Interestingly, we made a similar trip about a month later, this time to a different house, and its was Plan A all the way. We drove down, slow-charged at night using an outdoor powerpoint, and never saw a service station forecourt at any point on the journey.

On this trip, having an EV genuinely made our live’s easier.

It’s a similar feeling at home, where this EV couldn’t be easier to live with. We’re lucky enough to have off-street parking and that wallbox charger, and I reckon I plug it in once a week at the absolute most. Otherwise I just jump in and go, with petrol stations and their ever-changing fuel prices a fading memory.

The drive experience is another massive perk. Honestly, it doesn’t take long behind the wheel of any EV to realise how much better they are to live with in the city. Forget loud, harsh engines and clunky gearboxes. It’s all replaced by smooth, quiet power that arrives the moment you touch the accelerator.

On a twisty, engaging road, an ICE performance vehicle might be your chariot of choice, but for your weekly commute, an EV takes the prize every (working) day of the week.

So, the MG4 itself? The good stuff is obvious. It’s ferociously well equipped, the tech is all present (big screens, LED lighting, wireless charging, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto etc), and I reckon it looks great with its 18-inch alloys and swept-back sporty styling. And, unlike some China-developed vehicles, I’ve found the active safety systems fairly unobtrusive and easy to live with.

There are some downsides, though. For one, if ever a car was crying out for an engine-start button, it’s the MG4. Theoretically, you are supposed to simply get in and go, much like a Tesla or a Polestar. The reality, though, is more of a lucky dip, and I’ve found myself stamping on the brake several times to get it to register my presence and allow itself to be shifted into Drive. It’s bloody annoying.

Also annoying is the central screen, which is among the hardest to use, most fidgety systems in my recent memory. Every function seems to take several goes at poking at the screen, made worse by the fact that so many of the car’s key functions – climate control being the big one – are accessed through the screen, rather than any physical buttons.

So some good, some bad, and some getting to know each other over my first month with the MG4 Essence 77. Tune in next month as I put more of the EV ownership experience to the test.

Acquired: July, 2024

Distance travelled this month: 895km

Odometer: 5515km

Average energy consumption this month: 17.9 kWh/100km