MG 5 long-term test: report 5
The MG 5 is one of the cheapest electric cars on sale, and the only electric estate, but is it any good? We're living with one to find out...
The car MG 5 EV Exclusive Long Range Run by Kiall Garrett, senior videographer
Why it’s here To see whether an electric estate car can support the practicality needs of What Car?’s videographer while getting him around the country with relative ease
Needs to be Spacious, have enough range to travel to far-flung film shoots, and be comfortable to drive
Mileage 8032 List price £31,995 Target Price £31,679 Price as tested £30,495 Test range 167 miles Official range 250 miles
11 August 2022 – Efficient pit stops
Let me give you a little insight into my long-distance journey planning with my MG 5.
You see, in one of our recent video shoots, we were drag racing the new Kia EV6 GT against the Audi RS3.
Funnily enough, my 153bhp MG 5 wasn’t invited to be part of the test. But because I was filming it all, I had to drive it up to the filming location – a 110-mile journey from my front door.
That is extremely comfortable for the MG 5’s 250-mile official range, but as I’ve mentioned in previous reports, I’m unable to leave my flat with a full battery, because I can’t charge at home. Still, with 75% of capacity, my range indicator was telling me I had 200 miles. Easy.
I couldn’t, though, charge at my destination. So I could do one massive charge on the way back, or break it up into two smaller ones.
After being on the road for about 60 miles, I was down to 40% and pulled in to a 120kW Gridserve charger I’d spotted beforehand on the incredibly useful Zap-Map app to top up the battery to 90%. This took just under half an hour and, to be fair, I was going to stop for breakfast anyway.
This meant I arrived at the location with the same amount of charge as when I left my flat, with no real inconvenience to my two-and-a-half-hour journey.
And the trip home? Well after a long day, I was planning to stop to scoff down a service-station dinner regardless of whether I needed to charge or not. The pain this time, though, was the fact that the two chargers were busy when I arrived. This meant I had to wait 20 minutes before I was able to start my charge.
Still, even though I can’t charge at home, I’ve found on those longer journeys that charging the MG 5 doesn't interfere too much with my travel time, as long as I take on relatively small amounts while I’d be taking a break anyway. Little and often, then, seems to be the way to go.
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