MG Cyberster roadster review - a unique open-top EV experience

Verdict – is the MG Cyberster a good car?

Somehow MG has beaten everyone to the punch and launched the first mainstream electric drop-top sports car. The Cyberster looks the business, with curvaceous styling and dramatic scissor doors, it’s comfortable to drive, it goes like the clappers, it has a respectable range figure and the cabin is smartly trimmed and full of tech. A hefty weight figure and footprint means it’s no British B-road assassin, but at a more relaxed pace it offers a unique open-topped driving experience that’s sure to get you noticed.

MG Cyberster models, specs and alternatives

To use footballing terminology, MG’s history has been a game of two halves. Traditionally, this great British carmaker has been famous for its curvaceous open-topped sports cars. However, following the brand’s ‘troubles’ in the mid-2000s, and ever since its re-emergence a few years later under Chinese ownership, the company has mainly plied its trade with a line-up of affordable family hatchbacks and SUVs. Granted, the already long-in-the-tooth TF Roadster, first released under Rover ownership, was reheated and temporarily reinstated in the MG range by the Chinese some time ago, but ever since that car disappeared in 2011, MG has been without a trademark halo sports car.

With the new Cyberster, then, you might hope that MG is returning to doing what MG does best. And yet in order to do that, MG needs to take a very different approach: the Cyberster is, after all, a new MG sports car for an entirely new age. Costing from around £55,000 it also hits a new price bracket for MG, placing it in battle with the Porsche 718 Boxster and BMW Z4 M40i. Those are both prestigious drop-top sports cars, but neither has an electric powertrain yet, although an electric Boxster is on the way.

The Cyberster is the first mainstream all-electric roadster, powered by either a single rear-mounted motor, or twin motors driving both axles, fed by a large 77kWh battery pack. As a result, both versions weigh in at getting on for two tonnes, so this is no flyweight sports car. However, with swooping lines and dramatic Lamborghini-style scissor doors, it has all the visual drama of one.

Even the single-motor version has 335bhp and can get from 0-62mph, but the dual-motor Cyberster is much faster, with its 496bhp and all-wheel drive traction launching it from zero to 62mph in just 3.2 seconds. This is a very different experience to the Porsche or BMW, though, with its size, weight and silent power delivery making it more of a rapid GT car than a B-road hero.

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MG Cyberster alternatives

Hmm, good question. There aren’t all that many two-seater convertibles out there on the new car market at the moment, and if you’re talking electric ones, the options are even fewer and farther between. The Mazda MX-5 feels fairly close in its remit (if not its size or price), and there’s also the BMW Z4, while Jaguar will still sell you an F-Type right now, although not for long. For the closest rival, you’ll probably have to wait until next year for the arrival of the new all-electric Porsche Boxster. Until then, the Cyberster is in a class of one.

Petrol roadsters

• Mazda MX-5
• BMW Z4
• Jaguar F-Type
• Porsche 718 Boxster

Electric roadsters

• 2024 Porsche Boxster

The Cyberster is based on the same platform as the MG4 hatchback, so it comes as no surprise it gets the largest-capacity battery found in that car, which is 77kWh. That makes it good for an official range of 316 miles in the single-motor version, which is slightly down on the smaller and lighter MG4. The dual motor’s extra performance sees this drop to 276 miles. The Cyberster also gets the same rapid-charging capability as the Extended Range version of the MG4, which should mean a 10-80% charge is achievable in around 38 minutes from a 150kW DC charger.

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Of course, regular use of rapid chargers won’t prove to be much cheaper than fuelling a regular petrol or diesel car. Charge at home overnight on a regular wallbox charger, however, and your fuel costs will plummet in comparison, especially if you have an EV-specific home power tariff, and you make use of cheaper overnight power prices.

This being an EV, you’ll pay nothing in VED (road tax) on the Cyberster, and if you’re a company car driver, you pay benefit-in-kind company car tax on just 2% of its value until 2025 at the earliest, making monthly bills incredibly affordable compared to those of a regular petrol/diesel sports car.

Pricing for the UK starts from around £55,000, and that will make it more of a rival for the BMW Z4 and Porsche Boxster than for the Mazda MX-5. Add another £5,000 for the extra performance of the dual-motor GT version.

Insurance

Insurance groups haven’t been confirmed yet, but considering that it’s a desirable open-top sports car with generous power outputs, don’t expect premiums to be cheap. The MG4 XPower hot hatchback with 429bhp sits in group 40 out of 50 for insurance, so the Cyberster is likely to be even costlier to cover.

We first sampled a single-motor version of the car on the tropical Chinese island of Hainan, in absolutely torrential rain. And yet even in those conditions, the car felt very impressive indeed. Which should perhaps come as no surprise, given that its dynamics were fettled by Marco Fainello, the legendary Formula One chassis tuner who helped Michael Schumacher to several of his world titles during his time at Ferrari.

Despite its near-two-tonne kerbweight, the Cyberster feels immediately lighter and nimbler than it has any right to, with quick changes of direction revealing a car that stays reassuringly poised and predictable. Even in the inclement conditions, the Cyberster never felt at risk of putting a foot wrong, managing to contain all that power through the rear axle, even under heavy acceleration away from wet junctions or traffic lights.

We’ve now spent more time with a dual-motor Cyberster on British roads to really put it to the test, and while it proved itself to be comfortable and refined, it wasn’t quite as impressive along a twisting B-road. There’s plenty of grip, but its weight means the suspension can struggle to keep up when you push the car harder along a road with a constantly changing surface, bumps and corners. The brakes can also feel underequipped to keep up with the car’s ability to gain pace repeatedly in short order. Instead, it’s best to adopt a more relaxed driving style, letting the regenerative braking bring the car’s speed down more gradually.

The Cyberster is a civilised car, too; choppy surfaces are dealt with in comfort, and thanks to the car’s rigid structure, only large potholes produced anything even resembling shudders through the car’s body, despite the removable roof and dramatic scissor doors. At lower speeds, the car is virtually silent, with tyre roar only becoming more noticeable at motorway speeds, where our test car also had some wind noise from around its doors.

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0-62mph and top speed

The rear-driven MG Cyberster will be plenty fast enough for the vast majority of drivers. Its 335bhp motor hurls it from 0-62mph in just five seconds, and it feels good for every tenth of that. It tops out at 121mph, but for most drivers who aren’t taking their car on track, this will be largely irrelevant.

And that’s the more sedate choice, mind. Choose the all-wheel drive model, and you’ll get another electric motor on the front axle that boosts power to 496bhp. It powers the Cyberster from 0-62mph more quickly than the BMW Z4 or Porsche Boxster, and almost as quickly as a Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet. 

A Super Sport driving mode ensures all its power is on tap, and using its launch control is as simple as sitting with your left foot on the brake pedal, pressing the accelerator and releasing the brake. The gut-wrenching acceleration is made all the more dramatic by the wind rushing past with the top down.

We suspect there won’t be too many arguments with the assertion that the Cyberster is an impossibly pretty car. It has classical roadster lines, with a long, curvaceous bonnet and a high shoulder line that falls away towards the back of the car, before bulging out over the rear wheelarches and kicking up right at the very end. If anything, the rear angle is the most dramatic, with a full-width rear light bar that frames two cool-looking arrow-shaped indicators. And that’s before you’ve even factored in the dramatic scissor doors. These come with sensors to ensure they don’t open against objects or people, and the opening height can be adjusted.

Hoisting those aloft reveals an interior that projects MG several leaps forward in terms of perceived quality and dynamic design, something that becomes more apparent as you step into the surprisingly spacious cabin. The seating position isn't quite as low as that of an MX-5 or Boxster, because the batteries in the floor dictate a slightly higher seating position.

You’ll find the passenger space decked out in Nappa leather and microfibre lining, and it feels genuinely special inside: this is not the stripped-out sports car you might be expecting. As in any good sports car, the Cyberster places an immediate focus on the driver, with all controls directed to one side of the car. The four screens on show can be a little tricky to use (more on that in a moment), but other than that, our only gripe was a lack of tilt adjustment on the base cushion of the seat that would improve the driving position.

The roof itself is a canvas folding design with electric motors, which can operate at speeds of up to 30mph and only takes around 15 seconds, so it’s pretty convenient.

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Infotainment and navigation

MG has managed to squeeze four separate screens into the cockpit-like driver environment of the Cyberster, with three curved around the back of the steering wheel and a fourth on the centre console. All except the main driving display are fairly small, which makes operating them a little fiddly, but they are at least quick courtesy of the system’s punchy processor.

The 10.25-inch central screen takes care of data like your speed, range and directions, while the right-hand screen shows images from the car’s cameras and multimedia is shown on the left-hand screen. Both outer screens are touch-sensitive seven-inch items.

Both the two outer screens are difficult to see due to being tucked away behind the steering wheel, while with the roof open, the central screen can be difficult to see due to glare from the sun. Last, but not least, the centre console touchscreen provides climate and powertrain settings, but it can be a bit fiddly to use while driving, as evidenced by the car’s driver attention system beeping at us while using it.

The Cyberster’s two seats are mounted low down in the cabin, as you’d expect in a roadster. They’re not as low as in something like a Mazda MX-5, primarily because the batteries are positioned below your posterior, but you sit much lower than you do in most EVs. It’s just a shame that there’s no tilt adjustment on the base cushion of the driver’s seat, because this would improve the driving position no end.

There’s also ample storage to be found inside the cabin, with a number of cubbies, plus a decent space behind the seats. The fabric roof can be raised or lowered electrically in 15 seconds, and the mechanism can be operated at speeds of up to 30mph, which is handy if you get caught in a sudden British downpour while driving in traffic.

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Getting a good idea of a new car’s reliability is always difficult due to a lack of reliable data, and when it’s just gone on sale, it’s even more difficult. That’s why we’ll have to reserve judgement on how reliable the Cyberster will be for now, but at least we do know it’s based on the same building blocks as the MG4.

Look at the latest 2023 version of our Driver Power customer satisfaction survey, though, and you might be worried by MG’s performance in our manufacturer standings. The brand came dead last of all the 32 carmakers included, with low scores in almost every area. Reliability was one of them, with a third of owners reporting faults with their cars. What’s more, the fact that 36% of those faults were electrical will also be worrying for buyers of an EV.

Still, as we’ve said, the Cyberster feels like a game-changing car for MG in terms of its quality, so let’s hope that results in a similar uptick in mechanical dependability. Just in case it doesn’t, there’s a seven-year, 80,000-mile warranty to fall back on.

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Safety

The Cyberster hasn’t yet been crash-tested by Euro NCAP, but it is fitted with a reassuring amount of safety kit, from Lane Change and Lane Keep Assist, to Blind Spot Detection and Active Emergency Braking that can spot both pedestrians and cyclists. Its suite of active driving aids are called MG Pilot, which can also drive the car semi-autonomously in heavy traffic and look out for changing speed limits.