MG Cyberster review

Let's start with the doors. Because how could we not? They're electric scissor doors. Scissor doors on an MG! The Cyberster's doors perform a silent, dramatic ballet every time they open. This isn't just a car, it's a piece of performance art. It's a car that demands you stand back, perhaps with a nice cup of tea, and appreciate the spectacle.

The rest of the design is equally as extroverted. It's a low-slung, curvaceous grand tourer with a proper soft-top convertible roof that can be tucked away in a brisk 10 seconds. It draws on a long-hood, short-deck silhouette that faintly whispers "roadster," but then shouts "supercar" with its aggressive lines and futuristic, Kammback-style rear. 

The color palette, with options like Flare Red and Nuclear Yellow, only further reinforces the point that subtlety was left behind at the old Abingdon factory gates. This is a car that is physically large, it's not a small, nimble British roadster. It could pass off as a grand tourer wearing a very sharp suit. It’s bold, it’s brash, and from some angles, it looks like a Hot Wheels sketch made by an AI art generator. But subtlety is for Civics.

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The Cyberster isn’t just fast, it’s borderline ridiculous. With 510PS of power and 725Nm of torque delivered through dual motors and all-wheel-drive, this thing will hit 100km/h in 3.2 seconds. That’s not “fast for an MG”. That’s fast enough to give a Lamborghini Huracán performance anxiety.

Activate the launch control, lift the brake and the world goes silent. The only sound is a faint sci-fi whine and the sensation of your own heart trying to escape your chest. The car launches from 0 to 100 kmph in a jaw-dropping 3.2 seconds. This isn't the linear, theatrical power delivery of a petrol engine. This is an instantaneous, bruising and almost violent shove that feels more like you've been dropped from a great height than propelled by a car. It's the hand of God pushing you forward.

If you find yourself wondering whether the car feels too sanitised, remember it weighs over 1985kg. That’s nearly two tonnes of electric ambition trying to behave like a Lotus Elise. Physics will grumble, eventually. Top speed is capped at about 210kmph, though you’re more likely to run out of road (or courage) than reach it in India. The regen braking is subtle even in its strongest setting still, when it moves, it moves like a bat out of Shanghai.

Let’s address the Union Jack-clad elephant in the room - this is not a razor-sharp corner carver. While the electric motors do their best to fake urgency, the weight - all 1985 kilos of it - eventually makes itself known in fast corners. It's not a clumsy car by any means, but you feel like you’re wrestling a fast fridge, not piloting a featherweight dancer. 

The steering is responsive but numb, and body control is more ‘GT cruiser’ than Nürburgring-hustler. The weight distribution and the AWD do help it a lot and in our test it fared decently. The car goes exactly where you tell it to. But it lacks a certain feel. It's a sensation of a grand tourer - a big, stable machine that eats up miles with ease rather than a lightweight, chuckable sports car you can throw around. It's a scalpel that feels like a cleaver in the corners. 

Inside, the MG Cyberster is part spaceship, part gaming console. The triple-screen setup wraps around the driver like a cocoon of notifications and backlit ambition. You get a 10.25in central display flanked by dual 7in screens for vehicle data and infotainment. The graphics are sharp, the colours are vivid, but the UI feels like it was designed by someone who loves complexity for its own sake. 

There's a driver-monitoring camera, voice commands that actually work sometimes, and Level 2 ADAS that throws a minor tantrum if you so much as blink the wrong way. Materials? Decent. Faux leather with contrast stitching, ambient lighting that can give a nightclub a run for its money, and a flat-bottomed steering wheel that screams Gran Turismo and with a bit of British touch of eccentricity, it manages to obscure the crucial readouts on those flanking screens. You’ll have to peek around it like a confused owl.

But, and it’s a big but, it lacks the soul of old MGs. There’s no mechanical tactility here. No manual handbrake to yank. No analog dials to glance at with pride. This is less “British motoring charm” and more “Chinese gaming den with leather upholstery”. Whether that’s a problem depends entirely on what you want from your roadster.

MG claims a range of 580km (MIDC), but let’s be honest, drive this like you should and you’ll be lucky to get 400km. The 77kWh battery is decent, and DC fast charging (up to 150kW) gets you from 30 to 80 percent in about 35 minutes if you can find the right charger. There’s a modest 250-litre boot - fine for weekend bags, less so for your dog or your in-laws. Rear seats? Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a strict two-seater, and rightly so. 

The MG Cyberster is a car you buy with your heart, not your head - and then justify with 0–100 in 3.2 seconds. It may not handle like a Lotus, and sure, it's carrying enough weight to qualify as a small moon, but it makes up for it with presence, pace, and pure, unfiltered theatre. This isn’t MG looking backward at its roadster roots. It’s MG strapping on a jetpack and launching into the electric future with the subtlety of a rock concert in a library.

It's bold, brash, and utterly unapologetic - a concept car you can actually buy, and one that dares to be fun in an age where most EVs feel like spreadsheets on wheels. For those who want speed, style, and something that turns heads harder than it turns corners, the Cyberster is a wild, wonderful slice of EV madness - and MG's most exciting car in decades.