MG will put a Renault 5 rival on the road by 2027, priced from below £25,000 – and it will be designed in the UK.

Called the MG 2, the new EV will sit below the MG 4 EV as the entry-level model to MG’s seven-strong EV line-up, which has been bolstered recently by the S5 EV and S6 EV.

MG Motor UK boss David Allison told Autocar that “it's the obvious area of the market that's next to happen” and “we will absolutely be in there”.

Regarding an arrival date, he said the Chinese brand is “still probably over a year away from it”, suggesting a 2027 launch is viable.

Asked about pricing, Allison said the 2 will be focused on value, rather than just an enticing sticker price. He added: “I think we have moved on. Not consciously, but other brands and other products have come in that are the cheapest. 

“If you look at the price of the Dacia Spring and you look at the price of the Leapmotors, that’s not the space we occupy. And I don't necessarily think it will be the space that we can occupy.

"I think our ethos has always been about value. You know, it has not necessarily been about being the cheapest; it has been about providing the most that we can for the best value for money. 

“The ZS is Qashqai-sized, but it's Juke money. And I dare say we will see something similar with the 2.”

Technical details are thin, but Autocar understands that the 2 will use the same SAIC Modular Scalable Platform as the 4. 

MG will also likely benchmark the 2 against the Renault 5, which is powered by a single 150bhp motor and offers a top-end range of 250 miles from a 52kWh battery.

On design, Allison wouldn't disclose any details but did confirm that “fairly advanced” concepts have already been built, which suggests that mules could soon begin testing.

Offering smaller model now 'much more important'

Allison said the sales response to the Renault 5 has shown that the market for small, affordable EVs is much bigger than previously anticipated, and therefore it's crucial for MG to launch such a model as soon as possible.

“The Renault 5 has made the job much more important,” he said. “I’ve always felt that was the next market that was going to happen, because as Europe transitions towards EVs, inevitably the easiest way of making them more affordable is downsizing.”

Allison also said the MG Motor UK team will have a big hand in creating it: “Having the London design studio is quite helpful. I’ve seen some concepts and drawings of the car. It fills me with lots and lots of confidence that that should be really, really successful in the space."

On the need for a car like this to be designed in the UK, he said: “It has to be, because that car wouldn’t succeed in China. In a lot of Asian markets, such as [South] Korea, you tend not to see cars smaller than a C-segment hatchback. So to try and conceive a four-metre battery-electric car that has very much a European [style] just won’t really work. So that kind of car, in my view, has to have a more European-centric approach in terms of styling.”

MG’s engineering centre at Longbridge, which refines global products for the European market, will also play a role in testing and configuring the 2.

Allison said the 2 could be a big player for MG in other markets where the brand has yet to succeed. “You take Italy, for example: the EV mix is under 4%; it’s tiny," he said. "That’s because a lot of [electric] cars aren’t really suited to [the tight] Italian roads. 

“But the moment someone comes up with an affordable four-metre or sub-four-metre electric car, then that sort of thing should be really successful. And it’s a space we absolutely should be in. 

"I'm very confident that when we do bring something to market like that, we will do really well with it.”