MG4 vs BYD Dolphin 2024 comparison review: Two of the cheapest new electric cars, but which is best?

let's talk affordable electric cars because if you're in the market for one one of these two is likely to be high on your consideration list that's right for today's EV comparison test we've grabbed the mg4 and the byd dolphin both relatively affordable both have long driving ranges and both hell from China in fact they're the same in a lot of metrics so how do they differ which one is better and which one will suit your lifestyle well stick with us to find out first up let's talk price just taking the sticker price only $100 separates these two but there's a little more to the story because the byd has a before onroad price tag while the mg is drive away see the prices on your screen now it's important to note that we don't have the absolute most affordable version of each car instead we've got the next rung up which means we've got the byd dolphin premium and the mg4 excite 64 it's also important to note that the Dolphins price may vary quite a bit depending on what state-based incentives are available to you now we're going to get to standard equipment in just a second but we do know that one of your primary concerns when it comes to EVS is going to be that driving range so we'll show that first up for each car both are pretty impressive considering their price point and keep in mind those numbers that we're showing you now are wltp numbers and not any DC numbers which means they're more accurate to the real world okay back to standard gear first let's cover off all the things which both cars get this includes 17-in looy Wheels with the mg getting aerodynamic hubcaps the byd wears Chinese lingong long tires made specifically for it as you can see with the dolphin imprints while the mg shows off its International credentials with more impressive Continental Tires both cars also score LED headlights climate control and vehicle to load systems now if you do want to check out a comprehensive list of standard inclusions in nice tidy table format you can do that at our full written comparison test over at carsguide but once you dig into the detail it's clear that one car comes out on top the dolphin impresses us the most with its power adjust and heated front seats its synthetic leather seat trim panoramic sunroof larger multimedia screen which even rotates the presence of a wireless phone charger and its 360° parking camera this Compares well when you consider the relatively Spartan interior of the mg4 which is missing a few of those key items still I wouldn't write it off because it scores points in other important areas now while they're both hatchbacks each car here takes such a different approach to both its exterior and interior design that which one appeals to you the most is going to be entirely subjective the mg for example is clearly aiming for international acceptance with a quite conservative exterior appearance and an almost minimalist interior the dolphin on the other hand is unapologetically wacky in a lot of ways and I do mean that in a good way highlights for the mg include a very traditional hatchback silhouette with an appealing set of LED headlights and that trendy split light bar out the rear it's also very International with a lack of overt badging like you see on a lot of its Chinese Rivals and I think it even pulls off the black paint very well not all cars do things which I think are a little more Up For Debate well that includes the aerodynamic hub caps which make it look very Bas modely and the weird cropped spoiler bit out the back will always remind you that you didn't Splash for a more expensive version you know one with an actual spoiler meanwhile the dolphin looks a little different it's got an odd Little Square Face offset by its curvy lines and compared to the mg it looks very narrow and compact the two-tone paint two alloy wheels black highlights and the actual complete spoiler out the rear make it look a bit more up Market at least in my opinion compared to the mg although I think the mg has a more Universal appeal it's a similar story on the inside when it comes to the mg's cabin design I think it's a lot more minimalist than what's going on in the dolphin it's almost minimalist to a fault it's kind of very simple and monotone but I do think that will make it more universally appealing and it feels a lot more spacious in here so that goes along way to make this car feel bigger and more appropriate for a family but one thing I will say is the materials also aren't as good as they are in the dolphin there's a lot more hard plastic trims through the doors and across the dash and down the center here and you KNE even rests on a hard plastic on this little console here so it doesn't feel as upmarket as the dolphin either also these seats they're clad in cloth which I don't always mind these days and there's some clever little sort of blue piping on them to give them a little bit of intrigue but they are narrower than they are on the dolphin and they're not quite as spongy and comfortable so that's worth keeping in mind too software is another area where I'd like mg to do a little bit better as well and it really does start with that Digital dash cluster in here because I know you don't need to have gauges in an electric car but there are just so many numbers on this little screen that it almost looks like accounting software like surely they could have made it look a little bit nicer and the same almost goes for this uh Center touchcreen here yes this software stack is much improved over MGS which have come before the mg4 but it's still not as fast or responsive as the software suite in the dolphin and the screen is much smaller as well I will say apple carplay does look a little bit sharper on this screen than it does in the dolphin but again it's not wireless in either car either so worth keeping in mind there's also no shortcut buttons there's just an on andof button for the Cent unit and you've got these kind of static buttons for uh volume control and there's a shortcut for uh to have the defog a turn on so it would be nice to see some non-touch based controls for the climate but that goes for both cars in terms of practicality I think this cabin is a nice and spacious like we talked about before it's also adjustable this Wheels got both telescopic and up and down adjustability there's nice kind of cutaways in the doors plenty of room for our cars guide bottle there's two more with adjustable edges down here plenty of room for our bottle again there's also a sort of console box here sort of thing um it's very shallow I can't fit many objects in here maybe a wallet or a phone it's got a textured base to it which is nice and you can close it up so your objects won't leave there's also a weird little net here not sure what that's useful for maybe you could put your keys there I guess but this car does get a traditional center console box which is nice to have okay so the mg 4's back seat it's pretty good I'd say in a lot of ways it's not as impressive as it is in the dolphin that's behind my own driving position still plenty of room for my knees plenty of head room too at 182 cm tall and the floor is almost flat but the cabin is wider so I think even this Center seat will be quite useful for an adult as well then things start to get less good for a start there's much more hard plastic all through the doors in the mg4 there's no pockets on the backs of the front seats there's no drop down armrest there's not even a bottle holder in the door and there's not even a bottle holder in the center so I've got nowhere to put that I'll just put it in the front just like in the dolphin there's no adjustable air vents and there's only one USB port for rear passengers that's basically the only amenity you get in here so yes it's spacious I do think that this space will be better for families but I do think that this is one of those areas where you can notice how much of a base model the mg is is especially compared to what's offered in the dolphin now it's a similar story on the inside where the dolphin does take a bit of a zany approach in here it's really a car for someone who's not afraid of driving around in something a little bit different but there's lots of things that I really like about it too it's not just weird and different it's the choice of materials it's some of the design points it's the way that this little like button uh console has been integrated in here it's very clever you've got your shifter you've got your volume control and you've got a few shortcut buttons here there's not as many as I'd like I'd like to see a few more shortcut buttons for things like air conditioning but we'll talk about that in a second of course one of the biggest drawers for boids interiors is the huge multimedia screen now the software could look better in here it's not as sharp as some Rivals um but it is pretty fast which is nice and in some ways it is just sort of like a blatant Android reskin and of course it does have the typical by gimmick of being able to turn on its side I'm not really sure how useful this will be I guess if you've got another car that's got a portrait oriented multimedia screen it might offer you some familiarity to use it this way but it is also notable that Apple carplay doesn't work when it's in this orientation so I found that I didn't use it an awful lot but hey you might like the fact that it does that and elsewhere just like other boids too there are a lot of references to this car's namesake you've got the little flipper door handle pieces you've got these kind of like wavy patterns through the dash up here in this kind of like almost like a dolphin eyeball for the uh air vent here which is kind of cool it it is very different and it I think it does take a certain buyer but hey the important thing is it's comfortable in here it looks good and the choice of materials are really thoughtful okay so for practicality there are some notable differences between the dolphin and the mg there's some good stuff and some not good stuff the main not good thing is it is notably smaller in the Dolphins cabin compared to the mg that narrowness you can feel that in here and the dark trimmings and everything it does make it feel like a noticeably smaller space than you get in the mg but there are some other things which I really like about this car firstly the seats these are like big Thrones they're made of synthetic leather and that neoprene material down the middle again and they're really comfortable noticeably uh more comfortable than the ones in the mg4 so I really like that about it and that goes a long way to making this car feel more comfortable over longer distances as well next up is this little Digital dash thing yes it's smaller than the one in the mg4 but it's attached to the steering column so you can adjust the wheel up and down and back and forth and it always stays in the same spot so you never blocking it with the top of the wheel or anything like that and that can't be said for the mg and the other thing I like about it is you've got electric adjust for both the front seats which goes a long way to make this car feel a bit more upmarket okay cabin storage we've got a large bottle holder in the doors just fits our cars guide bottle but it barely fits in these two Center ones which are noticeably smaller and they don't have those kind of adjustable edges there's a tray up here which you can use for things like phones wallets Keys you name it and there's a slide open console box down here for objects that you might not want to exit while you're in the corners which is kind of nice obviously your two bottle holders there and there's a wireless charger which kind of integrates into this design but you don't get a center console box instead there's a large pass through area under here not bad let's go look in the back seat now I bet you were thinking that the dolphin wouldn't be this good in the back seat that's behind my own seating position I'm 182 cm tall and as you can see I've got plenty of room there for my knees the floor is nice and flat so it's nice and wide in here it feels wider than it actually is and that Center seat while it is narrower than the mg4 I think it could still be useful for putting like even an adult in here just because of that flat floor there too there's also some nice things about this car which the mg4 doesn't get for example there are plenty of differ sized pockets on the back of that front seat there's an extended amount of these sort of neopren and synthetic leather trims which I really like and there's more storage too let's have a look so firstly in the door there's plenty of room for your bottle there's another weird kind of bottle holdery thing on the back of the Santa console I'm not sure how useful that actually is I feel like anything's just going to spill out of there but you do get a drop- down armrest as well again trimmed in that synthetic leather and with kind of edges on it so that you can fit larger bottles in as well you don't get that in the trim of the mg4 that this car is competing with on this test one thing you don't get and neither car on this test gets is adjustable air vents for the rear row but the by does get a usba a and a USBC connector one area where the mg definitely comes out on top is its boot capacity while the dolphin doesn't really fit the whole car's guide luggage set it's much easier in the mg which offers a wide open and square space which is surprising because on paper it only offers 18 L more capacity unfortunately both cars miss out on a spare wheel with just a tire repair kit available and neither have additional under the Bonnet storage this leads us nicely to what's under the Bonnet and to be honest there's not a whole lot to see here there's just sort of a mish mash of cooling hardware and hard plastics and stuff but here are the power figures see them on your screen now the most important difference to note between these two models is that the byd is front-wheel drive while the G4 is rear wheel drive we'll also remind you of the range on offer not bad considering they're relatively affordable and there's not a lot between them thanks to similar curb weights and similar battery capacities the by uses its signature space saving blade format with lithium ion phosphate chemistry while the mg4 uses a nickel manganese Cobalt battery at this spec level this might explain why the byd continued to fast charge well past 90% while the mg tap it off quickly for what it's worth the mg is technically capable of charging much faster at its peak while the byd charges quite a bit slower frustratingly both are only capable of charging at 7 Kow on AC making it hardly worth plugging into an AC charger at your local shops as you'll only extract about 50 km of range an hour see the total Energy Efficiency for both cars on your screen now we took both on a roughly 200 km Drive Loop and here's the real world consumption for each car both cars overshot their claims see that on the screen now with the m G performing slightly better overall now recently mg hasn't exactly been known for its driving Dynamics but I think with this mg4 there's a real notable Step Up in pretty much everything ride quality the uh quality of the electric motor uh pretty much everything so there's a lot to like here one thing that's instantly noticeable once you hop behind the wheel of the mg4 is the excellent visibility on offer there's this huge windscreen nice Wing mirrors big kind of Glass House Effect to all of the windows in this car so I really like that about it it feels spacious it feels easy to see out of and that's going to make it easy to drive around a city next up steering the mg4 has got quite a light steering tune and it's a little bit doughy if I'm honest compared to the really nice direct feel of the dolphin so while this steering isn't as fun and engaging as the dolphin can be it is nice and light and easy to steer around at low speeds and that can be important when it comes to parking or navigating around tight city streets so again suited to a city as well as out on the open road and I say that because the mg4 well it's got a few benefits over the dolphin here yes it's rear wheeel drive oddly that doesn't make it fun but it does make it better out on the freeway it feels a bit more stately it feels a bit more secure in itself on the open road and I really like that about it now interestingly while the mg has less torque on paper than the dolphin it actually feels more powerful and as though it has more follow through when you're traveling at speed so while the figures don't seem to indicate it this is the car that feels the more powerful of the two also the ride quality is really good it's actually great in both cars but for different reasons here in the mg4 it's fairly forgiving over small bumps although it is firmer over larger bumps like that and it does give it quite a bit more control than the dolphin has the dolphin might be softer and more comfortable over larger bumps but the control the mg offers in the corners and over undulations and corrugations is noticeable noise levels in both cars again is pretty under control but here in the mg4 I think the combination of the nicer tires as well as some significant sound deadening does make it a little bit quieter at freeway speeds interestingly though at lower speeds there's quite a bit of dull thrumming from the suspension which comes through into the cabin which you don't get in the dolphin I also quite like the tuning of the Safety Systems in the mg while I found the Dolphins adaptive cruise and lande keep systems to be a tad Twitchy here in the mg they're a little bit more chill both cars have some slightly annoying features when it comes to the traffic sign recognition but other than that they impressed me especially for Chinese cars on this test so there you go okay so the dolphin what do we like and not like so much about it for a start the visibility is notably worse in here compared to the mg4 these big a pillars kind of close things in a lot and there's only a tiny strip of a rear window to see out of at the back but it does feel overall more compact so that sort of makes up for it in some way it does feel like it's going to be easier to park in narrow spaces and ZIP down laneways perhaps the biggest Advantage behind the wheel for the dolphin is it's like dead accurate really fast steering that's full of feel it makes this car so much fun to drive and I know on paper it seems like the mg4 is going to be the more fun of the two because it's rear wheeel drive but it turns out front wheeel drive doesn't really take away from the dolphin that much it's quite light and Breezy and athletic and it's a lot of fun to drive although it is worth noting that it doesn't feel as fast as the mg4 while it's got the same amount of power and more torque on paper that's not really communicated to the accelerator pedal it does feel a little bit less strong in that kind of mid-range acceleration point which was interesting to find but while it does feel overall more fun to drive than the mg4 I will say that the handling is not quite as good the affordable Chinese tires that ship on this car from the factory do feel a little under pressure in the corners and you can hear quite a bit of Tire torture especially from those front wheels when you throw it into a few curvy bends so it's not as confident as the mg4 but it is still quite a bit of fun one area where the dolphin really does shine though is its ride quality it's got a nice soft Edge on it even compared to the mg4 which is starting from a really good base it handles big bumps and corrugations and these sorts of surfaces which you're likely to encounter around a city really well however that's not without a trade-off because over undulating Road surfaces the dolphin does lose a fair bit of composure and it starts to feel a bit floaty still I know which one I would rather drive around a city every day in terms of refinement as I said before both of these cars are really quite impressive considering their price point but the dolphin is slightly less refined I would say in the cabin particularly at freeway speeds compared to the mg4 this could be down to several factors I think one of the major ones is the more affordable set of tires on this car which make a lot of Tire Roar start to enter the cabin at over 80 km an hour in terms of active safety kit of course the dolphin gets all of those tick boxes but one thing I will say is the adaptive cruise control in this car is nowhere near as good as a lot of its Rivals and it's not as good as the mg the steering in particular is really quite Twitchy that's the lane keep assist system as well it just sort of like suddenly jerks the wheel out of your hand which can be a little bit disconcerting and it also has a propensity to beep at you with that uh traffic sign recognition system which can sometimes pick up the wrong speed off the back of buses and the like so worth keeping in mind both cars have good Safety Systems but both cars also have slightly annoying traits with the mg being probably the better of the two especially on the open road both cars have maximum five-star anap safety ratings and in terms of ticking boxes get Auto emergency braking land keep assist and adaptive cruise control however only the dolphin gets a few extra items like blind spot monitoring rear cross traffic alert and a 360° parking camera there's always a big question about ownership for electric vehicles and nothing says that more than the different service terms between these two vehicles but also the fact that they've got different warranties they're head of the industry standard but they also differ quite a bit so make sure to check out the figures on your screen now one of the biggest differences is servicing the mg is a factory backed outfit in Australia which means a more fully-fledged dealer Network plus it only needs to be serviced every 2 years or 40,000 K the average yearly cost over that 8year period is $300 this is in contrast to the byd which is distributed in Australia and needs to be serviced at my car locations it needs to be serviced twice as often once every year or 20,000 K although the average annual cost works out to be nearly exactly the same as the mg these are two affordable long range electric cars that are pretty close together at least on paper but what's become clear from our testing is that they each suit a slightly different fire the dolphin over here is for a single or a couple who really appreciates driving and aren't afraid of driving something that is a little bit different with it's attention to design and honestly it's the one that I would pick but the truth is the mg4 is more vers vertile it's got a less controversial design and it's much better suited to families with its huge cabin and as a bonus it's much nicer to drive on the open road with its rear wheel drive Dynamics and it's got a little bit of extra range as well as a result the mg4 excite 64 is our winner today but only by a very slight margin what do you think which of these cars do you prefer and as always if you want to check out the full review with all the scores and tables check it out at carguide.ph w [Music]

Channel: CarsGuide

Views: 15,043

Keywords: CarsGuide, CarsGuide.com.au, BYD, MG, MG4, BYD Dolphin, Review

Id: wXod9AS7dRo

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Fri May 10 2024