Fully Charged Marvel R Review

[AdamMGEV]

 

[Les burrows]

What a terrible review this is by Elliot Richards entitled MG Marvel R First drive. it is showing mainly a Roewe car in China then suddenly what pops up in the picture a different steering wheel which is a MG wheel you see this a couple of times in the video first time is 03:23 in again around 9:00 so unprofessional for a fully charged review
He says it is the all wheel drive 3 motor model and shows the front frunk which I don’t think that car has there being a front motor in its place
He points out the car has Roof Rails but is not sure they can be used because of the glass roof the ZS has the same panoramic roof no problems with its rails, doesn’t like the dash panel or speedo put me right off it he has, and I’m sure a lot of others people who may have been expecting something more from MG.
Forum member JohnG from Norway did a far better and much more informative post on this car the other day check it out in the podcast thread 16th August far better than this rubbish
Les

 

[Cocijo]

I think it looks good. I’d definitely have a look if it came to the UK. It’s about price point and competition - unless it’s bargain priced like the existing ZS/5, it’s a whole new ballgame for MG.

 

[jamesie]

He's a poor presenter but possibly the best they can do in China.

 

[AdamMGEV]

Wow a lot of grumpy old men here today

 

[JohnG]

My local MG dealer in Norway called me a week ago and invited me to look at the AWD Marvel R last Friday. Seems the importer has a number of cars as other dealers were doing the same thing. The car was only available for one day, so unfortunatley no test drive, however, I was able to have fiddle with the infotainmen,t which at first sight looks pretty good. UI reminds me of Tesla's. I have created a feature table and have attached this and some photos of the car.

First impression was very positive. perceived quality is extremely high and for many potential. buyers it will definitely be seen as Premium. The car looks really nice in the flesh and reminds me a bit of the Alfa Romeo Stevlio due to the fairly long bonnet.

Biggest issues first:
No frunk on the AWD, can’t adjust the load height in the boot, there is space under the floor for a cable, but nothing else. In cars without the BOSE stereo, there might be room for a shopping bag. Boot is deceptive, as the width of opening and depth are fine, but it's the height of the floor that is the space stealer (Width: 102cm Depth:86cm height to underside of the luggage cover 43cm. Note Width between wheel arches is wider approx. 106cm). Leg room isn't outstanding in the back, but with the driver seat set for me (I'm 6ft 1") I could sit in the back without my knees touching the back of the driver’s seat.

Interior was in a light grey with contrasting door panels and a nice textured cloth on the lower part of the dashboard, door handles and door armrests. Instrument cluster is quite nice bright and high res. SOC% is shown all the time and the map is displayed in the centre of the instrument cluster. You can set what to display on the left and right side, but seems left is car stuff and right media, phone etc. Doesn't look like you can change the instrument display style. I recently test drove the BYD TANG SUV and it has 3 instrument cluster options, one of which was called Classic. I couldn't find a SIM slot, but 4G was activated, there was no info on whether it would come with a data plan or was connected for a free period and then you had to pay. Navigation was MG's own not Google Maps and there were a ton of options you could set like display chargers and what type

Charge level screen was great, much like Tesla's with a nice touch that it showed the estimated range when you set the SoC% slider, but you could only set in 10% increments. It also supported timed charging for a single period (no date). It had the battery warmer option, but as far as I could see no indication in the instrument cluster. Vehicle to Load had it's own menus and you could set a limit of SoC% so you didn’t drain your battery. However, didn't see an option for controlling max power output.

Ambient lighting was fully featured with slider to set colour and how bright you wanted it to be, you could even set a "Pulse" option! You could turn on and off the gesture option to open the hatch and there was graphical UI to set the height the tailgate should open too.

Regen options are the same as in ZS but drive mode had one extra called "Snow". There is a lot of other stuff that I managed to pick up, but think the above gives you a flavour of what the car is like. Steering wheel I think is the same as the in the ZS.

it would have been really nice if the back seats could have been slid backwards and forwards and the seat back angle changed, as this would have deflected criticism away from the size of the boot. Another omission is that the A pillars and B pillars are plastic and not cloth covered. Looking at the rest of the interior this is a cost saving that makes zero sense. As an example, the glove box is covered in felt on the inside and colour coded to the interior, very nice, but money for that could have been spent on cloth covered pillars.

A potentially big issue for some is the size of the infotainment screen, it's huge. Due to it's size, there are no cup holders in the mid console and apart from under the armrest no place to put stuff. The area under the screen is open, but not easy to get to. For both driver and passenger their leg will hit the screen and you will end up with your leg resting against it when driving. I also would expect that with the sun roof open the screen will be very difficult to read in bright sunlight. Car is app connected from launch unlike the BYD Tang where a date for the app to be released is not know as still being worked on.

Range for the AWD version is rated as 370km (231miles) and this is probabaly for a lot of people this will be a showstopper. As for charging speed, MG are saying 5-80% will take 43 minutes which is an average of 73.25kW not impressive for a car being released at the end of 2021. As for the roof rack my understanding is the carrying capcity is rated for a max of 75kgs.

As you will see from the attached pics, the car looks really nice. Price wise in Norway the AWD luxury is 430 000 (35 000GBP) a similar spec'd ID4 GTX is going to cost at least 6 500GBP more, but has more range, bigger boot and is bigger inside, but not as special insid. So I am not sure if the price should have been a bit lower. I need to test drive and check out what you can get in the boot, if it’s acceptable and the cars performance lives up to the spec, it's not impossible to see me selling my e-tron 50 and banking 13 000GBP and seeing the Marvel R parked on my drive.

 

[Les burrows]

More accurate and better reviews IMO

 

[defeatedbythecat]

How many times can a man say "Design Language" in 11 minutes?

If your name is Elliot Richards it's a lot