MG4 Excite 51 Review & 1000km road test: Is It Worth Buying One Of Australia’s Cheapest EVs?

The MG4 Excite 51 is one of the cheapest new EV money can buy, but it’s often recommended that you buy the fancier MG4 Excite 64. What do you get (or not get) when saving money – and how well does it handle a 1,000km road trip on Australia’s regional roads?

The MG4 isn’t a new car in Australia by any stretch of the imagination; I went to the launch of it last year and wrote up when MG announced local pricing.

There’s no shortage of top quality local reviews of the MG4 in its various guises, most of which recommend that you opt for the MG4 Excite 64 or MG4 Essence 64 over the entry level model, the MG4 Excite 51, due to the extra range on the 64 models or the extra features on the Essence models.

Having recently cut prices that make the MG4 Excite 51 one of the cheapest local new EV you can get on an ongoing basis – at the time of writing, so that may not be true by the time you read this – there’s bound to be some increased interest in the many, many folks who seem to consistently cry out that there’s no “affordable” EVs.

Update: I originally had my figures wrong (and I own my mistakes) — the MG4 Excite 51 is low cost by EV standards, but right now the GWM Ora and BYD Dolphin base level models are marginally cheaper — but it’s a fluid market, and there’s often deals to be had.

Actual driveaway prices will vary (as they always do) depending on the state you live in and the dealer costs that get dropped onto new car sales (or skipped during sales), but as a baseline, the MG4 Excite 51 retails at $37,990.

MG4 offered me an Excite 51 for review for a week, so I figured the smartest thing I could do with it – aside from assess what I thought of it as an EV – was to see what kind of limitations you’re accepting if you buy one.

Which meant it was time once again to hit the road for some longer distance road testing, also giving me the opportunity to do a little public charging infrastructure testing.

I should point out at this juncture that I’m a tech journalist who drives, not a motoring journalist. I don’t care at all what kind of time it takes for any car to do 0-100, or how fast it went around a racecourse.

Also to get another should-be-obvious point out of the way, I know there’ll be someone reading this who scoffs and states “I live 1,000km east of Perth, these things are useless” or similar hyperbole.

Sure, maybe you do and this kind of EV isn’t for you, but you are in the minority; the vast majority of Australians live in towns and cities, and most drive less than 50km a day.

That’s covered neatly by just about any EV; my ageing 2016 Leaf is still perfectly fine for everyday city driving for me, for example, and that’s got way less range than the MG4 Excite 51. That’s why I did most of my review testing on a much longer drive, because that’s much more important for assessing the value of a car like this.

But first, some quick thoughts on the design, fit and quality of the MG4 Excite 51.

Design

The MG4 Excite 51 is a lower-cost EV, and it does rather show from the moment you step into it. Compared to vehicles I’ve tested before like the Polestar 2 it’s a significantly simpler machine, but that’s not automatically a bad thing, especially when you consider the price gulf between those two vehicles!

One of my relatives described the MG4 Excite 51 as being the most “car-like” EV they’ve seen me drive, and I reckon that’s a spot-on description.

We’re talking a lot of plastic buttons, normal door handles, standard side windows, just about everything you might expect in a lower-cost fuel hatchback, really.

Not that MG doesn’t throw a few interesting curveballs into the equation, some of which I like, and others I’d have to learn to live with because they weren’t to my taste. It’s always worth remembering that car reviews are often highly subjective like that, no matter who’s writing them.

The dual screen setup of the MG4 Excite 51 is quite nice for the price, with a 7 inch screen displaying prominent driving information – speed, charge and so on – in front of the steering wheel – and then a larger 10.25 inch touchscreen to the left for more interactive controls.

One very welcome touch here is that there’s a rack of standard buttons underneath the secondary display for standard adjustments like volume. I like that a lot, because touchscreen buttons can shift depending on the user interface, but muscle memory can make it easy to make adjustments if you know where a physical button happens to be.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of the slightly odd way that MG lays out the gear dial and space between the passenger seats, though. There’s a weird shelf that the gear shifting dial sits on, and then a huge gap down to the coffee cup holders, which sit a lot lower than I’d ideally like.

Typically I want to put the car into gear – drive or reverse – but I don’t need fast access to it on the go save for three point turns, so the layout here feels a little less than optimal.

Spacing in the car is reasonable, though it’s a touch barebones in layout terms in the back seats, with no back seat pockets and a single USB port for charging gadgets. The boot is likewise a simple affair, though it’s a nice touch that MG includes a tyre repair kit beneath the boot.

All up, it’s a simple but mostly efficient design. I’ll save my other observations for my road trip writeup below, because some of them only really became apparent after some hours of driving.

Road Trip Time:
Sydney To Wagga Wagga (And Back Again)

MG’s official line for the MG4 Excite 51 is that it’s capable of up to 350km of driving on a single charge. Having topped up its power after getting hold of it, that’s pretty much exactly what the car wanted to tell me it could do, too.

However, as with all cars – not just EVs – those kinds of range estimations have a lot of flexibility built into them. Drive them in cities with lots of stop-start regenerative driving, and it’s feasible. Hit the highways at speed, climb lots of hills or drive in colder conditions, and it’s far less likely.

So to test this out, I decided to take a road trip from Sydney to Wagga Wagga and back. That’s not an unfamiliar trip for me to make, and it’s one I’ve done in other EVs, notably a Tesla Model 3 that has more real world range than the MG4 Excite 51 does.

As such, a little preparation was vital, so I checked what both Plugshare and ABRP suggested for the car and its likely range. Both offered different alternatives, but it appeared clear I’d have to make two stops minimum to cover the roughly 480km needed to get there.

Yes, the WLTP 350km range might suggest one stop would be enough, but not realistically at the kind of highway speeds I wanted to hit as much as possible. Again, I’m a functional driver; I want to be at point B, not spend extra hours on some of the dullest roads in Australia getting there per se.

I set out with a fully charged car that estimated that 350km range was possible, but as always I paid far more attention to the battery percentage meter. That’s the smart way to drive any EV these days, because tracking it carefully gives you far more options when it comes time to decide where to top the car up.

So one Friday afternoon after my co-driver had finished work, we set off. Two small MG4 Excite 51 annoyances (I don’t know if these are just for this model, or across the range, though it seems universal) before I set off.

Firstly, I wanted to drive in Eco mode, because I don’t need sporty performance to speak of, but the MG4  Excite 51 does not save your driving settings between trips, reverting to Normal mode every time. A “save my settings” UI button would be a godsend here, MG!

The MG4 Excite 51 also supports one-pedal driving, which I love, but again it won’t save that setting between drives… or let you use it at all if the car has more than 90% battery. I get that it’s useful for battery regen, but it’s also a nice stress-free way to drive, period, and it would have been super useful for the early part of my drive, going through thick Friday afternoon Sydney traffic. Having since tested it in Sydney traffic later on, it works very well just as an ease-of-driving tool, let alone one that makes it easier to maximise your economical use of power.

Is there anything more exciting than getting stuck in Sydney rush hour traffic?
How about everything. Everything else possible is more exciting than that, especially when you’re paying toll road prices.

I can’t blame MG for Sydney traffic (and I do wish Sydney had far better public transport more than more roads, but I digress), but being able to engage one pedal mode all the time would be a blessing. Anyway, while progress was much slower than I’d like thanks to snarls on the M7 (and I think an accident?), I eventually made it to my first stop.

Stop One: BP Marulan: Testing Patience

Charging Cost: $12.21
Charge: 18.78kWh
Charging Time: 49 minutes

My charging choices for the first stop revolved around Sutton Forest, Marulan or Goulburn at a maybe-stretch, bearing in mind that I wasn’t entirely au fait with how the MG4 would handle being at highway speeds much of the time.

The glacial crawl I’d done along the M7 hadn’t helped my time (or my mood, if I’m honest), but it would have helped conserve power, because there was a lot of regenerative braking action. Once I was past the M7, I was hitting an easy 100-110kph, though, which is where the power does start to get eaten up.

The BP charger at Marulan is one I’ve used for a number of trips before, like my run earlier this year between Sydney and Adelaide, and it appealed to me because I knew I could stop and charge and eat at the same time, which is always a nicely time efficient way to handle matters.

That worked for the food… but much less so for the charging. I had some concerns about the slightly slower maximum charging rate of the MG4 Excite 51, but what actually betrayed me here… was the charger.

By specification, the charger at Marulan should be capable of 75kW charging, but the absolute peak power I could get out of it was… 22kW.

Which is not fast, and I didn’t much care while I was eating, but it was problematic and slow once I’d finished, especially as it slowed even more from there.

It was already getting late, and I figured I was better off taking a “bird in the hand” approach here, so I stuck it out to get enough charge to get to my next charging stop with some overage to help, but that took a lot longer than I would have liked.

There’s clearly something wrong with this charger at the moment too. It’s dual CCS2/Chademo, but about three minutes after I started charging, the Chademo side (which I wasn’t using, but could have in my Leaf) decided it was broken. No Leafs turned up while I was charging, but this is clearly a charging unit in need of some TLC.

MG4 Excite 51 stop observation: There’s something about stopping at an EV charger that still draws attention, good and bad. I was there for a while and saw the full gamut, from some appreciative stares to the moron in the ute who decided he’d stop right in front of the car and rev noisly a half dozen times to get my attention.

My only thought there was that he was wasting a lot of petrol and creating a lot of noise pollution. There’s always someone…

Stop Two: Tesla Yass: Speedy but pricey

Charging Cost: $17.16
Charge: 22kWh
Charging Time: 25 minutes

I had previously used the Yass Tesla chargers on my last trip to Adelaide, but that was in an actual Tesla; this would be my first run at an “open” Tesla charger in a non-Tesla vehicle, so I was keen to see how well this was going to work. Because having a plan B in place is always a good idea, I had maybe-enough charge to get to Gundagai if Yass wasn’t going to play ball.

Play ball it did, and while it’s quite spooky to be in a carpark drenched only in the blood red lights of the updated Tesla chargers late at night, it was very simple to get the MG4 Excite 51 talking to the Tesla chargers and taking on power at much faster rates than BP offered back at Marulan. That late at night there wasn’t much else to do in Yass, mind you but ponder on how the red lighting makes it seem like you’re about to be attacked by vampires. Maybe that’s just me, mind.

You do pay a premium for Tesla chargers in a third party vehicle – even if you do own a Tesla – but I can’t say I wasn’t happy to get a decent and fast charge here, especially as it was getting very late indeed.

MG4 Excite 51 stop observation: The MG4’s automatic lights are very light sensitive, dropping down if there’s any hint you might be blinding other drivers.

I appreciate that – when driving, always obey Wheaton’s Law – but it did create an effect in the night that was highly reminiscent of early 3D computer game graphics, where the draw distance in racing games would struggle to keep up with the action, because visibility would dip in and out. Not in a dangerous way, to be clear, I could always see where I was going just fine – but just in an amusingly reminiscent way.

The charge at Yass was enough to get to Wagga, and it even left enough for me to drive around that fine regional city taking in Parkrun, visiting relatives and eating some very fine food.

However, reality and the pressures of work – not to mention the fact that MG wanted its car back at some point – meant that I had to make the return journey at some point, which was going to be on Sunday. Before then, I had to charge.

Stop Three: NRMA/Chargefox Wagga Wagga:
It costs… how much?

Charging Cost: ~$27.39… or… nothing?
Charge: 41.5kWh
Charging Time: 73 minutes

I had two choices at Wagga Wagga for charging, with a larger bank of open Tesla chargers or an NRMA charger I hadn’t used since before the company stopped making its EV chargers free.

I get why it charges money for them… though I hit a very odd situation here when actually charging at the Cross St carpark. The NRMA charger suited me because I could plug in, check in on Plugshare and then go get dinner, noting when the MG4 figured it would be full and ensuring I’d be back before then. Again, good EV etiquette costs nothing.

Also, as I’ve noted previously, I think Elon Musk is a berk, and I’d rather avoid adding to his bank balance where feasible. So off to the NRMA charger it was.

First I had to get it started. The NRMA app refuses to let me register on it – many years ago I was an NRMA customer, but a particularly bitter and terrible insurance situation with them involving trees means I won’t use them that way any more – with the only way to fix this, according to the NRMA app being to call them. It was after hours and I didn’t fancy fighting a call centre anyway, but there should be a simpler fix.

NRMA sites are also (as far as I’m aware) all covered now by Chargefox (due to an ownership stake there, it’s complicated) and I have an RFID card registered with Chargefox. One tap and I should be ready to roll, right?

Not quite… it took about a half dozen taps, tries, plugging in and out and in again and so on before the power started to flow.

Eventually it did start charging, so I locked the car and headed off for some tasty vittles, returning an hour later to a 94% charged car, which I figured was enough.

I stopped charging, returned the plug to the station, and waited for the Chargefox invoice to arrive in my inbox.

A few days later… and I’m still waiting. Other charges have come in – it’s typically near instantaneous, honestly — and I know how much charge I got, and what it should be worth at non-member rates.

I’m more than willing to cover that cost if anyone from Chargefox wants to get in touch. This isn’t the first time I’ve had odd charging like this, but I promise I don’t seek it out!

MG4 Stop Observation: OK, this isn’t one that relates to that charging observation, but instead one from driving around Wagga, and especially when reversing.

The MG4 Excite 51 (and Excite 51) only has a reversing camera, but it does also measure distance and beep A LOT when you’re going backwards if it thinks there’s an obstacle in the way.

Not so for the front of the car at all – not that I bumped into anything – but the slightly pricier Essence model does include a full 360 degree camera setup. I do like that on my Leaf, so I can see the appeal in the upsell there.

Stop Three: Chargefox Gundagai: Getting Easier

Charging Cost: $6.61
Charge: 11.02kWh
Charging Time: 15 minutes

Return journey time! This was daylight hours, and I already knew I had to make it a two-stop journey – it was just a question of where I wanted to stop.

Yass would work, but it would cost more and again, sigh, Musk… so I opted for a very short stop in Gundagai instead.

I was honestly curious to see how Gundagai was going, because literally every other time I’d been through there (charging a model 3), the Chargefox chargers out the back always seemed to be out of order.

Gundagai seems to have the reputation for problems, and I figured I might as well take a quick sample of how well (or poorly) it was running on the way. If everything was failing, Yass was within striking distance anyway.

While I think Gundagai still has the same physical units, they’ve moved around the front of the Olivers location at Gundagai since the last time I was there… and two of them were working, and working well too!

I barely had enough time to take in the gigantic hollowed out Koala…

No, I don’t have any idea why either.

Or discover a random Anakin Skywalker card on the ground…

I guess he’s used to being left behind. What… too soon?

Before it was time to hit the road again.

MG4 observation: Because this was daylight hours, I could safely and legally use and test out the MG4  Excite 51’s adaptive cruise control.

I wasn’t expecting much, because this is a cheaper EV… but I was genuinely impressed with how well it kept speeds even going downhill, and how sensibly and well it kept distance from cars in front of me.

Cruise control is a great way to maximise EV distance, because it’ll typically manage speeds more reliably than your right foot will, but it’s also a way to make these long and dull road trips a lot easier.

Stop Four: NRMA/Chargefox Goulburn: Getting Harder, Getting Helpful

Charging Cost: $24.40
Charge: 40.67kWh
Charging Time: 64 minutes

On reflection, I maybe should have waited a little longer at Gundagai – I didn’t charge there to 100% or anything like that – because the guestimator for distance didn’t leave a lot flexibility when it came to the next charging stop.

Getting into Goulburn I was sitting on 10% battery, which is a state I like to refer to as “buttock clenching”… but there is a set of three Chargefox chargers at a servo on one edge of town, two ultrafast and one fast charger. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast… literally. Plugshare noted that there was a “problem” with one station, but not which plug it was. When I arrived all three were empty, so I lined up at one of the ultrafast chargers, aware that I’d pay a little more for speeds I wouldn’t entirely be able to appreciate, but at this point I just wanted to get home.

Five minutes of trying both app and RFID card, and nothing was working at all. The two ultrafast chargers are apparently part of the same “site” here, so I figured that the unit must be entirely borked, and so I sighed and reversed up, beeping heavily to the slower-but-cheaper 50kW charger.

Unlike the NRMA charger in Wagga this worked first time off the RFID card – and invoiced me as soon as I’d finished – but it wasn’t particularly quick.

Then another car – in this case an MG4 64 Essence turned up. I noted to the driver that I’d had no luck with the first station at all, so he lined up with the second one… and hit problems.

I got out to help, and with a lot of app trying, and replugging it eventually did start charging… and of course at faster rates than I was getting.

Sigh. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess, but actually this driver was on only his second ever EV drive, so I was happier to just help out and discuss the differences in charge rates, what the Chademo plug was there for on the charger and so on. It’s always a good thing when you can help people out, and it gave me something to do while I waited for the MG4 Excite 51 to charge.

MG4 Excite 51 observation: More on the charging/guessometer front, because here again the MG4 impressed me in a way I wasn’t expecting. Guessometers are always adaptive to the circumstances, which is why it’s smarter to use your battery percentage as a range/recharge estimator, but the MG4’s user interface always shows you both anyway.

Leaving Gundagai I’d given myself a 50km additional distance buffer – enough in theory to get to (sigh) Marulan – but the MG4 wasn’t insisting its near full charge was 350km any more. I did lose a fair chunk of that 50km extra buffer going up hills, heading into Goulburn with about 25km of range left, but it was pleasing to see it adapt so quickly to give me a better and more accurate picture of possible range.

From there, once the charging was done, it was a fairly simple two and a bit hour drive home, entirely down to the speeds one can both legally do on those roads and the increasing traffic that you always get heading into Sydney. Had there been a charging problem en route, there’s more than a few faster chargers in Western Sydney I could have used, but I didn’t need to.

What’s more, the 50km buffer I’d given myself ended up as a near 100km buffer by the time I got home, helped a lot by the fact that the run from Goulburn to Sydney is mostly downhill. All that free energy adds up!

MG4 Excite 51: Alex’s Verdict

Having now driven it over 1,000km in total, I can see why the MG4 gets the plaudits it does. While there are interior design choices I don’t love, and the fact that it excludes GPS on the cheaper models befuddles me, it’s otherwise a nicely equipped car that mostly lives up to its promises. There’s some UI oddities too, though those might be across the entire range from what I can see.

The charging issues I had on my road test trip are in no way MG’s fault; that’s down to the way that Australia’s EV charging infrastructure is being rolled out and especially how it’s being maintained.

There’s no question that more chargers would be nice, but it’s also quite vital to ensure that the chargers that exist are properly maintained to allow the best possible charging experiences. As much as I might dislike Mr Musk, I can’t deny that the best charging experience I had hands-down over the weekend was at the Tesla chargers in Yass.

But is the MG4 Excite 51 the model you should buy? I can see the sense in spending the extra on the MG4 Excite 64 — $4,000 more at the time of writing – for its additional range if you do a lot of longer road trips, because that extra range can be quite nice.

Equally if your budget can stand it, the Essence model has some nice goodies; while helping out the other driver at Goulburn understand the interface I got to appreciate some of them and the differences there, even if only for a few minutes.

But if your budget goes to the MG4 Excite 51 and no further, it’s not a disappointing car, or one that you can’t take for longer road trips. It just takes a little planning and patience, but that’s true for any EV journey in Australia right now.

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