MG HS plug-in hybrid: Improve your standard of living at a stroke

A few months ago, you may well recall, our prime minister showed up at the United Nations General Assembly and spaffed on about Kermit the Frog’s song “It’s Not Easy Being Green”. The delegates, from Antigua to Zimbabwe must have been bemused by this diversion, but Boris Johnson’s spin doctors (no doubt inspired by the great raconteur himself) then tried to convince us that he did it as a very smart way to attract attention and discussion about climate change; rather than because he was bored and deep down, regards the UN as a specious talking shop. At least he didn’t get Miss Piggy mixed up with Peppa Pig (a distant cousin, I believe).

In any case, as you know, it was a memorable moment and it did help get Cop26 on the agenda and made us all wonder, if only for a moment, about how easy it might be to go green.

Which brings me naturally enough to the MG HS. As I’ve previously extolled the virtues of the great underrated MG brand, I hope I’d not have to repeat how it’s now nothing to do with Rover, is part of the giant Shanghai Auto group, and is thus the beneficiary of Chinese technological know-how and vast investment. MG can improve the standard of living for your family at a stroke.

The company’s still low-profile range of battery electric-only vehicles (the ZS compact SUV and MG 5 estate) are starting to get noticed and sales are picking up. Indeed the MG ZS was the seventh best-selling car in the UK, greatly boosted by its cheap running costs as a company car. The larger SUV model, the HS, though, is still old school – petrol or plug-in petrol/electric varieties only being available at the moment. No doubt some all-electric option will turn up eventually, but for now the HS variants make a useful real-world point about going green via a plug-in hybrid. Basically, it’s how not to do it, and you might be better placed by switching direct to electric, where you can afford it.

You see, the plug-in hybrid version of the HS offers the opportunity to drive for 32 miles just on battery electric and therefore virtually free power. Some of the electricity is generated on board via regenerative braking and the like, and stored in the battery pack, but that’s a small contribution. Most of the electricity for a fully charged battery has to come from plugging it into your domestic mains overnight (which is how you’re supposed to run electric and part-electric vehicles. Using commercial fast chargers is far more costly). After your 32 “free” miles are up, the petrol engine takes over (in simplified terms).

So using the electric capability of the HS gives you about 150 miles per working week of near “free” fuel. The saving would be about £26 a week in fuel compared to using petrol, and that equates to about £1,300 a year. However the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) variant costs about £10,000 more than the equivalent petrol-only HS, and would thus take about seven years to get payback (coincidentally the same time period as the MG manufacturer’s warranty). A healthy benefit-in-kind income tax discount pushes the payback time down to about four years for a standard rate taxpayer and three years for a higher rate taxpayer, but still… as Kermit said, it’s not easy going green. Also, note, I’ve entirely left out the weight penalty on the PHEV from lugging around all the batteries and the electric motor when it’s just running on fossil fuels.

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There’s the more tangible benefit in the HS PHEV that it accelerates from rest much faster than the petrol-only model, with the powerful electric motor adding some low rev urgency to proceedings; but the extra weight makes it a bit less fun to hustle along the road and makes the automatic PHEV a rather complaintive companion if you put your foot down hard (and no HS can be fairly described as sporty). What either version of the car offers is a very acceptable level of space, comfort and equipment for the price, undercutting smaller models such as the VW T-Roc or Peugeot 3008. The materials and quality of the build and the cabin are pretty much on a par with mainstream rivals, and MG fares relatively well in reliability surveys.

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Chinese cars gained an early reputation for being fragile knock-offs of western machinery, but things are changing very rapidly, as you’d see if you were adventurous enough to try one out. I especially like the simplicity of the controls on the main 10.1-inch touchscreen, though most folk would probably still prefer a couple of switches and knobs for the air con, and the fit and finish was good. The HS has the look and feel of the Mazda CX-30, down to the outsized grille, and I’d be surprised to learn that Shanghai Automotive benchmarked their full-size MG against the (smaller) Mazda CX-30. All HS models have some sort of cruise control and other driving assistance such as collision warnings fitted as standard, and they work well.

There seems to be good deal of Sinophobia around at the moment, and for all I know if you plug your smartphone into an MG HS to most of its “connectivity” then the Politburo in Beijing may be able to get your mum’s phone number, but I somehow doubt whether the concerns about supposed Chinese data harvesting are justified. The MG range of motor cars is a powerful reminder of what international trade can do. They are still despoiling the atmosphere at a depressing rate, but in electric car technology and building value motors, the Chinese are doing something good for the consumer.