2026 MG S5 EV Excite 62 review

The MG 4 electric hatch was met with critical acclaim on its Australian debut in 2023, lauded for fun-to-drive handling, a roomy interior, sharp pricing, and a no-frills focus.

MG has finally spun its rear-wheel-drive underpinnings off into a new challenger for the small electric SUV segment as the MG S5 EV (technically formatted as the MGS5 EV), a rival to the BYD Atto 3, Kia EV3, and more.

Does it deliver the best of the MG 4 in a more practical package, or has the SUV body style ruined its applauded bones?

The MG S5 EV range is simple to understand: two battery capacities, 49kWh and 62kWh, each available in low-spec Excite and high-spec Essence trim grades.

On test in this review is the Excite 62, the cheapest ticket into the ‘long-range’ S5 EV, priced from $44,990 plus on-road costs – or an indicated $49,186 drive-away in NSW, according to the MG website, without premium paint.

At the time of writing, it is being offered for $45,990 drive-away, with a free 7kW ChargeHub home wallbox included in the price.

The S5 EV Excite 62’s closest rivals are the BYD Atto 3, which is priced from $44,990 plus on-road costs in Premium trim – with a similar range (420km BYD vs 430km MG) but more equipment – and the Kia EV3, which starts from $47,600 plus on-roads (or $48,990 drive-away in NSW) in Air Standard Range guise.

However, the MG’s price places it in a tricky spot between other EVs that cost the same but are bigger, and similarly sized cars that are cheaper.

A BYD Atto 2 Premium with a 345km range can be had for $35,990 plus on-roads, while the larger, top-spec Geely EX5 Inspire – with a 430km range, more space, and more equipment – matches the Excite 62 at $44,990 plus on-roads.

Other options include the Jaecoo J5 EV ($36,990 drive-away for a limited time), Skoda Elroq 60 Select ($49,990 drive-away nationwide), and Leapmotor B10 Design Long Range ($41,990 drive-away).

Standard features in the MG S5 EV Excite include 17-inch black alloy wheels with aero covers, LED headlights and tail-lights, a 12.8-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, cloth trim, manual front seat adjustment, a four-speaker stereo, plastic steering wheel, auto climate control, a rear-view camera, and rear parking sensors.

Stepping up to the $3000-dearer Essence grade adds equipment such as 18-inch wheels, synthetic leather-look seat accents, heated front seats, a power-adjustable driver’s seat, heated leather steering wheel, power tailgate, panoramic sunroof, 360-degree camera, wireless phone charging, six-speaker stereo, folding mirrors, and rain-sensing wipers.

MG has even skimped on minor conveniences such as a fold-down rear armrest, front seatback map pocket, and even a rear reading light in the base model, which feels rather stingy.

The MG S5 EV is on the larger end of the ‘small SUV’ class, so it’s a spacious car for passengers and cargo, and comparable in size to an Atto 3 or EV3.

It is a big step up for MG electric-car interiors. The original iteration of the MG 4 hatch was criticised for feeling boring, spartan, and in some places, quite cheap inside, but the S5 EV is a different story.

Soft-feeling materials are used on the doors, dashboard, armrests, and other places you’re likely to touch, and details such as the metal-look switchgear and microfibre centre tunnel lining – where your phone sits – help break up a sea of black.

MG has listened to feedback on a lack of physical controls in its cars, and has included a row of switches below the touchscreen for audio volume, fan speed, temperature, and defrosters.

While not an issue here – as they’re not fitted to the base grade – heated-seat controls run through the central screen, but the icon is large, and always pinned to the bottom of the display, even in Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. The same applies to the home button, which isn’t always the case in MGs.

The front seats are manually adjustable and aren’t the most comfortable, frankly. There is no way to adjust under-thigh support, I found the seat base quite flat, and there’s no way to control lumbar. On long drives, they leave much to be desired, in my view.

The air vents are also a little irritating to control. Thankfully, they don’t run through the screen, but the plastic adjusters poke out of small holes in the dashboard trim, so they can be tricky to get a good grip of, and make fine adjustments to point the air where you want it.

Storage space is respectable, with a modest under-armrest centre console box, and two tight cupholders, but a large open area under the centre console, a slot beside the rotary gear selector for sunglasses or the key, and decent door pockets and glovebox space.

As with the MG 4, there’s no start button – just sit in the driver’s seat, place your foot on the brake, and twist the dial into drive or reverse. The software behind that auto start mechanism feels better calibrated and more intelligent than in the hatchback.

Amenities on offer include fabric upholstery, a plastic steering wheel – which feels a lot nicer than you might expect – single-zone climate control, two USB ports, and keyless entry, but no sunroof or wireless phone charging.

Space in the rear seats is generous for a vehicle of this footprint, with ample knee room and head room for my 186cm (6ft 1in) tall frame seated behind my driving position, though toe room is a little tight with the driver’s seat positioned low.

It’s best used as a four-seater, as the middle seat is high and narrow. There are no slide or recline functions for the rear seats, and you don’t even get a reading light in this base model, but a flat floor helps ingress and egress.

There are air vents and a single rear USB-C port, as well as bottle holders in the doors, but the Excite grade does not get map pockets or a fold-down centre armrest with cupholders, and there are scratchy hard plastics on the door panels, bar the armrests. Three top-tether and two ISOFIX anchors are standard fitment for child seats.

Boot space is competitive with rivals from Kia, BYD and Hyundai – at 453 litres on paper – with ample room for a large suitcase, some smaller bags, and little items in the nooks on the side of the cargo hold.

You get a light and two bag hooks in the load area, as well as a 60:40 split-folding rear-seat backrest, but the tailgate is manually operated in the Excite grade, and like most electric cars, there is a puncture repair kit in place of a spare wheel.

New for the MG S5 over the original iteration of the MG 4 is a 12.8-inch infotainment touchscreen, with wireless/wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, embedded satellite navigation, and AM, FM, and digital DAB radio.

It is a step forward over the MG 4, with a more powerful processor enabling much quicker responses to inputs, as well as the benefits that come with simply having more space to enlarge and lay out icons.

As with all modern cars, there are a lot of menus to learn, but it is relatively straightforward once you figure it all out, with large shortcut buttons along the bottom of the display and clear graphics.

However, it has not surged to the top of the class. There’s still a delay in responses to inputs, and quirks such as multiple settings menus – with sub-menus within them – are not as logical as they ought to be.

It also appears that not all MG S5s are created equal. In recent testing of an Essence 62 model, Drive contributor Kez Casey found the screen to be laggy, unpredictable, and prone to apps crashing – yet the Excite 62 I tested had none of these problems.

They’re meant to perform identically, so we suspect it’s car-specific – and, metaphorically speaking, a case of one rolling off the production line at 4:59pm on Friday, rather than Monday morning.

Wireless Apple CarPlay worked well in our testing, though the lack of a wireless charger in the Excite grade means you’ll likely have your phone plugged in anyway.

Ahead of the driver is what MG calls a “10.25-inch Virtual Driver Information Display”, but is really just a 7.0-inch screen flanked by digital watch-style readouts for battery percentage, remaining range, and motor power.

The display runs similar software to the MG 4, and displays the key information clearly, but the poorly labelled steering wheel buttons steepen the learning curve and take time to master.

There’s no head-up display, nor a very good sound system. Instead, the Excite grade sticks with an unbranded four-speaker stereo that isn’t very good, especially for rear occupants, as the two speakers deleted compared to the Essence variant are in the rear doors.

Support for the MG iSmart phone app, with remote control of vehicle functions, is free for the first 12 months before reverting to a subscription.

The MG S5 EV is covered by a five-star ANCAP safety rating based on 2025 testing conducted by the Australian and NZ safety organisation’s overseas counterpart Euro NCAP.

It earned category scores of 90 per cent for adult occupant protection, 86 per cent for child occupant protection, 82 per cent for vulnerable road user protection (pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists), and 79 per cent for safety assist technology.

Seven airbags are standard across the range.

The MG S5 EV is like many new small electric cars in offering a broad range of advanced safety features.

Not all are calibrated brilliantly. Lane-keep assist can be a little too intrusive for some tastes, and lane-centring assist still tends to wander between the white lines on freeways, rather than holding the centre.

The speed sign recognition system is also one of the least accurate I’ve experienced – managing to read 40km/h and 60km/h signs as speed limits that do not exist in Sydney, where I tested the S5.

It also beeps when it detects the car to be speeding, even if it has misread the sign, which – as mentioned – it does frequently.

Turn off the likes of the lane-keep assist, speed sign recognition, and not-too-intrusive driver attention monitor, and they will switch back on automatically when the car is restarted, like many new cars.

Where the S5 EV is a cut above rivals is in the ability to set up the safety systems the way you like, and then map them to a single ‘MG Pilot Custom’ mode.

It does not activate automatically when the car is started – due to the nature of the five-star ANCAP rating criteria – but all it takes is swiping down from the top of the display, tapping MG Pilot Custom, and confirming your selection.

In rival cars – as well as the outgoing MG 4 – drivers need to navigate through the menus to the advanced safety feature (MG Pilot) page, and turn each system off individually every time the car is restarted.

I’d argue MG has a little more room for refining the real-world operation of these safety systems, but even the smoothest lane-keep assist or speed-sign features can get on drivers’ nerves.

As a way of fixing that in a few taps, MG Pilot Custom mode is brilliant – and we’re aware of customers for whom that feature has sealed the deal over similarly priced rivals.

The quality of the rear parking camera is respectable, aided by rear – but not front – sensors. Tyre pressure monitors are also standard.

MG offers a seven-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty for private buyers, which can be extended to 10 years or 250,000km – whichever comes first – if the vehicle is serviced on time and exclusively at MG dealers.

Take the car for maintenance elsewhere – or cover more than 250,000km in seven years – and the extension is voided.

For commercial-use customers who intend to use the car as a taxi, Uber, delivery vehicle, or as a rental, the base warranty is seven years/160,000km, with no service-activated 10-year extension available.

The high-voltage battery is covered by a different seven-year/150,000km warranty that can’t be extended, while smaller items such as wiper blades have a three-month/5000km warranty covering them against manufacturing defects, not wear and tear.

Service intervals are listed in the logbook every 12 months or 25,000km, whichever comes first, and maintenance costs an indicated $1119 over three years/75,000km or $1967 over five years/125,000km.

Those time intervals are standard fare for a new car, but the distance intervals are particularly long, and will suit country or rideshare buyers.

A year of comprehensive insurance coverage with a leading provider is quoted at $2165 – compared to $2052 for a BYD Atto 3 Premium – based on comparative quotes for a 35-year-old male living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

MG claims energy consumption of 16.9kWh per 100 kilometres for the S5 EV Excite 62, from its 62kWh (gross capacity) lithium iron phosphate battery pack.

Over a mix of driving conditions – including higher speeds and some winding country roads – we returned an indicated 15.2kWh/100km. On paper, that sounds like a fantastic result, smashing the claim and competitive with other cars in this small electric SUV category.

However, assuming a useable battery capacity of about 60kWh, it only equates to a real-world range of about 395km, short of the 430km claim based on what is seemingly a different variation of the European WLTP lab test.

Were you to average 16.9kWh/100km – as this S5 EV test car did in more demanding country-road environments – real-world range would drop closer to 350km.

Driven modestly around town, we saw consumption closer to 14kWh/100km, but that would still only be enough to match the WLTP claim, not beat it. If you need long range from your EV, the S5 EV probably isn’t the best pick.

DC fast charging at up to 150kW is claimed, for an oddly-specific quoted 30 to 80 per cent recharge time of 19.3 minutes.

A figure from 10 to 80 per cent is not quoted, but using other EVs as a guide, I would estimate about 25 minutes, given the battery usually charges fastest at low percentages.

AC charging is limited to just 6.6kW – even when connected to three-phase home power and a 22kW wallbox – which is low for an electric car at this price in 2026.

The S5 EV scales up the rear-wheel-drive platform of the acclaimed MG 4 hatchback for an SUV customer, to its success… generally speaking.

Whereas the MG 4 offers a broad spread of power levels from 125kW to 320kW, S5 EV customers in Australia are limited to a single 125kW/250Nm electric motor driving the rear axle, irrespective of the battery pack selected.

In Sport mode, it’s zippy enough for around-town driving, and doesn’t feel laboured accelerating to highway speeds, but it lacks some of the pep of the smaller, lighter base-model MG 4 with the same motor.

Response from a standstill is lazier than you might expect for an electric car, and even when adding speed while already on the move, power is tapered in smoothly, so overtakes can take a bit more planning than you might expect.

There’s also a moment of lag between pressing the accelerator pedal and the motor winding up, which is an unnecessary design choice that holds the S5 EV’s performance back. A zero to 100km/h acceleration time of 8.2 seconds is claimed, which is on par with a hybrid SUV of the same size.

We also noted a tendency for the car to seemingly cut power in more demanding conditions.

On a hilly mountain road, we noted the car would only provide 100 per cent performance for a split-second after take-off, before dropping to about 70 per cent and throttling acceleration accordingly, yet repeating the same task three minutes later saw peak performance dished out for much longer, and the issue didn’t repeat itself.

These percentages are taken from the power meter on the dashboard – which displays how much of its peak output the electric motor is pushing out – so the gradient of the hill should have no effect. The car was at about 70 per cent charge during both runs.

There is a firmer edge to the S5 EV’s suspension than many of its rivals. Around town, it is supple and settled over speed bumps, and it does a good job of soaking up most road imperfections under 50km/h.

It can feel slightly jittery at higher speeds, even on relatively smooth surfaces – translated into the cabin in an up-and-down ‘bobbing’ motion, like turbulence on a plane – though it is a price the S5 pays for its composure over undulations and crests on country roads.

It’s not an uncomfortable ride, far from it – but it may require some getting used to.

The trade-off of the taut ride is agile handling for an SUV. You can feel the increased height compared to the MG 4 – it takes a split-second longer after turning the wheel for the car to roll, and the tyres to bite the road surface – but it can be driven quickly on a winding road without feeling like you’re labouring the car.

That said, it’s not perfect. Drivers can alter the steering’s weight but it’s not the most feelsome, and while the Kumho Solus tyres on the Excite deliver acceptable grip, it does not take much to break traction on the rear axle out of a tight corner, only for the car’s electronics to shut it down.

Buyers who frequent gravel roads may find the S5 EV’s willingness to spin its wheels makes it a bit skittish, but slow down and it’s manageable.

Around town, however, the turning circle is tight, visibility is good, and the rear-view camera is high-resolution.

There is a choice of Low, Medium and Strong modes for the electric motor’s ‘slow-down’ effect – regenerative braking – plus an Adaptive setting that alters the strength of the regen based on the distance to the car in front (like radar cruise control), and a one-pedal mode capable of bringing the S5 EV to a full stop without touching the brake pedal.

We found ourselves switching between Low and Medium, but Strong with one-pedal turned on works well in slow-speed traffic, and you can configure the steering wheel buttons to switch between drive modes and regen settings. Brake pedal feel is a bit mushy, but acceptable.

The MG S5 EV is rated to tow a modest 750kg, irrespective of variant and whether trailer brakes are fitted.

A payload of 445kg – the maximum mass of passengers, cargo, and accessories the vehicle is legally rated to carry – is quoted, which is on the low side given five 90kg occupants and no luggage weigh 450kg.

It’s a good thing the MG S5 EV does not carry the ZS EV name, because it is nothing like its pioneering – but ultimately flawed – predecessor.

It doesn’t dazzle you in luxury and fancy trimmings, but offers a blend of a spacious and thoughtfully appointed cabin, improved technology, a refined driving experience, and a competitive asking price.

Improvements over earlier MGs – from more physical switchgear to the MG Pilot Custom mode for the safety systems – are the icing on the cake.

It’s not perfect, though. The ride and handling can be improved, it’s perky but not all that punchy for an EV – especially when it drops power under load – the driving range is nothing special, and this Excite grade has a skinny equipment list compared to similarly priced Chinese and Korean rivals.

On balance, however, the MG S5 EV should be near the top of your consideration list if you have $50,000 to spend on an electric car.

Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family. Highly Commended - Young Writer of the Year 2024 (Under 30) Rising Star Journalist, 2024 Winner Scoop of The Year - 2024 Winner

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