MG Motor UK S5 EV review

You get plenty of performance. The bigger-battery version will do 0-62mph in 6.3 seconds. That's aided by its rear-drive traction and what is for an EV crossover fairly light weight – either side of 1,700kg depending on whether it's an SE trim or Trophy. Even up to 70mph, overtaking performance is lively.

The pedal travel is sensibly calibrated, so it doesn't biff everyones' heads into the headrests every time you tickle the accelerator, even in sport mode, and the other drive modes are gentler again.

Braking is also pretty well calibrated, blending the regenerative system with the friction discs progressively. There's also an adaptive setting for the regen that takes into account what the vehicle in front is doing, even before you touch the brake pedal.

But there are no paddles, so to take advantage of the four available regeneration settings, you either have to dive into screen menus, or assign it to a steering wheel shortcut button. Even that isn't very satisfactory because if you want to go from say medium to mild, you have to cycle through strong and adaptive first. Evidently they don't expect you to fiddle.

The smaller-battery version makes 0-62mph in 8.0 seconds.

Talking of battery, you're choosing between small and medium. The large 74.4kWh slab that's available in the MG 4 isn't on the menu with the S5. At least not yet.

How about this British-calibrated suspension?

MG says its values are about being sporty (which manufacturer doesn't?) and so the S5's suspension is pretty taut. Frankly this is useful mainly because the body doesn't float, so your kids won't get car sick while glued to their devices. Road noise is low, too.

Actually the damping isn't that well matched to the springs, so sometimes there's a pogo-stick effect. Even so things stay well under enough control that even brisk driving stays level-headed. Brisk for a family crossover.

The steering is progressive so the car's easy to place on the road, but the actual weight is gluey in the sports drive mode and numb in the comfort mode. More encouraging, there's a nice balance when you accelerate through a bend, with none of the understeer of wheel scrabble that torquey FWD rivals suffer.

And the notorious MG driver assistance?

All versions of the S5 have MG Pilot, a comprehensive driver assist setup. But as we and others have seen that's been a distinctly mixed blessing on the related MG 4.

The Consumers' Association called the MG 4's lane-keeping system 'potentially dangerous' for the way it tugged at the wheel when it saw phantom road markings, and noted 100 owners' complaints. So the Consumers Association worked with Euro NCAP and the Department of Transport on a software update. It needs a dealer visit to install into each MG 4.

In the S5, we found that even on a bright dry day, the lane keeping system would tug us off-line, following changes in tarmac surface on roads that had been repaired rather than the lines themselves. Also the adaptive cruise control slowed pretty dramatically for a lorry that was in the adjacent lane to ours even though ours was clear.

Still, new for the S5 you can set up a quick shortcut on the screen (swipe-down, hit button, confirm) to activate your own preferred settings for the ADAS, some of which will be ‘off’ obviously. Oddly though, having done that, if you do want to reactivate you can't just toggle the shortcut again. You have to go deep back into the thickets of the main ADAS menu. Huh?