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Like your favourite TV show from the ‘90s, MG’s high-definition re-boot in the last few years has proven to be full of surprises.
Not only has it earned itself a spot in the top 10 automakers in Australia (the first Chinese-backed brand to ever do so) but the automaker has also proven it has more than one trick up its sleeve.
It found astounding success with its budget MG3 hatch and ZS SUV, and has played an important role in bringing the cost of electrification down in Australia.
The latest offering, and the car we’re looking at for this review, is the now even cheaper plug-in hybrid HS mid-size SUV.
Question is, at a price which can compete with 'self-charging' hybrid tech, should you choose an option you can plug-in? Stay with us to find out.
Subaru has always been a good fit for Australia.
Since the '90s, when the brand made a big splash with its rally derived Impreza and Liberty, Subaru’s rugged appeal has suited Australia’s tough conditions and recreationally adventurous buyers.
Cars like the Forester and Outback solidified the brand’s place amongst SUVs before SUVs were really a thing, and the XV is the logical progression of the Impreza range, slotting nicely into the brand's offerings of lifted all-wheel-drive wagons.
It’s been a few years since the XV launched, however, so can its latest 2021 update keep it in the fight in a quickly evolving and notoriously competitive segment against many newer rivals? We’ve taken a look at the whole range to find out.
MG is quietly establishing itself as a champion of the electric space, with this HS mid-sizer offering a compelling list of specs with a long electric range in an attractive package.
It is still lacking in a few obvious areas, from driving dynamics to charging speed, but it’s doing its part at the asking price to at least make a plug-in hybrid alternative worth considering.
Even years on from its initial launch and with only subtle changes to its main range, it’s really to Subaru’s credit that the XV feels just as capable and modern as any of its rivals.
This is not to say it’s perfect. We can’t recommend the base model, the maths don’t really work out on the hybrids, the only available engine is breathless, and it has a small boot.
But the XV’s excellent safety suite, driving dynamics, all-wheel-drive capability, quality finish and comfortable interior mean it’s hard not to be charmed by this little lifted hatch.
Our pick of the range? While the 2.0i-L is great value, we’d recommend you splurge to the 2.0i-Premium to get the full safety suite and extra garnish.
MG’s success is not just in being one of the most affordable but making affordability so damn good looking.
Taking cues from Mazda’s successful glitzy design formula, the HS impresses with a chrome-embossed grille, chiselled light clusters, combining with a curvaceous bonnet for an eye-catching face.
Down the side the curvy lines continue, undulating over the wheelarches, to a well resolved rear-end, complete with tidy light clusters and even dual-exhaust pipes.
Look at this car a little too long, though, and you start to find more than a few flaws with its design.
Sure, it’s eye catching, but the 17-inch alloys do a pretty ordinary job of filling those big wheelarches, and there’s something a little off about the ride height.
You can also see the rear suspension control arms sitting well below the base of the rear, a reminder the HS is an SUV based on the MG6 sedan.
Suffice it to say, while it looks great at a few paces, up close it misses out on some of the nuance and poise of its rivals.
Inside follows the same formula of the outside, with attractive curvy lines, a sporty-looking steering wheel and a pair of dazzling screens.
Again, though, look closer and you’ll see this otherwise modern-looking interior is not as impressive beneath the surface.
The seats look plush but feel cheap with vinyl trim, and the same goes for the door cards and centre console. All have soft-touch surfaces which, in reality, are paper thin. It still beats having hard plastic in the doors, though, so context is everything.
The plastic trims throughout are also hit-and-miss, with some looking great, and others hard and nasty.
The +EV versions of the HS ditch the mechanical shifter in the centre console for an electronic one, which combines nicely with the digital dash to make the cabin feel more modern than even some more upmarket rivals.
The key to the XV’s fun and adventurous appeal is perhaps the fact that it’s not really an SUV at all. It’s rather obviously a lifted version of the brand’s Impreza hatchback, and this is to its credit.
It’s simple but tough, cute but capable, and really everything many consumers are looking for when it comes to a small, all-wheel-drive SUV. Not only does this design philosophy (of lifting wagons and hatches rather than creating bespoke “SUVs”) match Subaru’s family of products, but the ride height, plastic claddings, and tough-looking alloys offer hints of the all-wheel-drive capability that lies beneath.
Little has changed for the 2021 model year, with the XV most recently receiving a tweaked grille, updated front bumper, and a new set of alloy wheels. The XV range is also available in a fun array of colours, which Subaru hopes will help it win more of a youth vote. As an added bonus, none of the colour choices carry an extra charge.
The interior of the XV continues the fun and adventurous theme with Subaru’s signature chunky design language noticeably different from its rivals. My favourite element of this has always been the bumper-car steering wheel, which feels great in your hands in its leather-clad finish, but there are also nice soft claddings throughout the doors and big seats with nice bolstering and design.
While we like how big and sharp the main 8.0-inch screen is, if there’s one thing Subaru gets wrong it’s how busy the whole cabin package is. The visual assault of three screens seems unnecessary, and as much as I like the wheel, it is also completely adorned in somewhat confusingly labelled buttons and toggles.
Still it’s an attractive, fun, and unique design amongst its small SUV peers. Subaru fans, at least, will be sure to adore it.
There are some particularly strange things about the HS’s cabin when it comes to practicality.
The seats are perhaps the biggest issue. Not only are they clad in a cheap feeling vinyl, but the seating position is very high, and you hardly sink into the seat base, leaving you with the impression you’re sitting on the car rather than in it. Weird.
Visibility is great out the sides of this car, but with the seating position the way it is, I feel like my head is close to the roof and the windscreen has a narrow letterbox aspect. This is complicated further by the rear vision mirror, which sticks a fair way down into your field of view.
The front of the cabin feels plenty wide enough, though, and there are some other practicality wins, like the multimedia screen which is easily within reach.
Its limited resolution is a benefit here, with the touch elements being big and easy to reach while you’re concentrating on the road, but the stock software is clumsily laid out and slow, taking a full second or two to react to some interactions.
This is especially notable as the entire climate system is operated via the touchscreen.
The cabin offers up decent storage. There are big bottle holders in the doors as part of a larger bin, and there are a further two large bottle holders in the centre console with a removable divider.
The armrest box opens to reveal a small storage area, which also has an internal vent for the air-conditioning.
Under the shortcut buttons up front there’s a flip-open tray with two USB outlets and a 12V port, but this little opening is so tiny it’s no good to store any kind of object. It’s also impossible to close the flip cover if you have something plugged in.
The rear seat is one of the HS’s best attributes. Compared to even the front seats, the rear passenger space is enormous, with ample width, headroom, and legroom.
The seats can recline slightly, and amenities are even impressive with two pockets on the backs of the front seats, large bottle holders in the doors, dual adjustable air vents, and two USB ports for rear passengers.
Of special note is the strangely lavish drop-down centre armrest, which is clad in soft trim and has a flip-open tray and dual bottle holders.
Rear seat space comes at a bit of a cost to boot capacity, though. The HS offers 451 litres, which is a little off-the-pace for the mid-size SUV segment. The rear seats intrude into the space a fair bit, and the floor is quite high.
It fit our three-piece CarsGuide luggage set, but only just, and it required removing the retractable luggage cover. Unlike the top-spec Essence, the Excite does not have a power tailgate.
No spare wheel in +EV versions of the HS, with the underfloor space housing a repair kit and a small cutaway for charging paraphernalia.
In some ways the XV is very impressive when it comes to its interior practicality, but in other ways it disappoints.
The front seats offer heaps of room for adults with good adjustability, and while the seating height is very high by default, there’s still lots of headroom and adjustability, with the added benefit of a very commanding view of the road for such a small SUV.
As mentioned, the doors, dash, and transmission tunnel are all clad in soft materials, and front passengers also benefit from no less than four USB ports in every grade except the base 2.0i, a huge centre console box, comfortably large bottle holders in the centre with a removable divider, a small bay under the climate unit that also houses a 12v outlet and auxiliary input, and a single large bottle holder in the doors with a small adjoining bin.
A surprise comes in the rear seats, which offered enough head and knee room for a particularly tall friend of mine. It’s rare for the small SUV segment to offer such space, but behind my own (182cm tall) seating position I had ample airspace for my knees and decent airspace for my head too, even despite the Premium and S grades having a sunroof fitted.
Rear passengers get a flip-down armrest with bottle holders, a small bottle holder in the doors, and pockets on the backs of the seats. The seat cladding is just as good as it is in the front, and the width in the rear seats is notable, however the centre seat suffers from the existence of a tall transmission tunnel to facilitate the all-wheel-drive system, and there are no adjustable air vents or power outlets for rear passengers either.
Finally, one ongoing weak point for the XV is the amount of boot space on offer. Boot capacity is 310-litres (VDA) for non-hybrids or 345 litres for hybrid variants. This is decent when compared to smaller light SUVs but definitely leaves room for improvement when it comes to the XV’s main small SUV competitors.
Space can be boosted to 765L in non-hybrid or 919L in hybrids with the seats down (again, not great), and the hybrid model loses the underfloor space-saver spare wheel, instead leaving you with a very compact puncture-repair kit.
MG now calls its plug-in hybrid cars +EV. It says this is to help demystify the technology, by showing it’s essentially a combustion vehicle, plus an electric vehicle component.
If you ask me, ‘plus EV’ is actually more confusing, but the point is this new version brings the price down once again.
This is because the plug-in version of the HS originally launched in 2021, only as the top-spec Essence. The Essence is still one of the most affordable plug-in hybrids you can buy in Australia, but the new mid-grade Excite trim we’re looking at for this review brings it down further.
Wearing a drive-away price-tag of $46,990, the strategy here is to offer the more expensive plug-in hybrid technology at the cost of a mid-grade self-charging hybrid RAV4.
Elsewhere the HS Excite competes with higher grades of the currently combustion-only Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage, but the big threat for this car will likely emerge in the form of the self-charging hybrid Haval H6 which launces in the coming months.
The HS is immediately impressive in terms of its raw numbers, though, with a massive 16.6kWh battery pack granting it a relatively long 63km purely electric driving range (although this is to the more lenient NEDC standard).
Aside from its electric features, there’s an appealing list of spec items included, with 17-inch alloy wheels, a 10.1-inch multimedia touchscreen with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support, a 12.3-inch digital dash cluster, keyless entry with push-start ignition, six-way power seat adjust for the driver, heated front seats, dual-zone climate control, and a pretty good reversing camera.
What do you miss out on picking the more affordable Excite PHEV over the top-spec Essence? 18-inch alloys, a panoramic sunroof, improved seat trim, and, disappointingly, LED headlights. The Excite only ships with old-school halogen bulbs.
It’s also worth noting the hybrid RAV4s can be all-wheel drive at this price, while the +EV variants of the HS are front-drive only. Still, this mid-size SUV is one of the most affordable PHEVs on the market.
Subaru’s pricing strategy is an interesting one. Generally, the brand’s entry-level models are priced above rivals, but top out well below them. For 2021 the XV range has four variants, two of which are available with the hybrid-drivetrain option.
The entry-level XV 2.0i ($29,690) sits above the entry-level Hyundai Kona ($26,600), Kia Sportage ($27,790), and Honda HR-V ($25,990). Keep in mind, the XV range is all-wheel drive by default, which is a value boost, but the unfortunate news is that we’d recommend you ignore the base XV altogether.
Included on the base 2.0i are 17-inch alloy wheels, a 6.5-inch multimedia touchscreen with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, a 4.2-inch supervision cluster and 6.3-inch function screen, basic air conditioning, a single USB port, basic cloth seats, halogen headlights, standard cruise control, and some more basic trimmings. Not only is this car the only one with the more basic multimedia screen, but crucially it misses out on any of Subaru’s excellent EyeSight safety suite.
The starting point for your XV journey, then, should really be the 2.0i-L, starting at $31,990. The 2.0i-L ups the interior to include a dazzling 8.0-inch multimedia screen, improved interior trimmings with premium cloth seats and leather-trimmed steering wheel, dual-zone climate control, extra USB ports, and adaptive cruise control as part of the EyeSight safety suite.
Next up is the 2.0i-Premium at $34,590, which adds a sliding sunroof, heated wing mirrors, built-in navigation, a front-view camera, and the full safety suite with blind-spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, and rear auto emergency braking. This variant is now the best value, as it offers the full set of safety items previously only available on the top-spec car at a lower price.
This brings us to the top-spec 2.0i-S with an MSRP of $37,290, which adds LED headlights with auto high-beam assist, a side-view camera, leather interior trims with extended premium cabin upholstery and chrome finishes, auto power folding wing mirrors, leather-appointed seat trim with heated front seats and an eight-way power-adjustable driver’s seat, 18-inch alloy wheels, and extended functionality for the all-wheel-drive system.
Finally, the 2.0i-L and 2.0i-S can be chosen with the “eBoxer” hybrid drivetrain option, wearing MSRPs of $35,490 and $40,790 respectively. They mirror the specification of their 2.0i counterparts while adding silver exterior accents and a pedestrian-alert system. They also trade out the space-saver spare wheel in favour of a puncture-repair kit, due to the presence of an under-boot-floor lithium-ion battery system.
This is where plug-in hybrids tend to get a bit complicated, so bear with us.
The MG HS +EV pairs a 1.5-litre, four-cylinder, turbo-petrol engine with an electric motor on the front axle. The two drive the front wheels via a new 10-speed traditional torque converter automatic transmission, instead of the dual-clutch which features in the combustion-only versions of this car.
The engine produces 119kW/250Nm on its own, while the electric motor produces 90kW/230Nm. The two combined produce 189kW/370Nm, making the +EV by far the most powerful HS on the market, capable of accelerating from 0-100km/h in 6.9 seconds.
The XV now has two drivetrain options in Australia. One is the carryover 2.0-litre petrol engine, now with a smidge more power, and a hybrid version of the same layout with an electric motor housed in the continuously variable transmission. There is no manual variant in the XV range.
The 2.0i models produce 115kW/196Nm, while the hybrid produces 110kW/196Nm from the engine and 12.3kW/66Nm from the electric motor. All variants are all-wheel drive.
The hybrid system is powered by a lithium-ion battery pack under the boot floor, and in practice functions a bit differently from Toyota’s popular system.
We’re sure Subaru die-hards will be dismayed to know a version of the XV packing the larger Forester’s 2.5-litre petrol engine (136kW/239Nm) will not be making it to Australia for the foreseeable future.
The HS +EV backs its electric features with a relatively large 16.6kWh battery pack, allowing it a purely electric driving range rated at 63km.
This is on the more lenient NEDC standard, though, and our car was reporting between 40–45km on a full charge. Still pretty good for a plug-in hybrid mid-size SUV.
As a result of this well-supported system, +EV versions of the HS have an official/combined cycle fuel consumption figure of 1.7L/100km, but as with all plug-in hybrids this will depend on how you use it.
On my week-long test, the car returned a figure of 3.9L/100km, with the caveat I did run it out of charge on more than one occasion. The HS’s turbocharged engine requires mid-grade 95RON unleaded.
Take a moment to appreciate this mid-sizer still used less fuel than a tiny hatchback, but charging is a less impressive story.
MG says the +EV will charge to 100 per cent from the reserve level in five ours on a 7.0kW charging connection, the only problem is the numbers don’t add up.
If you divide 16.6 by five you get 3.3kW, which is the actual charging rate. For a battery this big, that’s too slow. To put it in perspective, it’s only slightly faster than if you were to charge it up from a wall socket, and makes this car best for those who can trickle charge it at home.
Even dragging out your grocery shop to, say, 2.5 hours, will only net you half this car’s battery, making it inconvenient if you need to rely on public charging to get by.
It’s not such a great story for the hybrid variant here, as even on the official numbers it only saves a tiny amount of fuel.
The official/combined number for 2.0i variants is 7.0L/100km, while the hybrid variants trim this to 6.5L/100km.
In practice it only got worse on my test. Over similar driving conditions consisting of several hundred kilometres over the course of a week, the 2.0i-Premium non-hybrid produced 7.2L/100km, while the hybrid actually used more fuel at 7.7L/100km.
It’s worth noting we’ll be holding on to the hybrid for a further three months as part of a long-term urban test. Check back in to see if we can trim this number down to something closer to its claim in the coming months.
All XV variants can drink base-grade 91RON unleaded and 2.0i variants have 63-litre fuel tanks while hybrids make use of a 48-litre tank.
Okay, so once you get past the weird seating position we mentioned earlier, it's immediately apparent this hybrid version of the HS is the best to drive in the range.
The powerful electric motor in this car makes it so much smoother and easier to drive than the combustion car. It’s got quiet, smooth acceleration and a nice gentle regen braking, and you never even need to worry about what the transmission is doing.
This 10-speed automatic is so smooth it’s hard to tell what it’s doing at any given time, an out-of-sight improvement over the dual-clutch automatics which appear elsewhere in the range.
Where the HS isn’t as impressive is in the steering. It’s nicely weighted but a bit vague when it comes to feeling. I’m not super confident of what the front wheels are doing, and I feel like it doesn’t handle the additional weight from the big battery pack particularly well.
It feels comparatively top-heavy with a tendency towards mild understeer when you push it, missing some of the confidence its more established rivals have.
The ride is mixed. It’s generally soft, so it’s comfortable over smaller bumps, but when you hit big ones, it is evident the ride lacks a bit of control, because it will bounce around, and feel a little unsettled.
This imbalanced ride and handling is one of MG’s weak spots generally, which is why I’m surprised the electric drivetrain is so sleek, even comparable to Toyota systems.
When it comes to controlling those electric driving functions the HS defaults to a hybrid mode, where it seems to use primarily electric drive at lower speeds, activating the engine automatically at higher speeds, or when the accelerator is more heavily applied.
The only issue I have with this mode is I’m not sure at times how or why it decides to run the engine. With rival systems you’ll get some kind of ‘eco’ indicator which gives you an idea of when the engine will activate, but in this car there’s just a percentage indicator on the dash, which isn’t too helpful.
Your only other drive mode option is to stick it in EV mode, which you can do via a button on the centre console. In this mode it will only use the electric motor, and it’s able to do this at quite high speeds, so even if you’ve got a bit of an expressway or something on your drive it won’t necessarily need combustion support. Meaning you can have genuinely fully electric driving if you’ve got somewhere to charge it up at either end.
There’s no combustion or charge mode like some plug-ins have, and there is also no way to control the regen braking, so it’s not as customisable as we’d like. And the regen tune is relatively mild, so it’s probably not as energy efficient as it could be, either.
Still, the hybrid systems are impressively smooth and as a result the +EV versions of the HS are simply the best in the range to drive by a solid margin.
No matter which XV you choose, you’ll be getting a very comfortable and easy-to-steer small SUV, and the drive experience has only improved with this year’s updates.
The XV’s newly re-worked front suspension and tall ride height make for a package more than capable of dealing with anything the suburbs will throw at it. This is the kind of car that scoffs at speed bumps and potholes.
The steering is light enough to be comfortable, but provides just enough feedback to keep it engaging, too, and the always-on all-wheel-drive system provides a sense of constant security in corners and even on loosely sealed or wet surfaces.
The XV has better SUV cred than almost every other car in its class on the capability front, enough at least to make it a decent companion for seeking those unsealed campgrounds or vantage points.
Where it’s not as good is its engine options. We’ll get to the hybrid in a moment, but the standard 2.0-litre engine is underpowered for a relatively heavy small SUV, with the added burden of all-wheel drive, and it feels it. This engine doesn’t have the follow-through of its turbocharged rivals and is very thrashy when much is asked of it.
This experience isn’t really helped along by the rubbery-feeling continuously variable automatic transmission, which is at its best in stop-start traffic. It strips the fun out of trying to drive this car with a bit more vigour.
Unlike Toyota's hybrid alternatives, the hybrid XV isn’t a significantly different experience behind the wheel. Its electric motor doesn’t really have enough strength to get it up to speed, but it does assist when it comes to acceleration and coasting to help take the stress partially off the engine. The XV also doesn’t provide a hybrid indicator like Toyota does, so it’s much harder to understand the effect your accelerator input is having on the motor.
The centre screen does display the energy flow, though, so it is good to have some kind of feedback that the hybrid system is helping on occasion.
Hybrid variants also add something called “e-Active Shift Control”, which uses input from the car’s sensors and all-wheel-drive system to better tune the hybrid assistance to the CVT. In general driving terms, this lets the electric motor pick up the slack of the petrol engine when it's most needed in the corners and in low-torque instances.
On a final note, all of these moments of electrical assistance do make the hybrid versions notably quieter than the non-hybrid ones. I still wouldn’t recommend choosing the hybrid on its driving experience alone, but it will be interesting to see how Subaru can build on this technology in the future.
Although the Excite is the more affordable of the two +EV variants, it doesn’t miss out on any of MG’s active ‘Pilot’ safety suite.
This means it scores all the key items, from auto emergency braking (detects pedestrians at up to 64km/h and vehicles at up to 150km/h), plus lane keep assist with lane departure warning, to the rear-facing items including blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert.
It also scores adaptive cruise control, which late last year received an update making it a bit less twitchy than in launch form.
Six airbags and the expected array of electronic braking, stability, and traction aids appear, but while combustion-only versions of the HS wear a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating to the 2019 standards, the +EV versions are excluded from this rating as they arrived later.
The XV has an excellent safety suite so long as you avoid the base model 2.0i. Every other variant gets at least the forward-facing and unique stereo camera safety suite, which Subaru dubs ‘EyeSight’.
This system provides auto emergency braking up to speeds of 85km/h capable of detecting pedestrians and brake lights, it also includes lane-keep assist with lane-departure warning, adaptive cruise control, and a lead vehicle start alert. All XVs get an excellent wide-angle reversing camera.
Once you get to the upper-mid-grade 2.0i Premium, the safety suite is upgraded to include rear-facing technologies, including blind-spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, and rear auto braking. The Premium gets a front-facing parking camera, while the top-spec S grade gets a side view camera as well.
All XVs come with the expected stability, brake, and traction controls, as well as a set of seven airbags, making for a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating to the 2017 standards.
MG has tweaked its ownership promise for its electrified models recently. While the brand generally follows in the footsteps of challenger brands like Kia by offering an ahead-of-the curve seven-year warranty, this has only just been extended to the +EV variants.
Strangely, there’s also a seven-year, unlimited kilometre warranty for the high-voltage battery components, which is a bit different from the industry standard eight-year/160,000km warranty.
Capped price servicing has also been added covering the duration of the warranty. Each visit at 12 monthly or 10,000km intervals costs between $265 and $968, for a yearly average of $403.14.
Not expensive, but also not at the cheap end of the spectrum.
Subaru remains on par with other Japanese automakers, with a five-year and unlimited-kilometre warranty promise. There’s 12 months of roadside assist included, and the XV is also covered by a capped-price servicing program for the life of the warranty.
Services are required once every 12 months or 12,500km, and while this is a welcome improvement on the six-month intervals this car used to have, these visits are far from the cheapest we’ve seen with an average price of nearly $500 per year.