MG Cyberster - long-term review

I think of the MG Cyberster as a Chinese car. I hope that’s alright with you.

Yes, its design team is proudly lead by a Brit (the superbly named Carl Gotham) and yes the handling was adjusted for European tastes by an engineering finishing school out of Longbridge, in Birmingham. And thrice yes, the badge is a 101-year old British institution.

But we all know in our heart of hearts that this was funded by Chinese money, built on a Chinese platform and the MG marque is owned by SAIC. The Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation. Very much not Birmingham. It’s owned outright by the Chinese state.

So it’s not surprising that when you get up close and personal with the Cyberster, and open its boot, you see the disclaimers embossed in its plastic trim are written in English… and Chinese.

It’s a Chinese car, in the same way as I think of a Mini as a German car. Build it in Oxford if you like. Empty out an entire Oxford Street souvenir shop’s worth of Union Jacks over it. We all know the sat-nav’s first language is German and the engine is stamped with a BMW watermark. But I don’t care much for nationalism when it comes to making good cars. Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Aston Martin and McLaren all owe their financial backing to overseas bank accounts. Doesn’t bother me hugely so long as the cars continue to be world-class.

Now, being a product of 21^st Century China, I had certain expectations of the Cyberster, first and foremost being a seamless digital experience. I thought the infotainment inside would make anything European feel about as advanced as a mud hut, and its smartphone app would be positively telepathic.

A month into Cyberster ‘ownership’… that hasn’t really rung true. Here’s hope for Europe: the Chinese can drop the ball on tech after all.

Firstly, there’s the screens inside the Cyberster. They’re a bit of a disaster.

It takes a matter of minutes to figure out they were designed by people who never met, and who never sat in the car, let alone drove it. That’s why the two flanking instrument screens are completely obscured by the steering wheel (the Cyberster was originally designed for a yoke) and why the fonts and graphics don’t quite match.

After a couple of months I’ve got them just about sussed. The right-hand screen is useless: it contains an owner’s manual that’s too small and fiddly to read, a shortcut to finding a local MG dealer, and a pie chart showing what percentage of your charge is being used on motor power, heating, and battery conditioning.

The main instruments are fine, actually. Bit annoying that the ‘since last charge’ trip only resets after a public rapid charge, not my home wallbox, but otherwise I’ve no major complaints.

The left screen usually lives on CarPlay mode. The native sat-nav looks dated and doesn’t offer speed trap or traffic warnings, and the radio interface is a bit complicated.

I usually keep the portrait centre console screen on the ‘MG Pilot’ display so I’ve got quick access to deactivating the annoyingly overactive lane-keep assist and speed warning beeps. Handily there’s a haptic panel for shortcutting heater controls, so I only need visit the HVAC screen to crank up the heated seats and steering wheel.

Then there’s the ‘MG iSMART’ app, which is anything but. And judging by its two-star App Store rating, I’m not the only person who finds it laggy, and lacking in features. The app allows real-time battery heating, but no option to pre-condition the cabin in a chilly morning. It also promises to remotely start and stop charging, but I’ve given it a go and it didn’t work. So I had to manually override it using my charger’s native app. Meanwhile, the MG app stopped connecting to the Cyberster entirely and displayed an error message when I checked up on the charge status. Or the car’s location. And so on.

Naturally, I deleted it and re-downloaded the app. I made sure my iOS was up-to-date. It’s behaving better… but it’s still glitchy and lacking functionality.

What’s interesting here is that in China, none of this is likely to be an issue. Look up Chinese-market Cybersters and you’ll see they have an entirely bespoke, much more graphic- and animation-rich group of screens. I’ll bet their app is more intelligent too. It seems the European market has been fobbed off with a cheapened, dumbed-down version of the crucial interfaces and tech that the Chinese are currently terrifying the mainstream car market with.

Ironic, really. This is a Chinese car after all, but it does a damn convincing job of re-imagining old-fashioned British reliability foibles and usability quirks for the 21^st Century…