I drove two of the UK’s cheapest electric cars – here’s the one I’d choose

Things are getting heated at the bottom of the electric car market, and finally UK buyers have a choice of multiple good, cheap EVs. You no longer need to spend more than £30,000 to get an electric car suitable for more than just the school run and shopping trips, and cars such as the Renault 5, Citroen e-C3 and Kia EV2 prove that.

Two of the most compelling options are the Geely EX2 and the MG4 Urban. They’re both Chinese-made electric hatchbacks, starting from around £20,000, and both offer far more space than you would expect for the money. But they go about things in different ways.

The Geely EX2 is the smaller of the pair, with cutesy styling and a posh interior. The MG4 Urban is larger – longer than a Volkswagen Golf, and blessed with the interior space and big boot to prove it. Both offer good levels of equipment and long warranties, too.

So does the EX2’s plushness and styling make it the smarter buy, or is the sensible and spacious MG4 Urban the better car?

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MG4 Urban vs Geely EX2: prices

On paper, the Geely EX2 has a fairly substantial advantage – it starts at just under £21,000 for the small-battery model (called ‘Pro’), rising by £2,000 for the big-battery Max and a further £2,000 for the fully-loaded Ultra.

The MG4 Urban kicks off at £23,495 for the entry-level Comfort Standard Range, while a £2,000 jump gets you the Long Range version and a further £2,500 gets you Premium trim.

With Carwow prices, the gap is a lot narrower, though. In fact, the MG4 Urban comes in about £60 cheaper than the EX2 after Carwow discounts for the entry-level cars, and it’s even closer with top-spec models – there’s just £48 in it. The EX2’s discounts are, so far, pretty meagre.

The Geely does win when it comes to standard equipment, though. Even the cheapest ‘Pro’ model gets rather lovely-feeling synthetic leather upholstery, electric front seats, climate control, cruise control, a reversing camera and vehicle-to-load.

The entry-level MG4 gets cloth seats that are manually adjustable, though most of the rest of the kit is there. Top-spec cars are similar – both the Geely and the MG get a 360-degree camera, heated seats and a wireless phone charger, but the EX2 also has a heated steering wheel, power tailgate and two-tone paint.

The Geely does win out on equipment, but the price advantage evaporates after Carwow discounts.

There’s also not much in it when it comes to leasing. On a three-year deal, with an 8,000 mile per year limit, a small-battery Geely EX2 will cost you £244 a month to lease. That rises to £270 a month for the big-battery Max and £292 for the well-equipped Ultra.

The MG4 Urban is just a few pounds a month more at £263 for the Standard Range, £274 for the Long Range and £299 for the Long Range Premium.

MG4 Urban vs Geely EX2: range and performance

Both cars come with a choice of two battery sizes. The cheapest Geely EX2 gets a 35.4kWh battery and an 82hp electric motor. It can officially manage up to 156 miles between charges, and 0-62mph takes a very leisurely 14.2 seconds. Best avoided.

The Max or Ultra models are a better bet thanks to their 116hp motor which brings 0-62mph down to 11.5 seconds. They also get a 47.1kWh battery with an official range of 216 miles.

The MG4 Urban range starts with a much larger 42.8kWh battery, 149hp and a range of 201 miles. Long Range versions have a 53.9kWh battery, 160hp and can manage as much as 258 miles between charges. The heavier battery in the Long Range means both have a 0-62mph sprint of around 9.5 seconds, appreciably quicker than the Geely.

Neither are very impressive in charging speeds – the small-battery EX2 tops out at 60kW and the larger at 80kW, while the MG4 Urban manages up to 87kW with both batteries. That means a 10-80% rapid charge time of around half an hour for both.

The Geely is a little more efficient in our experience, though. On a spirited test drive we managed to achieve an impressive 4.7 miles per kWh – suggesting you might actually get a little more than the quoted range. The MG4 is still very efficient, but the best we’ve seen is 4.4 miles per kWh, with 4.2 a more average daily figure.

MG4 Urban vs Geely EX2: what are they like to drive?

There’s an interesting reversal here, because the Geely has the ingredients that sound more exciting on paper. It’s rear-wheel drive, while the MG is front-wheel drive, and the EX2 even gets sophisticated multi-link rear suspension like a hot hatchback. But the MG4 Urban ultimately feels like the more grown-up car to drive.

Neither is remotely sporty, but the MG feels more substantial and more natural from behind the wheel. There’s more performance available when you put your foot down, which is particularly noticeable when joining a motorway or pulling out of a junction, and the controls generally make the MG feel more like a conventional family car.

It’s comfortable around town, with light steering, good visibility and suspension that copes well with potholes and speed bumps. There’s also a proper one-pedal driving mode, something the EX2 misses out on. The MG gets a little floaty when you start pushing it on a twisty road and it isn’t especially entertaining, but it’s easy to get comfortable with.

The Geely certainly isn’t bad. In fact, around town it makes a very good first impression. It’s quiet, rides bumps nicely and has excellent visibility, while its smaller dimensions and tight turning circle make it very easy to manoeuvre.

But it doesn’t feel quite as polished once you venture onto faster roads. The steering is extremely light and rather disconnected around the straight-ahead position, and even the more powerful 116hp version is pretty slow. It’ll sit happily enough at motorway speeds, but there’s less sense of solidity and maturity than you get from the MG.

For a car that will spend nearly all of its life pottering around town, the Geely is perfectly pleasant. The MG simply feels better-rounded if it’s going to be your only car.

MG4 Urban vs Geely EX2: interior and practicality

This is where the Geely EX2 starts to fight back, because its interior is significantly nicer than you’d expect from such a cheap car.

The design is pretty generic – like a lot of Chinese-built EVs – but the material quality is great, with soft-touch plastics on every surface you actually interact with. The synthetic leather doesn’t feel real, but it is very soft and comfortable, and the whole thing feels a bit more imaginative than the MG. You can even get light-coloured interior trim on the top-spec car, which feels bright and upmarket.

The Geely’s 14.6-inch touchscreen is also crisp, responsive and the interface makes reasonable sense. It’s a shame there are almost no physical controls, though – everything’s routed through the central screen.

The MG4 Urban feels a bit more utilitarian. The 12.8-inch touchscreen is actually pretty easy to use, and there are a few physical shortcut buttons underneath it – but the interface is dark and looks basic, while materials throughout the cabin feel rather cheaper and nastier than in the Geely.

The MG’s build quality feels perfectly acceptable, but it’s not a patch on the EX2’s, and the cloth seats in particular are rather downmarket.

But there’s one area the MG wins out on: space. While the EX2 is remarkably roomy – for such a small car there’s bags of legroom, a big 375-litre boot and a useful 70-litre frunk. But the MG4 Urban has even more rear space, particularly with enough width to carry three passengers, and the vast boot has 479 litres of space above the floor and a further 98 litres below it.

The Geely makes incredibly clever use of its small footprint, but size matters – and the MG has more of it.

Verdict: should you buy an MG4 Urban or a Geely EX2?

Both of these are very good small electric cars, but they have notably different strengths.

The Geely makes a better first impression – it looks cute, the interior is much nicer than you’d expect for the price with lovely-feeling materials, comfy seats and a slick infotainment system. It’s also impressively roomy considering its compact footprint, and the 70-litre frunk is a fantastic addition.

The EX2 is pleasant to drive around town and very efficient. But the MG4 Urban makes fewer compromises.

It’s a substantially larger car, with more passenger and boot space, and both models have way more range and performance than any version of the Geely EX2.

It also feels more substantial to drive. Neither car is very entertaining down a country road, but in all other situations the MG4 Urban feels like a proper family car rather than an excellent city car that’s doing double duty.

With Carwow discounts erasing the price difference between these two models, the MG4 Urban just gives you more metal for your money.

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