Expert Insights: Q&A with Giles Belcher, MG Australia's chief commercial officer

MG has a big year ahead as it looks to roll out a raft of new vehicles and enter segments it’s never competed in before.

It’s all part of a goal to be a top-five auto brand in Australia by 2027, and a top-three brand by 2030.

To discuss these plans and more, we sat down with Giles Belcher, MG Motor Australia’s chief commercial officer. He’s been a fixture in the local automotive industry for over two decades, previously working for the likes of Toyota and Hyundai.

This interview is part of our new Expert Insights series, in which we’ll be chatting with industry figures from carmakers, lobby groups and other organisations within the automotive world.

It has been edited for clarity.

CarExpert: MG was previously a very niche sporty brand. Now, it has a big tent with everything from city cars to high-end electric roadsters. What does the MG brand stand for today?

Giles Belcher: I think the MG brand stands for value. Even back in the day with those two-seater sports cars and whatever they were, they were a value proposition in that space way back then. So, I think that has maintained its relevance all the way through to be honest.

Today our key point is value. We want to offer the best-value car, in every segment that we compete in. Value, and also innovation.

Again, if you hop back to the old days, MG was always innovating. I think I read a quote once that when they were racing against Bugatti in the old days on a fraction of the budgets, the boss of Bugatti said that they’re like fleas. They don’t seem to have budgets.

So we’re proud of that history. And again, we try and innovate. Do things a little bit differently. And, and that’s true to this date.

CE: We’ve seen other Chinese carmakers confirm premium brands and now MG has the Cyberster. Are there more models coming at higher price points? Is it more challenging to sell premium vehicles under a mass-market nameplate and is MG’s brand equity strong enough to do so?

GB: It’s never easy, I suppose the brand transformation to show people the value in the cars, even at higher price points. But we stand behind the product, and we believe the product in and of itself is suitable for that kind of price.

We believe the value is in that car at that price. So we’re happy with the way Cyberster is going. We certainly – I think, as we’ve said before – we don’t have any volume expectations of it. It was more an homage to the past and a showcase of what design and tech we can do.

So, we’re comfortable with that, and we’ll launch some other vehicles this year that are probably at a more elevated price maybe than Australia is used to for us – not above Cyberster, but we’ll fill that gap.

So, I think, by the end of this year, you’ll see a real kind of laddering of value, right the way up to Cyberster – probably in a more logical sense than maybe you see now.

CE: At the other end of the market, MG introduced really sharp pricing for the MG 4, undercutting rivals and helping fuel the EV price war in that segment. Is that something we can expect to see more of, and what’s the impact of that on new and existing customers?

GB: Look, as to whether we’ll it see again, you never say never in this game, but we certainly have no plans to drop prices to that extent at the moment – but as I say, never say never. You don’t know what the future may bring. So [we’ll] probably hold fire on that type of activity for the foreseeable future.

One of the reasons we did that was to test if we could sell electric cars against petrol cars at a similar price. So are people ready to buy electric, but the value proposition doesn’t quite work for them yet? Or are they not that interested in electric? Let’s see.

So, we made the adjustment, and it showed that people are more than willing to jump into an EV if that value proposition works for them.

So that did its job, I suppose, and we’ve been fairly clear that, over time, that price would go back up. And we’ve stayed true to that. And there’s a lot more of them on the road. I see them a lot more often these days, and it gives me a smile every time I see one.

CE: Overall, are you happy with the performance of the MG 4 in our market?

GB: Yeah. If you look at it the last few months, it’s been kind of the second best or close to the best-selling EV. It’s certainly number one in the small cars over $40,000 segment in VFACTS, so we’re very proud of the result.

It’s a fantastic car, it’s award-winning, it’s brilliant. So I think it’s getting its due rewards.

CE: Prices have fluctuated for many MG models. Is that confusing to MG customers?

GB: You’re better off probably asking customers that rather than me, but every brand has short-term offers in the market. So, drive-away offers change depending on market conditions, stock levels, demand levels, all these things.

The drive-away offers in the market are basically short-term campaigns that can go for a month, can go for six months. It just depends on the market condition and the performance of that model you’re trying to achieve.

So, things do change, but changing them all the time is probably not ideal. And certainly, we’re going to seek a bit more consistency in that space.

But again, we have to respond. So if things change, if a competitor changes or the market changes, then we’re a brand that will respond.

If that happens again, we’ll change again, but the ideal is consistency, I suppose. But we don’t live in isolation.

CE: Most MGs have nationwide drive-away pricing, but some don’t. Is that something that’s going to be aligned moving forward, or is there a logic behind that?

GB: Potentially. I suppose, again, we’ll monitor the situation and we’ll change if we feel appropriate.

CE: So in a market where MG has got one of the best warranties…

GB: The best warranty.

CE: In a market where other brands are offering generous warranty coverage, and other Chinese brands are competing or undercutting on price, what’s MG’s competitive advantage?

GB: Look, I think the brand is a big advantage. It’s a known brand. We’ve been in Australia now for eight years. We’ve been in the top 10 for the last probably four years, maybe three years. So we’re a known brand, with relevance from today, we’re also a known brand with a long history – 101 years now.

So that shows I think that we’re here and we intend to be here and the warranty I think that shows confidence in our product. 10 years – I know some brands have five years, plus another five years if you service in the right way. Ours is a flat 10, so we’re very confident in our product.

And I think the value in the cars when you combine the brand, the value we put into the cars and the warranty… And we’ve got a hundred dealers around the country in every metropolitan city. We’re in all the rural centres, all the regional centres.

A hundred dealers around the country shows that if you buy an MG, when you move house, or you move state, you might move into a regional centre, there’s still an MG dealership there to help you. So, I think when you combine all those things, we’re confident in our position in the market.

Having said that, competition is always interesting. We respect all the competitors. But we’re comfortable and confident in our own offering to the market

CE: How strong is MG’s presence in regional Australia, and is that somewhere the network will continue to be filled out?

GB: It depends how you define different things, right? But from my point of view, we’re in every regional town and a lot of rural towns as well.

We have nationwide coverage, we’re in Darwin for example.

Will we expand the network more? Potentially. A few more this year. But we’re not going to flood the country with too many because we respect our dealer partners and want them to have a sustainable, robust business so we’ll limit the amount of dealers we have, but at the same time make sure we have adequate coverage everywhere.

And as you launch different models, sometimes you need to expand in rural areas. I think we’ve been open in saying we’re going to launch a pickup this year, so that might mean we open a few more rural centres.

CE: The market is expected to be down this year and the number of brands on the other hand is swelling to unprecedented proportions. What challenges does that bring MG?

GB: It’s just increased competition, to be honest. It’s nothing that those of us who have been around for too long haven’t experienced before.

Australia’s always had one of the most competitive markets in the world, when you look at brands versus market size. It seems to grow all the time. New brands coming into the country, that adds to the competition but it’s already pretty competitive, so it doesn’t really change a lot.

And it all benefits the consumer at the end of the day. Everyone has to do better, offer more. A better customer experience, better products to grow or hold their sales volume. So consumers win, [and] us in the OEM world, we’re used to it – so bring it on!

CE: Does MG still plan on being a top-five brand by 2027 and a top-three brand by 2030? Do those plans factor in other brands like BYD which has similar ambitions?

GB: We certainly are aiming for it. That’s our goal. Top five and top three. We’re not walking away from that. We believe we’ll have the product range, the value, the warranty, and everything else.

We’ll have plug-in hybrids, we’ll have EVs, we’ll have the full product, the drivetrain covered. We believe we’ll have the ability to do that. The consumers decide at the end of the day, as you know.

In regards to other brands, everyone’s going to have their own goals, their own expectations. So, again, it comes down to that competition. I’m not overly focused on what other brands are doing, I’m more focused on what I need to do and what we need to do.

At the end of the day, there’s a market that will be somewhere between 1.1 and 1.2 million people, and you’ve got to try and offer yourself to as many of those as you can and make them believe in you and what you offer. So that’s what we’re trying to achieve.

CE: You mentioned the ute and there’s also a three-row SUV coming. MG Australia is going to enter segments it’s never competed in before, so how will MG lure buyers of those types of vehicles from other brands that have been building utes, large SUVs and the like for a lot longer?

GB: Again, it comes down to the product and the value we’ll build into it. If you look at every single one of the products we have in market right now, we believe they offer outstanding value within that segment. Not necessarily the cheapest, but the best value.

We’ll do the same thing with the seven-seat SUV. We’ll do the same thing with the pickup. We’ll do the same thing with everything we offer in the market.

You have a look at the new products we’ve launched in the last 12 months – in just under 12 months we’ve refreshed the entire range of cars. All the new cars are fantastic designs.

I would say that, I’m probably a bit biased, but I think they look fantastic. The technology is great. The drivetrains we offer are great, so we’ll continue to do that, and we believe that’s the secret to success for MG in the country. It’s just offering that value everywhere we go.

CE: MG is particularly well-placed in that you have a mixture of combustion, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric vehicles. Where do you see the market going this year in terms of demand and sales growth for electric and hybrid options, and in the years ahead? And how quickly can MG adjust its local lineup to accommodate that changing local demand, and tightening local regulations?

GB: Changing demand when it comes to powertrains, we’re probably very well-placed. I think you know our parent company [SAIC Motor] has got a lot of resources. They’re very, very fast to react to things. I’ve worked at a couple of other brands, and the speed of our parent company is amazing.

And with the speed comes quality and specification and technology, so they do things fast, and they do them amazingly well. So I think whichever way the market goes, we can react and then be in a position to satisfy it.

As to which way it goes, who knows?

EV demand, as everyone can see, is not growing at the rate it was growing before. But there’s a whole lot more product available in that space than there’s ever been before. So will that variety of product drive more consideration in EVs? Potentially.

Will hybrids continue to grow as fast as they did last year? I think to some extent last year was a bit of a misnomer. There were a lot of back-orders that brands were filling, that weren’t necessarily people buying cars in 2024, but receiving cars that they bought in 2023, and in perhaps some cases 2022. And then all that demand got satisfied in 2024.

So I don’t think we’ll see the massive growth that we saw in hybrids last year. It’ll probably still grow, but I don’t think it will grow to the same crazy extent. I mean, that was extraordinary.

Plug-in hybrids will be interesting. Once the FBT tax exemption finishes on March 31 this year, what does that do to PHEV demand? Time will tell. I think there’s a lot of benefits in that technology for Australia. It’s a big place.

The people, sometimes even if they don’t drive long distances, they think they might one day drive long distances. So they want to be comfortable that the vehicle they buy can satisfy that need.

We’re looking at some different variations in that space in tech and we’ll probably have more to say about that later this year. But potentially, we’re looking at variations on the plug-in hybrid technology to better suit Australian conditions.

CE: Are you talking longer-range plug-in hybrids?

GB: Just a slightly different technology. Let’s just put it that way.

CE: That sounds like a big hint about extended-range electric vehicles…

GB: It’s not the extended-range stuff. It’s stuff that has never been seen in Australia before.

CE: MG 3 and ZS now have hybrid options in Australia. What’s the demand been like and do you see that growing, or staying where it is?

GB: We’ve been pretty happy with the take rate so far. ZS Hybrid certainly has hit the market pretty well. To be honest, we’re very happy with that. MG 3’s growing all the time. We’re very sure that we’ll continue to grow as more people become aware of the offering.

It sometimes takes time for people to become aware of the product that you have available. Always too much time than we would like. If I owned Twitter or X or whatever it’s called, my job would be a lot easier.

People find out about it every day, so we believe that when they find out about it, from people who drive our cars, a high proportion of them buy them. So, it’s about getting people to experience the product for us.

Once they sit in it, they touch it, they feel it, they drive it, we have a pretty good success rate with people buying the cars. And so that’s what we’re trying to focus on.

CE: We’ve seen Toyota go hybrid-only with many of its model lines because that was the majority of demand, but Toyota’s been in the hybrid game for a long time. Do you see a point at which MGs also lose their petrol engines in Australia, or is that still a long way off?

GB: We don’t have any plans for that right now. We’ll continue to offer the full range of drivetrains to the market and let the consumers decide which one suits them.

CE: Small SUVs are very popular, but one type of vehicle that isn’t quite as popular these days is mid-sized passenger cars, except for the Toyota Camry, BYD Seal and Tesla Model 3. MG is planning to enter that segment with the MG 7. What’s the rationale behind launching a vehicle like that?

GB: It’s a beautiful car. I’m dying to launch it so I can get one – that’s going to be my car.

Look, it’s a great car. We think it will resonate well in Australia. Again, we’re not chasing Camry volume with it. It’s a performance fastback sedan that looks epic, so we believe there’s a place for it, so we’re gonna have a go.

People buy sedans if they’re, I suppose, practical enough for them. Or the flipside is, are they design cool? We believe ours is practical and design cool. The green one looks amazing!

CE: Are you going to bring the colourful interiors offered in China here?

GB: Some of the colourful interiors are very colourful. We’re working through that at the moment, but I don’t think we will launch some of the colourful ones that they have over there. I’m not sure they would resonate with the Australian public.

We’re actually looking at the moment at a couple of different interiors for a couple of our cars. We think we’ll be offering a tan or a kind of beige leather, a white interior on the ZS. So, there’s a few things that we’re actively considering at the moment and hope to bring to market relatively soon.

With a lot of these things, they look amazing. But most people will end up defaulting to something sensible, unfortunately. But some of them do look cool. So always, we’ll look at it. We consider it. I think we’ll have a go at a couple and bring in a couple of alternate colours. We’re probably not quite there yet, but we’re close.

CE: Some MG models have a full suite of active safety technology like the ZS, HS and MG 3, but others like the MG 5 don’t. Can we expect to see greater consistency moving forward with your safety technology strategy in Australia?

GB: The MG 5 was launched a few years ago now, when probably the brand was in a different place. Moving forward, we will see I suppose a more standardised, higher level of safety in every single MG we bring to the country.

We’ve looked at it. We’ve discussed it with our parent company. They’re supportive. So I believe that will be our trajectory moving forward.

CE: Does that mean that the MG 5 won’t be sticking around?

GB: We’re going to bring to market this year a much improved safety specification in that car. Not sure of the timing yet, but it will be later this year.

CE: And will that bring a full suite of active safety technology?

GB: I’m probably not able to specify exactly what it is right now, but it will bring the vehicle up to a kind of standard in its segment.

CE: Is there still a plan for the MG 3 to get a safety upgrade?

GB: Later this year. So, our parent company is super supportive when it comes to safety and the requirements of the Australian market. So when we go to them with requests, they’re generally very supportive and act as quickly as they can. So we’ll bring those two cars with improved safety specification later this year.

CE: MG parent company SAIC Motor also has the LDV brand, which is distributed locally by an independent company. So far the two brands have offered different products but, now you’re going to introduce a ute, how does SAIC feel about having two offerings in the same market?

GB: Look, I can’t speak for them, to be honest, but when you think about the amount of utes on offer in the Australian market these days, the fact that LDV and MG are related brands at a head office level is kind of irrelevant, really. We’re two players in a much broader market. So I don’t see that particular issue.

CE: But LDV is known for being a commercial vehicle brand, whereas MG isn’t. So why would somebody choose to buy an MG ute over an LDV ute?

GB: I think, for the same reason I was saying before over any [other] brand – our history, our warranty, our confidence, our network. It’s the same reason they would buy a ZS over another small SUV. It’s no different.