MG 3 substitute due in 2024, might get hybrid possibility – report

A substitute for Australia’s best-selling gentle automotive, the MG 3, appears to be like to lastly be on the horizon.

Autocar studies the next-generation MG 3 will probably be launched earlier than the tip of 2024 and can keep on with petrol energy, although it’s anticipated to achieve a hybrid possibility to scale back emissions.

The corporate has dominated out an electrical powertrain because of price concerns.

“Creating a small electrical automotive is simply marginally cheaper than growing a much bigger automotive,” MG UK business director Man Pigounakis advised Autocar.

“Then half the worth is battery so it turns into a £25,000 [A$44,000] automotive which is unaffordable”.

These price concerns recommend the subsequent MG 3 will supply both a mild-hybrid system or a hybrid powertrain, and never a plug-in hybrid set-up.

Whereas MG’s solely electrified fashions in Australia up to now are the HS Plus EV plug-in hybrid and electrical ZS EV, it affords the hybrid VS in markets like Thailand.

Intently associated to the ZS, it combines a 1.5-litre petrol four-cylinder engine with 80kW and 142Nm (much like the bottom ZS offered right here), a 70kW and 200Nm electrical motor, and a 2.1kWh lithium-ion battery.

Most system energy is 130kW, and gasoline consumption is reportedly as little as 5.8 litres per 100km.

The same hybrid possibility within the subsequent MG 3 would give the model a rival to the Toyota Yaris hybrid.

Whereas the MG 3 is certainly one of MG’s lower-volume fashions in Europe and the UK and is not offered in China, it stays extraordinarily widespread in Australia.

The MG 3 began as a recycled Rover following SAIC Motor’s acquisition of MG Rover belongings.

It was a rebadged model of the Rover Streetwise, successfully a black plastic cladding-covered model of the Rover 25 hatch that was solely ever offered right here in sizzling MG ZR guise.

The present mannequin changed it in 2011, and has obtained two facelifts – the latest being in 2018.

It has remained basically unchanged since then, and general is without doubt one of the oldest autos on sale in Australia as we speak.

It’s additionally one of many least expensive, which helps clarify its recognition right here. It’s priced from $18,990 drive-away, simply $500 greater than the most affordable automotive in Australia, the smaller Kia Picanto S handbook.

MG offered 13,435 examples of its entry-level hatchback to the tip of October, greater than twice as many because the second-place Suzuki Baleno (5863 gross sales) and good for a 37.8 per cent share of the sunshine automotive section.

That determine additionally makes the MG 3 Australia’s third best-selling passenger automotive to date this yr, behind solely the Toyota Corolla and Hyundai i30.

Regardless of this, it’s nonetheless not the best-selling car from the Chinese language model, with a SUV-hungry Australian market seeing the MG ZS household rack up 16,359 gross sales – sufficient to additionally make it the best-selling car in its section.

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