On the road, the MG ZS’s responsive hybrid powertrain earns its points. Plenty of electric torque allows the combustion engine to stay shut down for much longer than many HEV rivals manage and makes good on MG’s claims of a particular EV-like quality to lower-speed motoring. You don’t need to rouse the reciprocating pistons to get the ZS up to speed smartly, while adjustable energy regeneration and a fairly progressive brake pedal make smooth, efficient progress easy (think 55mpg on a mixed route).
More broadly, the ZS driving experience lacks some refinement, civility and dynamic sophistication – not enough to breach the boundaries of the acceptable but enough, certainly, to notice the deficit compared with many rivals.
A slightly heavy, leaden-feeling steering system makes guiding the car less easy than it ought to be and sets the tone for handling that is secure and precise enough at town speeds but that begins to run out of body control when the road surface gets uneven.
The ZS’s ride can feel overly firm and fidgety at times, and yet a little soft and unruly at other times. But there is a slight woodenness to it that is a constant factor and makes for plenty of road noise and coarseness over rougher asphalt. The car seldom quite settles down on country roads, finding a way to be upset by varying ride frequency inputs. It’s smoother on dual carriageways and deals with well-paved town roads decently well, but rough surfaces always make it come up short for vibration isolation.
That hybrid transmission might give halfway-spirited objective acceleration, meanwhile, but it doesn’t take to hard work quietly or smoothly, the combustion engine proving noisy and a little clunky when you ask for full power. You can blame the three-speed auto for that. Thankfully, you don’t often need full power to make decently swift progress in this car. It has an accessible sense of oomph that many HEVs lack – and that might be its best dynamic asset.