MG’s commercial sibling brand branches out with a luxury seven-seat electric MPV
KRIS CULMER @kris_culmer
TESTED 18.4.24, SUSSEX ON SALE NOW
Fashion can be so capricious. Not two years ago, MPVs looked a dead cert to join the format scrapheap, yet now the class is bursting with activity. Apparently we have Chinese businessmen to thank (or otherwise). Don’t get rid of your skinny jeans just yet, I suppose.
Following the Mercedes-Benz EQV, Volkswagen ID Buzz and Lexus LM into the UK is the Mifa 9 from Maxus – a brand that might be familiar from its eDeliver electric vans and tippers and the T90EV, the first electric pick-up truck sold here.
Maxus has a complex heritage, as evidenced by the fact that the Mifa is sold abroad as an MG and an LDV. Yes, as in the Birmingham maker of spit-and-sawdust vans, itself formed by Leyland and Daf in the 1980s. Its assets were bought by Chinese firm SAIC after its 2009 bankruptcy, to be joined two years later by MG.
Anyway, it’s now a significant player in the UK: sales rose 46% last year and should do so by 60% this year, during which more than 1250 have already been recorded.
The Mifa isn’t a bespoke EV, its platform shared with the ICE G90, but nevertheless the battery is in the ideal place, under the floor, so it’s no more compromised than the EQV.
The official range is about 270 miles – 60 more than the EQV, despite both having a 90kWh battery. Range doesn’t concern the LM, being a hybrid. When I eventually found the Mifa’s trip computer, however, it claimed a long-term average of just 1.4mpkWh for a scant 126 miles. Mind you, that was against an average speed of 136mph, indicating either some incorrect calculation, perhaps caused by the car defaulting to metric units every time it’s started, or it being repeatedly chucked off a mountain. The vast expanses of undented metal (5270mm long by 2000mm wide and 1840mm tall) suggest the former. In either case, having begun the test nearly full, the battery had only about 40% charge left after around 100 miles.
The single motor makes 241bhp, all of which is needed, given that seven ‘well-fed’ adults could easily take the total weight past 3.5 tonnes. You won’t find EV-typical whiplash acceleration here, but the Mifa is certainly nippier than a diesel van, off the line and when rolling. Just avoid going for a gap in Sport mode, which can easily generate alarming tyre squeal – and that’s on Continentals, not Li
