I have owned at ZS H+ top spec in Aus for almost a year and it is mostly a brilliant little car. The highest speed where I live is 110km so cannot comment on those kind of speeds you are considering other than the 1.5lt engine will be reving very hard like any small ICE vehicle.
The ZS H+ hates long hills especially from a cold start at any speed. The battery becomes low then it will rev to 5.1 so clearly this is not ideal for the engine.
This car has 22,000km on it and the latest software as per 15k service. I have told the dealer/ service that this engine will not last due to this reason alone. Hello 10year warranty when it dies.
Servicing has been fine and cheaper than the Hyundai it replaced.
The car is efficient even with the stupid high reving on long hills with consistent 4.0lt/100km over a tank of fuel. It would be even better without the hills where I live if it did not rev as hard as it does.
It will enter full EV mode at up to 117km/hr on the freeway on cruise control then smoothly use ICE until the battery is fully charged again, then back to EV mode over and over.
It is brilliant for this use and city driving with a lot of dedicated EV use. The expensive Toyota and Hyundai cars at the time would not do this. Also the ZS has much more power around city streets due to its use of EV.
It is a cheap, cheerful and purposeful car and with lots going for it. Especially if you don't want a full EV at this time. Without the stupid reving it would be the perfect car!
Very well said;
I think if this is the car for you or not, depends very much so on your user case, probably even more so than in the case of other cars, due to the limitations/specifics of the hybrid system;
As described, I think in urban use it is very pleasant, and very economic, and great value for the money; The well documented issues with uphill driving have been improved, though come at the cost of the not so nice rev behavior, so if you live in a very hilly area, it's probably less the car for you.
However, living in Austria, where we do take our 130 km/h limit rather liberal on some stretches (like we add VAT and some tipp on that
), I can also say that higher speed driving is no forte of this car, probably even less so than uphill driving, and again, it is down to the hybrid drive, and its tendency to charge the battery. On a recent drive to Hungary (where speed limits are taken even with more liberty), it is clear that if you stay around the 130 km/h mark, everything is fine, and it's also the speed where MG Pilot works. Above that, things are way less enjoyable though - if you want to use cruise control, the engine will immediately rev up, as it tries to charge the battery or offer maximum torque (its an NA engine after all), and remain in 2nd gear for minutes, revving its ass off. Switch off ACC (no more lane assist above 130), and things normalize, sort off. But anything above say 50% load will super quickly drain the battery , even with the latest (12/2025) update over PD052, and then it will actually loose speed briefly, or just refuse to go over 145ish for some seconds, whilst revving like crazy (and using only 40kw according to the power indicator, which would equal to what the generator can generate max., so trying to use the eclectic engine for no apparent reason); Even if the battery reaches a certain charge again, it will occasionally go into a nervous mode where it switches up and down between gears and charging/driving, again a rather unpleasant experience; Now of course this is to a degree present in many smaller hybrids, but in case of the MG the lack of a CVT or more gears makes this more present, and the good boost with a full battery also tempts you to occasionally drive faster, only to find out that the power is very short lived. In this respect I also find the advertised power figures problematic, as it is really not a proper 200hp car, and even less so a 465Nm torque car. Most car makers tend to quote a total power output much closer to the ICE engines max power figure, and they do so for a reason.
If you ignore this and tend to be a relaxed motorway cruiser or stick to urban and not so fast roads anyway, it is however really not much of an issue, and actually a pleasant car in terms of handling and great value for money. Just don't expect 200hp performance, at least not for more than a brief boost, and then live with the consequences
