Published:
4 December 2020Having begun by acquiring the rights to MG Rover’s old 25, 45 and 75 model platforms more than a decade ago, the current owner of the MG brand, SAIC, has given us a mix of cars since MG Motor UK set up shop in 2011 – but most of them have been based on model platforms either adapted from those old MG Rover ‘floorplans’ or created afresh.
The first reason that the MG 5 SW EV is different is because it is sold in China not as an MG but under the other Chinese-market brand established in the wake of the Far Eastern takeover of MG Rover all those years ago: Roewe. And so what is a 5 SW EV to UK buyers has been known elsewhere as the Roewe Ei5.
The car is built on a licensed General Motors Delta II platform (which also underpins Chinese-market Chevrolets as part of a Chinese joint venture, as well as the current Vauxhall Astra) in a factory in Zhengzhou, while export-bound MGs are built on different underpinnings elsewhere. That platform endows the car with all-steel underbody construction and pretty conventional suspension consisting of struts up front and a torsion beam at the rear.
MG Motor’s UK technical centre hasn’t just taken the Chinese Roewe and stuck new badges on it, though. Work has been done to improve and refine the car’s ride and handling for UK roads and a new electric motor has boosted power by 40% to 154bhp, enough to shade what you might get in an equivalent electric Nissan, Peugeot, Renault or Hyundai.
