Test – MG 4 Luxury: the charging and travel times of our Supertest

In the Supertest, the MG 4 Luxury elbowed against the Megane e-Tech. But the Chinese compact drives the point home when it comes to recharging!

MG is giving itself the means to achieve its ambitions with its new electric compact: the MG 4 manages to rise to the level of the European benchmarks in its segment, whether in terms of road performance and autonomy: over a journey of 500 km by the highway, we noted an average consumption of 25.4 kWh/100 km, or 243 km of total autonomy. The Volkswagen ID.3 and Renault Megane e-Tech EV60 do the same with similar conditions. And the Chinese shares fairly similar charging capacities with them, with 10-80% in 35 minutes, on paper.

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Charging curve for the MG 4 Luxury: a useful full tank in 25 minutes

On our first hands-on, we clocked the MG 4’s typical recharge at 30 minutes. It was already much better than its competitors and exceeded the promises of the brochures. This is one of MG’s wishes, which is ready to sacrifice the values ​​of its pads so as not to give customers unpleasant surprises, in order to better satisfy them. Quite the opposite of other manufacturers, but we are not relaunching the debate. However, during this recharge, we had spotted a hole between 53 and 55% charge, losing more than 4 minutes.

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Which was not the case this time around. Always under the same conditions, except for a colder temperature, the MG 4 presented a constant and copious recharging curve for a car of this size. Thus, the 10-80% claimed barely 25 minutes, which makes the compact one of the fastest to fill up after the Koreans on the 800 V e-GMP platform! Of course, the quantities are very different, but its average charging power of 109 kW has nothing to be ashamed of either: that’s more than with a Nissan Ariya or a Model Y Performance, and it’s a record in this category!

In detail, the 4 has a long plateau revolving around 135 kW on average up to 60%, where the curve begins to drop. The power drop is steep, but it stabilizes reasonably between 65-85%. At 80%, the car still collects 58 kW of power, or -59.7% compared to the peak observed on this curve.

The end of charge is no less interesting since it takes 9 minutes more to get 90%. But there is no need to stay plugged in any longer since it takes 29 minutes to finish charging… to 98%. A behavior that we had already noticed before. But the phenomenon does not occur when recharging with alternating current: we have indeed recovered the vehicle with a 100% charge. Finally, during a long drive, we saw no difference in fast-charging performance with the battery preconditioning to be activated manually.

Autonomy recovered: 185 km in 30 minutes

Average powers and recharging times only have real meaning when consumption, and therefore autonomy, enters the equation. Based on our consumption measurements, the MG 4 is able to recover 129 km in 15 minutes and 185 km in half an hour. It is quite simply the best accessible electric vehicle, the Peugeot e-208 being able to cover 161 km in 30 minutes, while above the Chinese only large SUVs with better equipment are found (193 km in 30 minutes with the Ford Mustang Mach-E for example). You will have to pay a lot more to get better.

Cost of MG 4 Luxury recharges

The MG 4 consumes an average of 45.30 kWh between 10 and 80% load, according to the information communicated and invoiced by the terminals. Ionity very logically remains the most expensive of the solutions, increasing the cost price on the motorway to €18.38/100 km. At Fastned, we find a final cost of €15.71/100 km.

Travel time for 500 km: 5 h 21

Intended for the greatest number, and therefore for beginners in the world of electric mobility, the MG 4 does not offer a route planner: the GPS only communicates the journey time. It does not give any indication of the terminals where it is necessary to refuel, and does not alert the driver to the fact that the destination is out of reach. Fortunately, the remaining range indicator seems a little better calibrated than on board the ZS EV, but it can still be misleading due to the significant variations in consumption from one situation to another.

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It is therefore necessary to rely on independent planners, such as ABRP or Chargemap. Both offer a route with three stops, but Chargemap is more detailed in its forecasts: it provides for arrivals in front of the terminals with less than 20% charge, saving time, unlike ABRP. Advantage to the French application on this one, which anticipates 56 minutes of recharging against 76 minutes with ABRP.

In our case, we counted a total of 49 minutes of recharging, in three stops. Added to the usual travel time (4 h 20) and the evolution packages on the areas (3 x 4 minutes), this brings the travel time for 500 km to 5 h 21. The versatility is rather remarkable for this electric compact which has one of the best travel times in its category. Once again, it will be necessary to choose a bigger vehicle to go faster. For comparison, remember that the Renault Megane e-Tech and Volkswagen ID.3 Pro presented times of 5:42 and 5:35 respectively on the same route.