MG 4 EV Urban: Is this Australia’s best-value EV?

There’s something deeply satisfying about pointing a car south out of Sydney on a cool morning and knowing you don’t really have much of a plan.

Bowral. Moss Vale. Maybe a decent country road or two. Definitely coffee. Hopefully lunch.

The car for this particular escape is the new MG 4 EV Urban – specifically the longer-range 54kWh version at $34,990 drive-away. At the moment, the MG 4 EV Urban comes with a $2000 cashback offer. That's makes it just $29,990 for the Essence 43 and only $32,990 for the longer-range Essence 54.

And that price is important, because affordable electric cars have traditionally come with an unspoken disclaimer: best kept close to home.

Commute to work. School run. Supermarket. Plug it in overnight. Repeat.

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But I reckon that sells this new MG 4 EV Urban rather short, because after driving it from Sydney to the Southern Highlands, punting it along some terrific country roads and ending up at The Farm Club at Werai outside Moss Vale for lunch, I came away thinking this might be one of the most convincing affordable EVs available in Australia.

And, crucially, not simply because it's cheap. Yep, the entry-level variant costs less than $30,000 on the road right now, but it’s still packed with plenty of the same features.

First things first: despite sharing its name with the MG 4 electric hatch we've known in Australia for the past few years, the Urban is actually a different car.

It's front-wheel drive rather than rear-wheel drive and the design is noticeably softer and more rounded. I like it.

There’s nothing particularly aggressive about the shape. No ridiculous fake grilles or endless slashes and vents desperately trying to convince you it’s sporty.

Instead, you get a clean EV nose, slim lighting, neat 17-inch alloys, and proportions that look surprisingly substantial in the metal.

And substantial it is. At almost 4.4 metres long and more than 1.8 metres wide, with a generous 2750mm wheelbase, this isn't some tiny electric city runabout.

Which makes the Urban badge slightly misleading. There's proper space here.