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 home the point when it comes to reloading!

MG is giving itself the means to realize its ambitions with its new electric compact car: MG 4 manages to rise to the level of the European benchmarks in its segment, both in terms of road performance and range: on a journey of 500 km in on the motorway, we measured an average consumption of 25.4 kWh/100 km, or 243 km of total range. The Volkswagen ID.3 and the Renault Megane e-Tech EV60 do the same with similar conditions. And the Chinese share quite similar charging capabilities with them, with 10-80% in 35 minutes, on paper.

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Charging curve for MG 4 Luxury: a full profit in 25 minutes

During our first hands-on, we recorded the MG 4’s typical charge at 30 minutes. It was already far better than its competitors and exceeded the brochure promises. This is one of the wishes of MG, which is ready to sacrifice the values ​​of its pads in order not to reserve unpleasant surprises for customers, in order to satisfy them in the best possible way. Quite the opposite of other manufacturers, but let’s not revive 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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That wasn’t the case this time. Always under the same conditions, save for a colder temperature, the MG 4 had a constant and abundant charging curve for a car of this size. Thus, 10-80% took just 25 minutes, which makes the compact one of the fastest to fill after the Koreans on the 800V e-GMP platform! Of course, the quantities are very different, but its average charging power of 109 kW is also nothing to be ashamed of: 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 that runs around 135 kW on average up to 60%, where the curve starts to go down. The power drop is noticeable, but stabilizes reasonably between 65 and 85 percent. At 80% the car still collects 58 kW of power, or -59.7% compared to the peak observed on this curve.

The end of the charge is no less interesting since it takes 9 more minutes to reach 90%. But there’s no need to stay plugged in anymore as it takes 29 minutes to fully charge…to 98%. A behavior that we had already noticed before. But the phenomenon does not occur when recharging with alternating current: in fact, we recovered the vehicle with a 100% charge. Finally, on a long drive, we found no difference in fast-charging performance with battery preconditioning to be turned on manually.

Typical charging curve

	10 to 80%	80 to 100%	from 10 to 100%
Charging time (in mins)	25	38	63
Range gained (in km)	170	49	219

Autonomy recovered: 185 km in 30 minutes

Average powers and recharge times have a real meaning only when consumption, and therefore autonomy, come into play. Based on our fuel consumption measurements, the MG 4 is able to recover 129km in 15 minutes and 185km in half an hour. It is simply the best accessible electric vehicle, the Peugeot e-208 is capable of covering 161 km in 30 minutes, while above the Chinese there are only large and better equipped SUVs (193 km in 30 minutes with the Ford Mustang Mach -E For example). You will have to pay a lot more to improve.

Autonomy found

Charging time (in mins)	15	30	45	60
Range gained (in km)	129	185	209	211

Cost of MG 4 Luxury refills

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

Cost of top-ups per operator

	ionization	Fixed	Electra	lidl
Unit price (€/kWh)	0.69	0.59	0.49	0.40
Total price (10-80%)	31.3	26.7	22.2	18.12
Cost price (€/100km)	18.4	15.7	13.1	10.7

Travel time for 500 km: 5 hours 21

Intended for the greatest number, and therefore for newbies 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 warn the driver that the destination is unattainable. 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 considerable 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 three-stop route, but Chargemap is more detailed in its predictions: it predicts arrivals in front of the terminals for less than 20% charge, saving time, unlike ABRP. Advantage for the French application on this, which anticipates 56 minutes of recharging against 76 minutes with ABRP.

In our case we counted a total of 49 minutes of charging, in three stops. Added to the usual journey time (4h 20) and the evolution packages on the areas (3 x 4 minutes), the journey time for 500 km is reduced to 5h 21. The versatility is quite remarkable for this compact electric car which has a of the best travel times in its category. Again, you will need to choose a bigger vehicle to go faster. For comparison, we recall that the Renault Megane e-Tech and the Volkswagen ID.3 Pro presented times of 5:42 and 5:35 respectively on the same course.