MG4 vs MG4 Urban – which of these new EVs is best for you?

MG first launched the MG4 in 2022, and it’s now time for the model’s mid-life upgrade. But instead of updating the whole range, it’s taken a different approach – dropping the cheapest versions with the smallest battery pack, and replacing them with an entirely new car altogether.

It’s called the MG4 Urban and it’s intended to act as the entry point to MG’s electric car range. With a starting price of less than £22,000, it has strong competition from the likes of the Citroen e-C3, BYD Dolphin, and the Renault 5 – but most importantly, should you consider it instead of its bigger brother?

I recently drove the two cars back-to-back, taking in a variety of roads around the Chiltern Hills. I found that while the two cars are very similar in a lot of ways, they’re also quite different – and so which one suits you will depend on exactly what you’re looking for from a new electric car.

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MG4 vs MG4 Urban: size and practicality

I refer to the MG4 as the MG4 Urban’s ‘bigger brother’ but the truth is that the Urban is actually a physically larger car. It’s the same width but it’s longer and taller, and that translates into quite a bit more interior space.

That’s really obvious when you step into the back seats. The MG4 Urban has a higher roofline giving great headroom, and legroom is really capacious with space to slide your feet under the seats in front as well as loads of room for your knees.

The MG4 isn’t bad for rear seat passengers, but the MG4 Urban is much closer to the roomy Volkswagen ID3 and BYD Dolphin – and both of them make the Renault 5 seem particularly pokey.

As for boot space, the MG4 has a reasonable 363 litres – but the MG4 Urban wins here too. There’s 479 litres of space, plus a further 98 litres underneath the boot floor. That’s ample room not just for your charging cables but for lots of other items that you might not need constant access to. Clearly, the MG4 Urban is the better bet if you regularly travel with rear-seat passengers or lots of luggage.

MG4 vs MG4 Urban: interior and tech

There’s much less to separate the two cars once you get to the pointy end. In fact, most of what you interact with – the steering wheel, infotainment screen, and climate controls – are common to both cars. They work pretty well, and the separate climate control buttons are a really nice touch – the pre-facelift MG4 only had onscreen controls which were a pain to use.

The MG4 has a bigger gauge cluster – but that doesn’t really affect you in daily driving – and the MG4 Urban has slightly more interior storage with a useful spot ahead of the cupholders ideal for slinging wallets, house keys, or pocket detritus. Both have space for a wireless phone charging pad, though this is only available on the top-spec MG4 Urban (it’s standard on the MG4). Both also have wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The main difference is in the materials used. The MG4 Urban has a lot of hard, scratchy plastics, as befits its status as a cheap car. This isn’t really a problem on the dash top, but it’s also on the top of the doors – making them an uncomfortable place to rest your elbow. The MG4 has soft-touch materials all-round with harder plastics only creeping in lower down in the cabin where you won’t touch them, and so it feels like a much more premium car.

MG4 vs MG4 Urban: batteries, range and performance

Both of these cars have a three-model range.

I drove both the MG4 Urban Premium Long Range and the MG4 Premium Long Range. While I didn’t go far enough to test their full range capability, I did notice pretty good efficiency from them.

The MG4 Urban was returning about 4.5 miles per kWh, which would mean a range of about 240 miles on a charge – not too shabby at all. The MG4 was getting around 3.9 miles per kWh, which would be just about 250 miles. That’s just what the car’s computer says, though – we’ll be sure to test them out properly soon.

Both cars felt like they had strong performance around town, and enough shove on country roads. However, joining the motorway, you could tell that the MG4 Urban is a bit down on power – it needed a real prod at the throttle to get up to 70mph. The MG4 definitely felt more relaxed at a fast cruise.

If it’s ultimate performance you want, the MG4 XPower is hard to beat. I didn’t drive that this time, but it hasn’t changed since I last had a go – it’s viciously fast, but not that enjoyable because the suspension and brakes haven’t really been upgraded enough to cope. The rear-wheel drive version is actually more fun in the bends than the all-wheel drive XPower.

MG4 vs MG4 Urban: driving

There’s a key difference between the way these two cars drive, and that’s because the MG4 Urban is front-wheel drive, while the MG4 is rear-wheel drive.

You sit higher in the Urban, which gives you a better view around town. It’s also more comfortable over city lumps and bumps, something which our test route had plenty of. However, it doesn’t feel as planted or as eager when you get to a twisty road.

That’s where the MG4 comes into its own. Being rear-wheel drive, you get the sensation that it’s pushing you out of corners, rather than dragging itself round them. Combined with nice quick steering that actually has a little feedback – telling you what the front wheels are doing – it’s very enjoyable to drive, much moreso than a Volkswagen ID3 and even the Renault 5.

The MG4 is a better motorway cruiser, too. True to the ‘Urban’ in its name, the MG4 Urban feels a little underpowered and gets blown about more easily by crosswinds and passing lorries.

Both cars come with MG Pilot, which is MG’s name for its suite of assisted driving tech. I found the adaptive cruise control worked really well, but that the lane-keeping, driver monitoring and speed limit alerts were as annoying as ever. The good thing is that MG’s introduced a quick way to turn them off – just set up your profile with the items you want turned on or off, and then you can activate it by just swiping from the top of the touchscreen.

MG4 vs MG4 Urban: which should I buy?

Given that they share a name, the MG4 and MG4 Urban are more different than you’d think.

The MG4 Urban is a fantastic car if you don’t need the longest range and you really value space and practicality. It’s good to drive around town and cavernous inside.

The MG4, meanwhile, is much better to drive on the motorway and on a twisty road, and it has much better range, too.

While the MG4 is more expensive, there’s not much difference between the top-spec MG4 Urban and the entry-level MG4 – and if it were me, I’d go for the regular MG4 every time. The MG4 Urban, though, makes a lot of sense if you’re going for the cheapest model, where it matches something like the Citroen e-C3 on price and range while feeling a lot more substantial.

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