MG 4 EV Urban: Is this Australia’s best-value EV?

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There’s something deeply satisfying about pointing a car south out of Sydney on a cool morning and knowing you don’t really have much of a plan.

Bowral. Moss Vale. Maybe a decent country road or two. Definitely coffee. Hopefully lunch.

And, as it turns out, one seriously good pie.

The car for this particular escape is the new MG 4 EV Urban – specifically the longer-range 54kWh version at $34,990 drive-away. At the moment, the MG 4 EV Urban comes with a $2000 cashback offer. That's makes it just $29,990 for the Essence 43 and only $32,990 for the longer-range Essence 54.

And that price is important, because affordable electric cars have traditionally come with an unspoken disclaimer: best kept close to home.

Commute to work. School run. Supermarket. Plug it in overnight. Repeat.

But I reckon that sells this new MG 4 EV Urban rather short, because after driving it from Sydney to the Southern Highlands, punting it along some terrific country roads and ending up at The Farm Club at Werai outside Moss Vale for lunch, I came away thinking this might be one of the most convincing affordable EVs available in Australia.

And, crucially, not simply because it's cheap. Yep, the entry-level variant costs less than $30,000 on the road right now, but it’s still packed with plenty of the same features.

This isn't the MG 4 you know

First things first: despite sharing its name with the MG 4 electric hatch we've known in Australia for the past few years, the Urban is actually a different car.

It's front-wheel drive rather than rear-wheel drive and the design is noticeably softer and more rounded. I like it.

There’s nothing particularly aggressive about the shape. No ridiculous fake grilles or endless slashes and vents desperately trying to convince you it’s sporty.

Instead, you get a clean EV nose, slim lighting, neat 17-inch alloys, and proportions that look surprisingly substantial in the metal. 

And substantial it is. At almost 4.4 metres long and more than 1.8 metres wide, with a generous 2750mm wheelbase, this isn't some tiny electric city runabout.

Which makes the Urban badge slightly misleading. There's proper space here.

Five usable seats, excellent rear legroom, and a 382-litre boot that expands to a sizeable 1266L with the rear seats folded. You could easily throw bags in the back and disappear for a weekend.

Or, in my case, point it towards the Southern Highlands because someone mentioned there were good homemade pies down there.

Sometimes the best road tests need very little planning.

Affordable car. Expensive-car equipment

The bigger surprise comes when you climb inside.

For a little under $33,000 drive-away, you naturally expect some evidence of cost-cutting.

Instead, there’s a 12.8-inch infotainment touchscreen in the centre, a separate 7.0-inch digital instrument display for the driver, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless phone charging, a 360-degree camera, and six-speaker audio.

Then add heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, power driver's seat adjustment, and rear air vents.

There's vehicle-to-load capability too, allowing you to run external electrical equipment from the car's battery.

Better still, MG hasn't buried absolutely everything inside the touchscreen. There are still physical controls for some regularly used functions. Thank you. Seriously.

After driving so many new cars that require three screen taps just to perform a basic function, a button suddenly feels like luxury.

The overwhelming impression is that MG hasn't simply asked: "How affordably can we build an EV?" It's asked: "How much stuff can we squeeze into one at this price?"

Quite a lot, apparently.

Then you find a good road

Our motorway slog out of Sydney was dispatched without drama, but it's when you leave the highway behind and start threading through the Southern Highlands that the MG 4 EV Urban becomes unexpectedly entertaining.

The 54kWh version sends 118kW of power and 250Nm of torque to the front wheels. The claimed 0-100km/h time is 8.7 seconds. On paper, that's hardly pulse-raising stuff.

On the road? It's plenty.

And frankly, I'm glad MG hasn't joined the absurd EV horsepower war in which apparently every electric family car now needs enough power to rearrange your internal organs.

Put your foot down and there's that immediate electric response, the steering is accurate and the MG 4 EV Urban feels surprisingly light on its feet. At just over 1.5 tonnes, it actually is relatively light by EV standards.

Find a decent stretch of winding Highlands road and you can genuinely enjoy yourself. A largely unexpected bonus. 

Mind you, it isn't pretending to be an electric hot hatch and nor should it. But stitch together a few flowing B-road bends and there's a lovely simplicity to it.

Brake. Turn. Accelerate. Repeat.

It's quiet, easy to place, and far more willing than that 8.7-second acceleration figure suggests.

You also get multiple levels of regenerative braking and one-pedal driving, which is brilliant around town once you've found the setting you like. Most importantly, it feels natural.

That's a bigger compliment than it sounds.

The number that changes everything

There are two batteries available for the MG 4 EV Urban.

The entry version uses a 43kWh LFP battery and offers 316km of WLTP range.

But the 54kWh car is the one I'd buy. It gives you 405km. That number fundamentally changes what you can do with an affordable EV.

Sydney to Bowral is around 120km. Suddenly a day in the Southern Highlands isn't something requiring charging spreadsheets, route planning, and the strategic precision of a military operation.

You just go.

We left Sydney, drove down here, explored the Highlands and barely gave the battery a second thought. That's exactly how an EV should work.

And should you need a rapid top-up, MG says the Urban can DC fast-charge at up to 150kW, with a 10 to 80 per cent battery charge taking roughly half an hour.

For most owners, though, the best charging station will remain the one at home. Plug it in overnight, wake up. and you're ready to go again. Simple.

Forget range anxiety. We've got pie anxiety

Eventually our highly scientific EV test brought us to Werai, just outside Moss Vale.

We'd originally been heading towards Bowral when someone mentioned The Farm Club at 1 Werai Road. Apparently, they make their own gourmet pies using pasture-raised meat and local produce.

On a cool Southern Highlands day, that's the kind of intelligence I take seriously. So we changed course. And I'm glad we did.

This is exactly the sort of place that makes the Highlands such an easy escape from Sydney. Country setting. Good coffee. Proper food. No rush. And pies worth driving for.

We'd spent the morning discussing battery capacities, charging speeds and WLTP range. By lunchtime, my priorities had changed considerably.

Sometimes you need to remember cars are supposed to take you somewhere.

So, is the MG 4 EV Urban actually any good?

Here's what struck me most about the MG 4 EV Urban.

It never really felt like we were driving one of Australia's cheapest EVs. There was no sense that we'd made some enormous compromise in exchange for the price.

It's comfortable. It's roomy. It's loaded with equipment, and it's genuinely enjoyable on a good road.

And this longer-range version gives you more than 400km of claimed range.

There's even a heat pump to help maximise efficiency in colder weather, and battery pre-conditioning to help optimise fast charging.

Then there's MG's ownership package, including up to 10 years of warranty and roadside assist when you service your MG 4 EV Urban through your local MG dealership.

That's serious peace of mind for anyone contemplating their first EV.

But there's something more important here. The MG 4 EV Urban makes cheap electric motoring feel normal. And I mean that as a huge compliment.

It's also stupidly comfortable over broken road. The car doesn't move off its line mid-corner, even if it hits a decent bump. 

For years we've talked about affordable EVs as second cars. Commuter cars. Urban runabouts. This doesn't feel like one. It feels polished from an engineering standpoint. 

We've driven from Sydney to the Southern Highlands, spent the day chasing good roads, found a cracking lunch and coffee, and never once planned our day around the battery.

That's the bit that matters.

At $32,990 drive-away, the MG 4 EV Urban 54 isn't simply cheap for an electric car. It feels like a proper car that just happens to be electric – and exceptionally good value.

And if owning one encourages you to occasionally forget the supermarket run, point it towards the countryside, and go hunting for the perfect pie, even better. Because sometimes the best thing a car can do isn't just get you from A to B.

It's give you a bloody good reason to go somewhere in the first place.

MORE: Explore the MG 4 EV Urban showroom