MG ZS EV long-term test review: report 6
MG's first electric vehicle is a family SUV with a highly competitive price but a modest range. We're finding out how it stacks up against both other electric cars and conventional rivals...
The car MG ZS EV Run by Allan Muir, managing editor
Why we’re running it To find out whether it’s worth buying an electric SUV primarily because it’s affordable, or whether there are too many compromises
Needs to Be practical, comfortable, decent to drive and cheap to run while fitting into everyday life without too much drama
Mileage 1445 List price £30,995 (before £3000 gov't grant) Target Price £30,995 Price as tested £31,540 Test range 140 miles Official range 163 miles
15 July 2020 – Light infotainment
The fact that the MG ZS’s infotainment system came last out of 20 in our infotainment mega-test earlier this year had prepared me for the worst with my car, and it has lived up to those low expectations. Although the system comes with plenty of features, it’s very sluggish to respond to inputs and the on-screen graphics are fairly basic. The only feature I really cared about was the built-in sat-nav – and that has now stopped working. When I press the navigation icon on the home screen, a message pops up to say it’s loading, but then it always goes back to the home screen.
The solution, I thought, would be to use Android Auto phone integration, which, along with Apple CarPlay, is standard on my car. I never use phone mirroring normally, but I figured the Waze app would give me temporary sat-nav functionality. Guess what? The phone mirroring isn’t working either; the relevant icon on the home screen is completely unresponsive.
A software update is probably all that’s required to get these features working again, when and if I get the chance. At least the radio still works.
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