2021 MG ZS vs MG HS

What's the difference?

Let me put it this way: Like-for-like, the ZS is better as an EV than it is as a petrol car, but it seems to be a story of getting what you pay for.

I don’t mean that the ZS EV is cheap and therefore nasty. In fact, I think it’s priced just right at the moment for a city EV entry-point. It offers all the key features a city-based EV buyer should be looking for, compares favourably to rivals on the value front, and is better than the standard ZS to drive and use.

It certainly has its flaws, and you can pay more to get rid of them by buying a Nissan Leaf, which, in my opinion drives better and has superior software, but then you’re forking out significantly more money for a similar driving range. On that basis, I think MG has found its entry-level EV niche and should be applauded for bringing the overall cost of entry down in Australia. Only time will tell if buyers warm to the idea, but the brand’s initial sales figures of nearly 700 units at least suggests it will be a success.

The MG HS Excite has beautiful styling with a premium look. It’s loaded with advanced safety tech and is better value than rivals such as the Mazda CX-5 and Toyota RAV4 (which demand more money for similar equipment).

There are weaknesses. The driving experience isn’t as good as those rivals and the quality in-car feel of these competitors exceeds that of the MG.

The HS Excite is a good choice for an urban car. It’s not too big, but offers excellent practicality, and there’s great city safety tech, even if the AEB in my test car got a bit confused.

Only the jerky transmission and the fuel economy stops it from being a great urban car.

There is a plug-in hybrid version of the HS. Sure, it’s more expensive, but it’s one of the most affordable electric vehicles in Australia, and my colleague Tom White covers it in his range review.

MG’s formula for success is pretty simple. Make affordable cars that are good looking. Not so hard really, is it?

The ZS EV wears the chrome-embossed styling of the range, while offering its own take on the grille, complete with a unique colour choice, ‘Clipper Blue’, which looks quite fetching.

Original? Maybe not. There’s a clear influence of Mazda in the chrome bits and headlight clusters, while the rear is a little bit Mitsubishi ASX in its finish. If the ZS T is anything to go by, though, MG’s design is set to evolve into very much its own look in the near future.

The brilliance of the overall exterior looks is that they combine before-seen elements into something fresh, which looks good in bright colours and leaves an impression of youthfulness. Accessible cars, ready for the social-media age, then.

The interior of the ZS EV is improved over the regular ZS, too. There are more soft materials in the doors and dash, while the brand has taken the electrification opportunity to tidy up the centre console and media screen into something a bit neater and more contemporary.

There’s even some cool attention to detail in things like the shift dial, which is finished with a rotary texture, and pressing it down to go into Park makes it glow red. The little toggle switches for the driving functions are a nice touch too.

The seats and touchpoints look good at a distance but aren’t as great to touch. The steering wheel is okay, but the faux leather trim in the seats is pretty ordinary, as is the detailing in the doors and dash. I wasn’t so much a fan of the way the centre console arches up, finished in a thin layer of vinyl trim, but it’s worth remembering that the ZS EV is based on an outgoing small SUV. In fact, if you want to take a look at just how much the interior of the ZS has improved for this EV version in lots of little ways, check out Matt Campbell’s 2019 review of the petrol car.

The MG HS's design isn’t exactly unique with some areas, such as the grille and headlights, bearing a close resemblance to the Mazda CX-5's styling.

Lookalike it may be, but the MG HS Excite’s design is stylish and modern. That goes for the interior, too, which has a premium look with high-tech touches such as the big 10.1-inch media touchscreen.

The feel of the cabin materials doesn’t match the high-end look, however, with flimsy plastic switches for fan speed and volume control, for example.

Tactile controls with good feel aren’t just nice, they’re important in urban cars where reaching quickly to turn the volume down or to adjust the fan makes life easier in stressful traffic.

The front seat design doesn’t seem quite right, either. The driver and front passenger seats are too high, even on their lowest setting, but more on this in the driving section.

The MG HS’s dimensions make it good for tight city streets and tiny car spaces. That said, measuring 4574mm end-to-end, 1876mm wide and 1685mm tall, it’s one for the larger medium-sized SUVs on the market.  

This is a small SUV, so it’s not huge on the inside. There are some areas where it shines, and others where it isn’t as good.

Not so great? The seating position. Like the HS mid-sizer, the ZS has a really high and slightly awkward seating position, which has you peering down on the instruments and the road. SUV like? Yes. Some people will probably like the commanding view of the road, but it wasn’t for me. The seats are soft and initially quite comfy, but offer limited support for longer journeys. Adjustability is reasonable, and I eventually found a position that suited me, with good visibility out the front and rear.

Cabin storage isn’t bad. Because there’s no need for a transmission or anything under the floor, there’s a new cutaway with a large bay under the centre console, which also hosts two USB ports, a small tray area under the climate controls, a weird bottle holder cutaway deep-set in the raised console area, and a tiny console box armrest (at least it has one, some small SUVs don’t). There is a large bottle holder and a small bin in the door cards, too.

The rear seat isn’t bad. My 182cm tall frame fits behind its own driving position with a tiny amount of knee space, and there are soft trims on the backs of the front seats if you’re any taller and have your knees pressing up. The backs of the front seats feature pockets, and there’s a small tray and single USB outlet on the back of the centre console, although there are no adjustable rear air vents. I have enough headroom and the soft seats, clad in the so-so faux leather stuff, continue. There’s no armrest with bottle holders, but the rear doors have a single large one each. Outboard seats feature ISOFIX child-seat-mounting points, while the rear row has top-tether all the way across.

Again, if you want to see how much the ZS has improved over the years, check out our earlier reviews. It’s hard to recognise the dash and storage areas from the petrol version.

The boot comes in at 359-litres, which is impressive, not only because it compares well to the small SUV segment, but because it’s entirely unchanged from the petrol version. It just fit our entire CarsGuide demo luggage set with a little Tetris work, as the available space seems to be taller than it is wide. There are useful nettings behind the wheelarch on each side for securing small objects, but where the EV has had extra thought applied is in the under-floor area. There you will find a styrofoam bracket with little cutouts for storing charging cables. Few EVs have this sort of thing, strangely.

Sadly, the under-floor batteries mean you lose the spare wheel. Instead, you’ll have to make do with a repair kit.

Practicality is one of the MG HS Excite's strong points. There’s plenty of people space up front, and in the second row, where even I (at 191cm/6'3") can sit behind my driving position with ample headroom back there.

Cabin storage is good with a decent-sized centre console box up front, as well as large door pockets, a deep storage tray in front of the gear shifter, and two cupholders.

In the back there's a fold-down armrest housing another two cupholders, plus a built-in container for loose items.

There are directional air vents in the rear, plus two USB ports, while another two USB ports can be found up front.

Boot capacity is 463 litres (to the top of the seat backs), and that was plenty of room for my little family of three.

The MG HS tested here is the Excite grade, found high up in the line-up, and it’s the front-wheel drive version which, at $32,990, is $3000 less than the all-wheel drive Excite X ($35,990).

Is that expensive for an MG HS? Nope, not in a range which starts at $29K and tops out at $46K.

The Excite grade is the best value in the range, especially this more affordable FWD version.

Coming standard are all of the features from the two grades below it, such as the proximity key, 10.1-inch media screen, adaptive cruise control, leather-look seats, roof rails, leather steering wheel and rear parking sensors.

Then there’s all the Excite level equipment such as LED headlights, sat nav, dual-zone climate control, rain-sensing wipers, power tailgate and 18-inch alloys.

The sat nav, power tailgate, proximity key and rain-sensing wipers are all helpful urban features, but the lack of front parking sensors isn’t ideal.

For about the same price as the MG HS Excite there’s the Mazda CX-5 Maxx, Toyota RAV4 GX, and Hyundai Tucson Active.

In my opinion, the MG HS Excite isn’t priced low enough to tempt buyers away from such superb rivals, but it’s still better value considering the features you’re getting.

The ZS EV has an electric motor capable of producing 105kW and a whopping 353Nm (not as break-neck as it sounds, more on that later) of torque. Again, this is a healthy upgrade from combustion versions of this car. It drives the front wheels via a single-speed reduction-gear transmission.

The Excite features the less powerful of two engines available in the MG HS – a 1.5-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol making 119kW/250Nm.

Sure, it doesn’t have the grunt of the 2.0-litre but if you’re just looking for something to get you around the place you aren’t going to be super concerned about high-performance.

Our test car was also the FWD version, which is fine because AWD isn’t necessary in the city.

The seven-speed automatic transmission is a dual-clutch type, prone to jerky shifts in some cars, and the MG HS is one of them. MG needs to improve this transmission for a smoother city drive.

Now the important stuff. The ZS EV is the cheapest EV in Australia, but it offers a range comparative to the Nissan Leaf at a claimed/combined 263km from its 44.5kWh battery pack.

The ZS has a European-standard Type 2 CCS port mounted centre front under the MG badge, and can charge at a maximum of 7.2kW on AC power, or 80kW on DC power.

This means estimated charging times from 10 to 80 per cent of 45 minutes on DC, seven hours on 7kW AC, or 25 hours on a 2.3kW wall socket.

The ZS EV comes with a wall socket to Type 2 cable, although MG offers a Type 2 to Type 2 public charging cable (which we strongly recommend for convenience) as a $295 dealer option.

I charged the ZS twice in my week with it, both times at a public 11kW AC charger local to me, which is charged by solar and is therefore free. It added around 50km of range in an hour.

The ZS EV also offers three levels of regenerative braking, and I spent the majority of my time in the highest regen setting. The ZS EV’s official combined consumption figure is 16.2kWh/100km, and on my test week my car returned a figure of 14.6kWh/100km. Not bad, and similar or even slightly better than its Nissan Leaf competitor, in which I recorded 15.3kWh/100km. It was not as good as the Hyundai Ioniq, however, which has the honour of the best on-test consumption I’ve ever scored at 12.3kWh/100km.

My car looked set to get around 304km of range on a full charge at its as-tested consumption rate - well over the WLTPcombined claim.

In my fuel test of the MG HS I covered 303.2km, a good chunk of which was a freeway trip back from Canberra to Sydney, followed by a day or two of inner city driving.

The Excite used 24.1 litres, which translates to 7.9L/100km. Not far off the 7.3L/100km MG says you should get after a combination of open and urban roads.

If you never leave the city, your fuel usage will climb. MG says the 1.5-litre engine will use 9.2L/100km in pure urban driving.

That figure alone is too high for me to call our test car a great urban vehicle.

There is a plug-in hybrid version of the HS, which is much closer to the ideal variant for urban dwellers.

The ZS EV is a different car to drive altogether, compared to the rest of the range. This is a very good thing, with the electric motor, drive modes and feedback being reasonably good, and you can forget the usual transmission and power woes we find with many small SUVs.

The ZS gets along nicely with its 105kW/353Nm, it’s much faster in a straight line than any other ZS, but it’s not as breakneck as it sounds. The torque seems to be distributed with some restraint, so that accelerating hard doesn’t overwhelm the little front tyres. Expect similar performance to a Nissan Leaf or Hyundai Ioniq; it’s smooth and strong, but not as extreme as, say, a Tesla.

Needless to say, the well of instantly available torque is fantastic for both urban driving and the freeway, making the ZS EV easily one of the best MGs to drive.

However, some woes are still present. While the ZS handles better than its combustion counterparts, thanks to the lower centre of gravity, it’s easy to tell the suspension has a hard time dealing with its nearly 1600kg weight, and the drivability in the corners suffers as a result.

It’s soft over the front axle, but harder over the rear, leading to really abrupt moments over bumps, or when the driving surface is a little uneven, despite a generally spongey and bouncy ride. This can lead to some disconcerting moments on the rebound, as the car tilts to and fro a little before settling.

Understeer is also an ever-present threat, as this car will lean well into the front tyres during cornering and requires some discipline on the accelerator not to break traction. It all adds up to a bit of a frumpy, uneven drive experience, which needs improvement. Thankfully, the steering is pretty well tuned, offering a relatively organic feel and giving you a good handle on what’s going on at the front tyres.

It is at its best at lower speeds, as the soft ride will filter out small bumps and corrugations relatively well, while hitting speed bumps and driveways is met with a pleasant bounce.

It’s not as though MG can’t do better, either, with the ZS T improving its ride and handling in many critical areas, but it’s clear that, for this older version, this aspect wasn’t a priority during development.

Still, if you stick to what this car’s envisioned purpose is – driving around town – the seats and cabin are pretty comfortable, the visibility is good, and parking is easy. Even on the freeway, this car’s adaptive cruise and lane-keep systems aren’t bad, and benefit from the rolling software updates MG undertakes as feedback comes in from the global markets in which it plays.

The electrification features are decent, too. While it might not be as smooth or refined as Hyundai electric cars are, the three levels of regen braking will offer something for everyone, and the feedback through the analog dial should give a good amount of data on how to make the most of the regeneration.

It is missing a sleek operating system, though. Hyundai’s Android-based software is simple but effective, integrating the nav with the range calculation and driving style, while Tesla’s sublime software with its app and pre-prep features really showcase what an electric car can do.

Regardless, you get what you pay for, and that’s the case here with the ZS. It’s not the best to drive, and it doesn’t have as slick a software offering, but it does offer all the key parts of electric motoring at a strictly defined price.

Can we talk about the driver’s seat first? The design of the front seats means the driver and co-pilot sit overly high, even on the lowest setting.

That really bugged me to begin with as an ideal position has the driver sitting lower so they can look over the steering wheel and up the road ahead, rather than down onto it.

Compounding the frustration is the fact that this height means the rearview mirror obstructs vision through the windscreen.

After a few days driving the MG HS Excite I became used to the elevated driving position, and I’m sure you will, too. But I believe the design is a bad one and not something an owner should have to work around.

Okay, enough about the seats. This isn’t seatsguide.com.au. Let’s talk about the engine and how the 1.5-litre four cylinder doesn’t have the pep and acceleration of the 2.0-litre AWD model, but is perfectly fine for the city.

Besides, that larger engine's a bit manic just driving around town. There’s more than enough oomph from the 1.5-litre in the city, and even my motorway trip to Canberra (in gale force winds) was as uneventful as any Hume Highway trip should be.

What’s not noticeable on the freeway, but pronounced in the city, is the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission's lack of refinement. Jerkiness, sometimes on hills and when taking off from stand still.

Now, the ride. The news isn’t good here. either, I’m afraid. Our test car was comfortable enough on a smooth road, but throw speed humps, potholes and all the normal Aussie urban road imperfections at it and this SUV struggles to maintain composure.

A tendency to lean in roundabouts compounds a below average driving experience.

Finally, look at the steering wheel in the images. There’s a red button on it, just like you’ll find on the steering wheel of a Ferrari.

Only this button says, ‘Super Sport’ and when I pushed it nothing appeared to happen. It’s a setting that’s supposed to activate a performance driving mode, but there was nothing ‘super’ or ‘sport’ about it.

The MG HS scored the maximum five-star ANCAP rating under 2019 testing rules.

The safety tech list looks impressive with good city-focused features such as an AEB system that can detect cyclists and pedestrians (up to 64km/h) and vehicles (up to 150km/h), along with lane keeping assistance, traffic jam assistance, blind spot detection and rear cross-traffic alert.

But I received a stark reminder that AEB systems aren’t perfect while travelling at about 30km/h approximately 40m behind two cyclists on a city street.

The MG HS Excite braked hard for no apparent reason. Forcefully enough to throw everybody in the car forward, straining the seat belts.

The cyclists hadn’t stopped or slowed down, and I couldn’t see any no other obstructions which would have caused the pretty violent stop.

Luckily, there were no injuries in our car, and it was fortunate there wasn’t a car close behind which may have impacted us.

We know of AEB ‘misfires’ like this across other brands, but it's still a concerning behaviour.

It tells me not all safety systems are created equal and ‘advanced’ tech still has a long way to go before it is truly advanced.

Along with six airbags, there are two ISOFIX points and three top tether anchor points for child seats across the back seat.

A space saver spare wheel is under the boot floor.

Electrified MGs have an annoying caveat in that they miss out on the excellent seven-year warranty of the rest of the brand’s combustion range. Instead, you’re left with a still industry-standard five-year warranty. The battery pack is covered for eight years or 160,000km, to add a little extra confidence.

MG also tells us the battery system in the ZS is entirely modular, and individual units can be removed and replaced if they go wrong.

Capped-price servicing is not yet locked in for MG in Australia, although the brand tells us that it is in the works and will be available imminently. Electric cars are generally much cheaper to run than combustion cars, due to the lack of moving parts, so we’d expect the ZS EV to have the lowest running costs of the lot. 

The HS Excite is covered by MG’s seven-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, which is two years more than most carmakers offer.

Servicing is recommended every 12 months or 10,000km. Here are the costs: 10,000km ($279.04); 20,000km ($382.44), 30,000km ($330.23); 40,000km ($437.54); 50,000km ($279.04); 60,000km ($800.66) and 70,000km ($279.04).

That's an annual average of $398.28 for the first seven years.