The traditional British brand MG wants to shake up the market with a new electric car. The Mulan or MG4 from Chinese production is to come to Europe with sporty characteristics and compete with the VW ID.3, for example.
China is speeding up the production of electric cars. The fully electric vehicles should not only be successful in their own country, as the model announcement by MG, the British car brand of the Chinese car group SAIC Motors, shows. With the Mulan, she presented a compact car with an electric drive in China, which is intended to compete with the largest German car manufacturer: VW.
The electric car – on export markets it will become the MG4 – is to come onto the market as a high-performance vehicle and join the category of sporty electric vehicles. MG specifies an acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in under four seconds, which is quite sporty. However, the car manufacturer has not yet announced vehicle data such as battery capacity, charging capacity, range and engine power. The same applies to the cockpit.
What is known, however, is that the MG4 will be the first vehicle to be built on the “Nebula” electric platform. This relies on rear-wheel drive and a lithium-ion battery in the vehicle floor; a small thickness of the battery is intended to increase the space inside the vehicle.
In line with the specified acceleration, the compact car appears with a sporty look: sharply positioned LED headlights characterize the tapered front, the taillights extend almost over the entire rear, separating them from the brand logo in the middle. The vehicle is also equipped with alloy wheels and red-painted brake calipers and a panoramic roof. According to a report in the magazine “Auto Motor und Sport”, the 4.30 meter long five-door hatchback is to be launched in Great Britain in the fourth quarter of 2022 as the successor to the MG3. Afterwards, the E model could also celebrate a market launch in the rest of Europe. The price of the MG4 is not yet known.
MG4 has parallels to the VW ID.3
The announced compact car from China could thus compete with the VW ID.3, for example, although Volkswagen China and SAIC Motors have been joint venture partners for several decades. In fact, there are some parallels to the German manufacturer’s first electric car at the time: It is about the same length (4.26 meters) and the battery is installed deep in the vehicle floor, just like the MG4. The compact car also has a hatchback and a panoramic roof. The ID.3 has 204 hp but takes 7.3 to 7.9 seconds (depending on the version) to accelerate from a standstill to a speed of 100 km/h. The VW model is available with a 58 kWh or 77 kWh battery and has a range of up to 550 kilometers. In terms of price, the ID.3 starts at around 38,000 euros.
Also, the MG4 could compete with the Kia Niro EV. Like the ID.3, the all-electric version of the compact model has 204 hp and accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 7.8 seconds. Its 64.8 kWh battery should be able to take it up to a maximum of 460 kilometers. With a length of 4.42 meters, the Kia Niro EV is the longest vehicle among the three models, although it is slightly more expensive than the VW ID.3 at a price of almost 40,000 euros. The market launch is in July.
According to the Chinese portal “Carnewschina”, MG is aiming to expand into the global market this year. 120,000 vehicles are said to have been sold in Europe. In addition, the brand of the largest Chinese car group already introduced the MG5 electric station wagon on the European market and thus also in Germany in March. In addition, the all-electric models ZS EV and Marvel R as well as the plug-in hybrid SUV MG EHS belong to the vehicle range of MG in Germany.
Sources: MG, Carnewschina, Auto Motor und Sport, VW, Kia, ADAC
