MG Cyberster - long-term review

The nightmare EV journey. You read about these from time to time. A puce-faced urban columnist blags an electric car for their drive-away holiday, sets off for the Outer Hebrides with the air-con maxed and then – having enjoyed a 37-hour head-on-collision with the UK’s patchy charging network – hammers out a spittle-flecked takedown of how all electric cars (regardless of price, size, range, performance or design brief) are a useless left-wing conspiracy and should be BANNED.

After several months with the MG – the first pure EV I’ve ever truly dailyed – I hadn’t had the nightmare journey. Sure, there had been broken chargers. Many chilly commutes when I had to knock the heater off to make it home. Annoying, sure. But nothing that would motivate me to steal a bulldozer and turn my local Superchargers into a giant game of toppling dominoes.

And then it happened – in a really weird ‘one domino hits another’ kinda way.

I live in the Midlands. I needed to get to York in, um, Yorkshire, on a Saturday afternoon. Dead easy – straight up the A1, aka the Old Great North Road. Well, if it’s good enough for the Romans, or the Celts, or whoever built it.

Google Maps said this was a 111-mile journey from my front door, meaning, maths fans, a 222-mile round trip. In chillier weather the MG could barely muster a 220-mile range (vs a claim of 316 miles) so this would’ve been impossible at Christmas.

But the weather had got milder, and the Cyberster’s soon-to-be traitorous screens reckoned on 265 miles. I set my home wallbox to ‘Very Brimmed’, and decided I’d drive conservatively to make it there and back on one charge. That would avoid having to stop for a time-wasting game of motorway charger roulette.

Saturday afternoon brought a torrential rain shower for the first hour of the trip. This was good news for the eco-minded EV driver. Average speed was no more than 50mph, as everyone trudged through the gloom glowering at Vauxhall Mokka and Nissan Juke owners for blundering through a storm even Noah would grimace at with no lights on. Seriously, why is it always Mokkas and Jukes? Do their owners have death wishes? Actually, if I owned one I’d… yeah, I can see their point.

Everything was going fine. The MG was registering 3.5 miles per kWh. Not amazing, but with 73kWh of useable battery capacity, even on this low re-gen jaunt I’d be getting 255 miles of range. Enough. Just. I coaxed the Cyberster through the gloom, massaging my precious 33-mile buffer.

Then the Cyberster sabotaged itself. Its infotainment, which is pretty awful at the best of times, crashed.

Except, because I was bumbling along in a dead straight line up the northern reaches of the A1, I didn’t notice it had frozen. When I glanced at the Apple CarPlay nav screen, the road was straight and it said I’d be arriving in 25 minutes or so. I was fighting the rain and absorbing a podcast.

So as the screen sat there, dumbly broadcasting a screenshot of where I was 20 minutes ago, I wandered on… past the exit I needed. And the one after that. By the time I realised my error I was almost in the land of kilts and haggis.

Okay not quite, but having rebooted the screens and doubled back, I’d added a totally unnecessary 37 miles to my journey. My ‘there and back without charging’ smugness lay in tatters.

“Never mind,” I thought, ever the intrepid EV adventurer. “I’ll just leave it on charge while I’m out this evening.”

Nice idea. But York City Council, bless it, has done a deal with the devil, aka BP Pulse. All the city car parks are kitted out with swish-looking chargers. But I was now running very late, and would the MG connect? Would it heck. So I rang the helpline and begged them to activate a charge.

“Certainly sir. Do you have an account?”

No, I don’t have an account because there aren’t any BP Pulse chargers near me at home so I never use them, having tasted their exquisite frustration before. 

“That’s no problem, if you just hang up you can create an account.”

Great.

15 minutes later I’d taught the app my pet’s maiden name, my last four home addresses and my next-door neighbour’s cousin’s star sign. But the car still wasn’t charging and I was now really late. Back to the helpline.

“Do you have an account sir?”

Yes.

“When did you create the account sir?”

Five seconds ago.

“Ah. All new accounts take 24 hours to process. Is there anything else I can do for you sir?”

Ooh, I dunno. The hedge at the bottom of the garden needs a trim and I really ought to put off consolidating my pensions but right now all I want IN THE WORLD is for you to put some bloody overpriced electricity into my car. I swore a lot and stalked off, resigned to my fate of charging on the way home.

Which is why, doused once again in pouring rain, at about 1.30am I was floundering about in the urine-stench limits of Christknowswhere Services, paying 85 pence per kWh for a 45-minute pit-stop just so I could get home. Soaked, late, stressed, angry, tired, and jealous of everyone in the world who has an engine. And a working sat-nav screen.

EVs, eh? Smooth. Quiet. Fast. Clean. Easy. The future! Until you’re having one of those days. And One Of Those Journeys. Next time, I’ll take the train.