MG has beaten rivals to the punch - Auto Express

What a brilliant write up! I'm off to buy a copy for my MG history folder.

I couldn't see it in the Current mag, new one out on Wednesday......
 
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It seems to me that some people are writing off the MG brand saying that our beloved car or brand will die against the competition; I have to say that I disagree and I feel the sales figures underpin this as MG is the fastest growing brand as people don’t have bottomless pits and need value for money ? even more so now with the new virus we are living with.....
 
Seems to me that MG are where Kia / Hyundai were 25 years ago, and look how they’ve come on. The better MG do the better the resale of our cars when the time comes.
 
I've just ordered a black MG ZS EV hoping for delivery September 1st. I chose this car over a Mercedes A200 amg executive, BMW gran coupe 2 and an Audi Q2.

The ZS EV is a budget SUV but its fully electric, decent range and affordable. That means more to me than a badge.

If I had bought a luxury brand it would have cost me £1000 in fuel per 10,000 miles. It seemed pragmatic to cut that bill down to £300 of electric. And for an added bonus I've just found out about free local 50 kw chargers.

I think the value of ICE cars will plummet over the next 5 years.
 
I'm sure you are right Lee. Welcome to the future.

IMO EV's are the future without any doubt. I am often surprised at the attitude of some of my Petrol Head Chums and others in the car trade who are still very anti-EV.
 
I've just ordered a black MG ZS EV hoping for delivery September 1st. I chose this car over a Mercedes A200 amg executive, BMW gran coupe 2 and an Audi Q2.

The ZS EV is a budget SUV but its fully electric, decent range and affordable. That means more to me than a badge.

If I had bought a luxury brand it would have cost me £1000 in fuel per 10,000 miles. It seemed pragmatic to cut that bill down to £300 of electric. And for an added bonus I've just found out about free local 50 kw chargers.

I think the value of ICE cars will plummet over the next 5 years.
Good for you Lee, you’ve made a sound decision. I used to drive a Volvo XC90 and don’t get me wrong what a fabulous car, but I’m really happy with my black EV and the money I’m saving on fuel is ridiculous, I do about 15000 miles a year, it’s the best decision I ever made and I won’t look back.
 
Cheers Chrispydoc and thanks its nice to be here. I've been trawling the web looking for articles, youtube reviews and MG EV discussion. Which naturally led me to these forums.

I decided to order because I had a great test drive and was also impressed by MG responding quickly to criticism regarding bongs, start up time etc.

I think even petrol heads will come around soon with Teslas being desirable with 0-60 in 2.4s and 300+ mile range. Back to reality and I was impressed by the torque of the MG especially considering its size, it felt fun. The world is charging rapidly it seems. (I will get my coat.) I predict in 5 years time EVs will be ubiquitous and in ten years driving and car ownership will be outdated concepts.

Thanks Mark, your comment is reassuring.
 
My BMW 5Series GT is going in part-ex against an MG EV unfortunately on attempting to reserve my number plate on-line to swap from the BM to the MG the DVLA refused to co operate and insisted on the snail mail route. My car is at the dealers reserved and the DVLA are holding up the transaction. Happy days. ?
 
Hi Folks,
Playing Devils advocate please allow me to counter balance the discussion.
Yes MG sales have gone up very much so. Say about 650 MG we're sold in Dec 19 and 1300 sold Jan 2020, that will give a 100% rise in sales, thanks to the ZS EV. This is indeed excellent news for MG UK.
But even if over 1000 MG's continues to be sold monthly in the UK, these are just good individual percentage increases in MG sales but no significant dent in the overall market share of about 2.3 to 2.4 million cars sold yearly in the UK so let's not get carried away.
There is not so much good news for MG in Europe, USA, China and the rest of the world.
Even in the UK to date there are more new Porches sold in UK than there are MG's and so far as used cars are concerned the situation is even worse.
Not all MGs models are doing well but...
Yes MG ZS EV has done extremely well. Far better than most expected...... but this is nowhere near Liecester winning the Premier League sort of thing. This is more like Accrington Stanley beating a League 1 club in the FA Cup sort of action.
So let's not get carried away. Let's just enough our moment in the lime light.
 
Have you looked at more recent sales figures? It’s still happening. The only manufacturers reporting increased UK sales since March are Tesla and MG. ZS EV is the third best selling BEV after Tesla 3 and Leaf (can’t find source right now).
MG market share is ahead of Mitsubishi I think.
I’m not saying there ‘made it’ but that sort of momentum is promising.
 
Few points)
1. MG has registered/sold 4000 cars over June and July. The ev and hs are responsible for 3,500 sales over the year.

2. Only MG and Tesla have been showing growth in these crazy times. I imagine when we have a covid vaccine and things return to normal, sales will double again.

3. Accrington Stanley? Who are they?
 
I think Stanley Accrington was a footballer....back when the crowd used to wear flat caps.

But I could be wrong.;)
 
MG are doing well.
In fact very very well so far as ZS EV is concerned.
I have not looked at the MG Hector figures yet so I cannot say how well the Hector is doing.
Overall, MG is about 31st or 30th in New car sales.
Over the recent Covid period the MG dealerships inflated their figures heavily by pre-registrations so there is now a large lump of pre- reg ZS EVs and few ICE MG's in the system if you know where to look. This may explain why it seems the Hector is doing well and the MGs are also relatively cheaper at sale price than anyone paid for them before Feb this year although their list price remains the same.
In real sales terms, MG may just have gone past Porsche over last few months. But in UK on the whole, MG is still a million miles away from Ford in total sales.
Number 1 is Ford even though the Mach eMustang has barely touched the market. May be the eMustang will be snookered by the Tesla Model 3 as apart from range the Tesla is said to be more value for money.
There is however no way MG will overtake Ford in car sales as a whole this year irrespective of low eMustang and high ZS EV sales.
Even Tesla will struggle.
In Eupore the eZoe is King amongst EV sales but this same eZoe is said to be one of the worse performing cars in Australia.
Just some Covid Madness or something else. It is not clear and a bit difficult to actually understand what is happening with car sales as subsidies/ grants have completely changed buying habits.
So yes MG are doing well. Their sales have gone from hundreds to thousands.
But there is Ford whose norm is Tens of thousands despite a recent reduction by a few thousands.
I have not got the very latest SMMT figures after Q2 but I have seen the projections after Q1. I am sure if anyone has Q2 figures and I am wrong they will let us all know.
To understand the Gulf between MG and Ford in UK terms you can check SMMT data for yourself. It is freely available on the Web.
In simple terms for last ten years Ford has been always at the every top or near the top of the best new car sales.
MG has struggled to achieve 20K unit sales while Ford makes 200K in easy stride.
Maybe this year MG will go much above 20K and Ford will fall below 200K but please MG funs do not be dancing on roof tops yet. Covid, Brexit and energy and fuel cost may yet deal up another cruel hand.
Well.... Accrington Stanley is a football club in the EFL. They like MG have a stellar history but the ordinary man on the street today is unlikely to have heard about them because they are nowhere near the big clubs at present.
Unfortunate for MG but some may even say in new car sales terms, AC are doing better in the EFL than MG in SMMT Data.
 
How many different models do Ford manufacture? You’re comparing Barcelona to Accrington Stanley to make your argument look good.
 
@GordieG
That is the issue.
Yes MG are doing well but they are miles behind the big companies and short changing their customers on Tech is not the way to catch up.
As a MG customer I have chosen to compromise on Tech for Price if it really represents value for money. But looking at issues in more significant detail, I feel there may be trouble ahead as our beloved ZS EV becomes completely outdated in 3 to 5 years time. The low range, lack of Internet connectivity and basic level in-car charging software in the EU/UK model means it will just not be able to compete in both the new and used European markets.
Today the ZS EV may have hit a sweet spot because of Covid, price and availability but as things settle into a difficult post Covid period, affordable, true value for money will come to the fore with no grants or subsidies to skew things up. We will then enter a phase similar to that in China today were people will not buy a MG but save for years and queue to buy a Tesla or some other brand such as a BYD.
Ask yourself.... ... Are MG dominating in their Chinese homeland auto market? Are MG overflowing their ancestrial British Home market? If not why?
You asked about Ford models.
OK just take a look at one Ford model the Focus on SMMT data.
In the UK, Ford sells more of that one model in a year than MG does of all MG models combined.
 
It was interesting that SAIC were initially targeting this brand primarily at right hand drive markets (UK, India, Thailand) and are now releasing left hand drive models (outside of China) to Norway, Germany and Netherlands. You can’t magic up the years of numbers that a Ford or Toyota have, but what you can do is be insurgent in a market area where you have little completion. MG has the cheapest electric SUV on the market (good enough to be considered a family car outside of the US/Canada, where it would be considered a “small” SUV) and they will soon be bringing the MG5 to market the only fully electric estate (wagon). They seem to have a clear strategy to target areas of the market where they have little competition, price aggressively and make inroads. You can’t do this overnight, but you can shortcut to growth this way than trying to compete with petrol Jokes/Crapturs that they were doing with the petrol ZS.

also to add MG although having cheap petrol models are in a much better position to decide to Switch to EVs only without canabalising a long term service/dealer network that has been setup to service/fleece fossil cars over many decades, they are in a much more agile position to transition than legacy automakers.
 
And continuous griping and downplaying of what is a very good EV will do nothing to help their growth! If MG sales are allowed to continue to grow at their current rate, they will become a major player. At that stage, with their market secured, they are much more likely to respond to other market forces and customer demands.
 
I think most people on this forum are big fans of the car. Pointing out silly shortcomings that can and should be addressed and fixed is not really griping.......many new buyers have searched out this forum and have then gone on to buy, what is without doubt a very good car.
Most people, (like me) do extensive research before they part with their 'hard earned' cash.
It was the James and Kate videos that caught my attention.
 
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