Dual-motor MG 4 shows just what a Chinese-built EV can offer an old-fashioned petrolhead: enormous power for a limited budget
Having been sidelined as a concept for some time, the hot hatchback is making something of a comeback.While tightening emissions rules have made petrol-powered hot hatchbacks less and less commercially viable, all-electric alternatives are now emerging. Many – the likes of the Alpine A290, and the recently previewed Peugeot e-208 GTI – are from practiced performance brands, and come with high expectations. Some of these fast electric cars, however, have come right out of the long grass and taken us all by surprise.Which is just what the MG 4 XPower did when it arrived in the UK in the summer of 2023. Back then, the idea of a high-performing, twin-motor, compact electric car wasn’t entirely novel; but one that combined fairly classic hot hatchback proportions with lots of power and speed, and an eyebrow-raisingly affordable price, certainly got our attention.SAIC, the MG brand’s Chinese owners, revived an old MG-Rover name for this dual-motor version of the MG 4 electric hatchback. XPower was used on the regrettably doomed MG XPower SV sports car created just before the financial demise of the UK-operated MG Rover. Interestingly, however, that brand is not used on domestic-market versions of this car, which are rather more enticingly called the MG Mulan Triumph Edition (the commercial rights to the defunct Triumph car brand are actually retained by BMW, after its period of ownership of The Rover Group in the 1990s; which might explain why the car was rebranded for export sales).
Source: Autocar
