A lot of the hype amongst motoring journalists around the fastest, most powerful variant of the MG4 EV – the stupidly-fast AWD Xpower – was based on the idea that it is a hot hatch. After all, a 320kW AWD hatch that can tear to the legal speed limit from a standing start in just 3.8 seconds is pretty damn hot.
However, while the MG4 is indeed a hatchback, I would argue the Xpower isn’t a hot hatch for one simple reason – weight.
You see, EVs are heavy by their very nature and, while at 1800kg the MG4 is a relative lightweight in the EV world (I said ‘relative’), it runs totally counter to one of the three sacred hot hatch pillars: big engine, small car, low weight.
Being small, unnecessarily powerful and utterly razor sharp in terms of agility is the absolute definition of a hot hatch, and while the Xpower ticks the first two boxes, it falls a little short of that third one due to its inherently porky nature brought about by lugging a big battery around, despite the fact it gets a trick e-diff and 25 percent stiffer suspension over the standard MG4.
The Xpower doesn’t even look that hot hatchy, with just its optional ($1000) Hunter Green satin paint finish and orange brake caliper covers to really tip you off that this may be something a bit more special than a standard MG4.
Inside it is similarly business as usual, with the same equipment and interior as the MG4 Essence and only a splash of colour and alcantara to differentiate things. The biggest differences, however, come under the skin, with the addition of a second electric motor on the front axle and a very big power boost to 320kW.
So what is the MG4 Xpower then? As far as a strict definition of segmentation goes, I have no idea. But as something to drive either on a daily basis or for a hair-raising thrash on a back road, it is an utter delight and an absolute blast, in that order.
The Xpower makes up for its lack of ultimate agility by being capable of either smooth, docile and refined urban pottering and feral lunacy, depending on your mood.
Left to do its thing in its “standard” drive mode, the Xpower feels just like that much less insane MG4 Essence that it looks so much like; quickish, but sensible and comfortable. Crank up sport mode (or dig a bit deeper into the settings for track mode) and things get truly ballistic, however, with savage power delivery and instantaneous throttle response.
Doing that 0-100km/h standing start run is ridiculously aggressive, in the same kind of internal organ-rearranging way that you would expect from a supercar (or, indeed, a modern performance EV), but with an added bit of tyre-chirping and shuffling from the front as the weight shifts to the back.
Throw the Xpower into a corner and you will also feel that weight, along with a tad of gentle understeer, making the best approach to corners a slow in, fast out affair. Very fast, that is.
The Xpower feels very reminiscent of what is probably my favourite EV on sale in New Zealand right now – the fantastic Ford Mustang Mach-E GT. It too has the same frantically aggressive weight transfer shenanigans going on under heavy acceleration and exiting corners, and while it is all very contrived and intentional in the Mustang (it actually manages to feel very reminiscent of both the FWD Focus ST and the RWD V8 Mustang coupe!), it may well just be a result of the big power overwhelming the MG4’s underpinnings. Either way, the result is the same, and is massively entertaining.
By Damien O’Carroll
