MG ZS EV reliability & safety
As with all electric cars, reliability should be strong, and the electric ZS has received a strong safety score
| Euro NCAP | Adult protection | Child protection | Safety assist |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 stars (2019) | 90% | 80% | 70% |
Reliability is one of the big selling points of any electric car: they're simpler and more straightforward than petrol or diesel-engined vehicles, with fewer moving parts, and therefore less likely to go wrong.
There's also reassurance on the safety front: the ZS EV has an impressive suite of passive and active safety equipment as standard, and it did better than its petrol-engined sibling when independently assessed for safety by Euro NCAP, scoring the maximum five stars.
MG ZS EV reliability & problems
The electric ZS is a fairly new car but it's had enough time to impress. It was crowned as the best electric car to own in our sister title Auto Express' 2020 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey – not least because it's so cheap to buy and run. A relatively high number of owners experienced issues with their non-electric ZS, but the electric car fared better in this regard.
Secondly, MG's Chinese parent company SAIC has already churned out hundreds of thousands of electric cars for its home market, and thirdly, electric cars in general are more dependable than their combustion-engined equivalents, as they have fewer moving parts to wear out or go wrong.
Safety
The petrol-engined MG ZS garnered a middling three-star safety rating from the independent crash-testing experts at Euro NCAP, but the electric version did better, primarily due to its additional active safety technology. It scored the maximum five stars, with 90% and 80% scores for adult and child occupant protection respectively.
Both the Excite and Exclusive trim levels of the EV come with the 'MG Pilot' suite of driver-assistance systems. This includes active emergency braking, lane-keeping assistance, lane-departure warning, traffic-jam assistance and speed-limit assistance, while Exclusive gets all those plus blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert.
Other safety equipment, such as ISOFIX child-seat points, front, side and curtain airbags; rollover protection, tyre-pressure monitoring, hill-start assistance and electronic stability control are also present. There's no option of a space-saver spare wheel.
