My 2021 MG ZS EV review after 5 months of ownership

My dad being a sedate driver, manages to get around 390-410 km of range on a single charge.

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This is a 2021 MG ZS EV and it’s one of the better EVs you can buy here in India. It has a 44.5 kWh battery of which 40 kWh is useable. It starts around Rs 21 Lakh and goes up to around Rs 24.5 lakh and today I’m going to document my 5-month long experience with it.

Before I get started be sure to check out... oh wait, I don’t have anything to add here. Anyway,

Back to the ZS EV. First a little overview. This car starts at Rs 20.88 Lakh but that’s before government incentives. In states with subsidies based on battery capacity, you’ll probably be able to shave off around a lakh and a half off its ex-showroom price. In some other states, the only exemption you’ll get will be in terms of Zero Road Tax (as in my case, Telangana) and that makes the ZS EV pretty comparable to similarly equipped versions of the Hyundai Creta and Kia Seltos.

The ZS EV comes in two configurations. The base Excite (shown here) or the higher end 'Exclusive' where you gain things like a panoramic sunroof, roof rails, connected car smarts, leather seats and a few other small comforts.

First I’ll take you on a tour of the ZS EV and show you all of the quirks and features, then I’m gonna get it out on the road and drive it and then I’ll give it a DougScore (kidding).

Alright, I’m gonna start with the quirks and features of the ZS EV and that means starting with the interior which looks pretty nice. You’ve got a generous dose of soft-touch material in here which covers the top of the dashboard, the armrests on the doors, the centre console and also where you rest your knees (although the Astor has a wee bit more) and the quality overall is pretty good. You’ve also got some faux brushed aluminium trim here along with some glossy black plastic (piano black if you will) which has become a pain to keep clean.

Once you spend more time here, you’ll also find that this car shares a lot of things with the VW group because VW and MG are partners in China. For example, the analogue dials (that I honestly prefer) and turbine-like AC vents are straight out of an Audi A3. The window switches and the steering mounted controls are out of the Jetta. What do you do about it? It feels nice but the real reason is to (chuckle) brag about it. (Yeah, it’s an “Audi part”. Yeah that too)

There are a few more things worth mentioning though which includes the lack of Automatic climate control. Not a big deal for us given we barely use the AC. But MG seems to have made up for it (sarcasm) by covering the seat belt buckles with some nice felt so your hands don’t have to touch some kind of cheap crappy plastic which is mandated by regulation (The only time I’ve heard Doug mention something like this was in his video about the Lagonda Taraf. No leather here, but still good attention to detail). An interesting place where they’ve skimped on quality however is the top of the dashboard where you can see that they’ve cut out a little bit of soft-touch material on the passenger’s side which would have saved them like 100 bucks per car but that’s what they chose to do.

Back to the good stuff, I particularly like the toggle like switches for the Drive modes and KERS selector. There is a third toggle marked “Battery” that just flashes your DTE on the MID. I also dig the sliding opening for the cubbyholes and the nice knurled knob for the gear selector. Next to the gear selector, you will find the buttons for the electronic parking brake and the Auto-Hold feature. The door pockets are also nice and big and there are two slots for cards on the right side of the dashboard.

There are a couple of un-nice things too like the flimsy latch for the tiny glovebox and the jaunty rearview mirror but those are few and far between. Something that particularly irks me is that MG has intentionally removed the feature to gauge the Battery % in the Excite version. It only shows Distance To Empty. However, you can calculate the percentage by dividing the MID indicated range by 3.2 as it does not adapt to the driver’s style and always shows 320 after a full charge in Normal with AC off.

Next up, is the infotainment screen. The 8-inch screen is shared between the Excite and the Exclusive but the software is what separates them. As mentioned before, the Exclusive gets connected car tech and generally looks a little nicer while the Excite gets previous-gen software which was in the ZS EV sold in the UK too. But, it has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto (both wired but Exclusive gets wireless I believe) so who cares? The touch response is pretty good though. My one pet peeve would be the buttons below the screen. You can’t just press them and take your hand off but instead, you have to wait for about half a second till it registers.

The back seat is pretty roomy but you sit little knees up in here owing to the high floor to accommodate the Battery. Comfort is generally pretty good with the same amount of soft-touch material as the front and while you don’t get any AC vents in the back, you do get a USB port and a pocket beneath it. You also get two adjustable rear headrests and a 3 point seatbelt for the middle passenger too but you do miss out on an armrest. Door pockets are reasonably large as on the front.

Once you get to the back, you quickly realise the Boot release is integrated into the MG logo (à la VW) and once you pop it open, you realise it’s fairly large with 470 Litres of room here. Nothing interesting here apart from the height-adjustable load floor and the nets on the side to keep stuff from rolling around. There is also a space-saver spare tyre underneath the boot floor.

But anyway, moving to the exterior, let’s talk lighting. There is nothing interesting here given they’re halogens but you really should be getting LEDs given the price. Thankfully, the Facelift corrects this. The halogens are bright enough though. One odd oversight is that while the stalks suggest that it has front fog lights, it doesn’t. It has them only in the rear which is integrated into the bumper.

Next up, let’s talk styling. Now while I think it looks fine, it definitely does not shout EV (apart from the green number plate and those “electric” badges on the side) or FUTURE in any way. In fact, to me, the design is already showing its age a little given that you’re looking at something that came out in 2017. Now, don’t get me wrong, it isn’t ugly. It definitely looks better than the overstyled mess of the Creta to me (sorry Creta fans for that’s just my opinion). It’s just that it has flowing lines and curves and a low front end giving it a crossover-esque appeal- weird given that it is longer, wider and taller than others in the mid-size SUV segment. Overall, I’d describe the design as calm and that’s not a bad thing.

And finally, we’re going to move up to the front of the ZS EV and you’ll notice that the charge port is located in the grille which IMHO is bad by design. Apart from saying “Look ma! No fuel filler lid!” what purpose does it serve? To give you an example, we usually park the car with the rear-facing the wall because it is a little too cumbersome to park it the other way round in our society which has a narrow road. And when you do try to park it the other way round, you basically have a huge part of the car protruding. The Nexon EV is much better in this regard. Basically, my question is Why try and fix something that isn’t broken?

Once you open the bonnet, you (sadly) won’t find an extra storage compartment here. But what you will find here is a lot of wasted space. I’m serious. With better packaging, I’m pretty sure they could have made this a sub-4-metre car considering that it has a really long front overhang. But that’s one of the demerits of basically retrofitting an electric powertrain into an ICE car. Anyway, the motor here makes 143 HP and 350 NM on torque which sends the car from 0 to 100 kph in a claimed 8.53 seconds. But I will add that Evo India managed a 7.9-second dash. The top speed is limited to 140 kph.

And so those are the quirks and features of the 2021 MG ZS EV. Now it’s time to get it out on the road and see how it drives.

Alright, driving the ZS EV! I have to say, the first thing you notice here is the sound or rather the lack of it. Everything is so quiet in here. No engine noise, no wind noise, no tyre noise it’s actually pretty nice. That’s the biggest thing you’ll appreciate in town. When you go around at higher speeds, you will hear a small whine from the motor but that’s not to take away from the calmness here and that’s also in part thanks to the dearth of vibrations.

Also, something that many people want to know about is range. Now, this car is mostly driven by my dad who drives like there is a landmine under his foot. In our previous 2012 i20, I have not seen him go over 2000 rpm more than 7-8 times and he did 40 in 4th. The range he gets is around 390-410 km on one charge but that shouldn’t be much of a surprise given that he used to get 20 km/l in the city! When it comes to my driving, from my limited time behind the wheel, you should be able to extrapolate around 330-340 km of range.

The follow-up question to this is charging. This car supports a peak charging rate of 50 kW at which it takes 40 minutes to fill up. You’ll need around 70-80 minutes to do the same in the more common 25 kW charging stations. I haven’t noticed any slowing down of charging rates as the battery fills up though. If you still aren’t convinced, you can read this post about the time when we went on a 1000 km road trip with this car.

When you charge at home, you can use either a wall-box charger that comes free of cost (for which you will have to upgrade your connection to an 8 kW one) which takes 6-8 hours to charge from 0-100% or from a regular 15A socket which will take you 15-16 hours.

Driving dynamics are good but not great. The lower centre of gravity certainly helps but it still is a softly sprung SUV and you can feel that the way it filters out bumps at lower speeds so well. Up the pace and there’s a bit of vertical movement. A corner loving Kushaq this car is not.

The other big thing is economics. If you’re looking to buy an EV for cost, you have to do a bit of homework. The ZS EV Excite costs around 2L more than a comparable Creta On Road (Cost us 22L). But, based on our running, we’ll hit a break-even point in 4 years after purchase after which, given the current rates of Petrol, we’ll be saving around 4500 a month. Monthly running costs stand at around 250-300 INR per month (Dirt cheap, I know!) and service costs too will be minimal. Battery replacement as of now costs around 8L but they also offer an 8 year 1,60,000 Km warranty on it.

I love one-pedal driving. It feels so natural once you get used to it and believe me, you wouldn’t want to switch back. You can always alter it to your liking though.

Now it’s time for some fun. Floor it and woohoo…. (giggles) It’s pretty quick. It’s not the 0-100 but more like the 0-40, that’s fun. ICEs will never be able to top EVs in this regard. That maximum torque from “0 RPM” is addicting. Worth noting, it can’t really sustain this push-back on your seat for a very long but still, it quick car. Also worth noting is that repeated launches will drain the battery pretty quickly and so will driving uphill. Aren’t you glad regen is a thing? But what I will say is that ICEs (especially Turbos) still have more character. You don’t really get the feeling of having to work a little for the power (punchy midrange) and as a result, an EV can feel less rewarding.

And so that’s the MG ZS EV. The EV market has been on fire lately with the announcement of many new cars that will make their way here soon. The ZS EV will sure have to work hard to keep its crown in the future. And with that said, it would be time to give the MG ZS EV a DougScore except I’m not Doug DeMuro so this is all we have.

Note: The format for this post was based on Doug DeMuro’s videos. Also, please excuse me if you find a few things that I have specifically called out as “unique features” in other cars as well for I have never driven anything apart from this and our 10-year-old i20.

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