The MG 5 sedan arrived this year with little in the way of active safety equipment, but the Chinese brand is looking to remedy this.
“Where and when possible, we will add improvements to our products for our models during their life cycle,” said a spokesperson for MG Motor Australia.
“This includes the MG 5 and we are currently working on an additional safety pack to be featured on this model in the future.”
CarExpert understands this option pack is likely to arrive in Australia towards the end of 2024.
Apart from autonomous emergency braking (AEB), now required for all new vehicle launches in Australia, there’s no active safety equipment available on the local-spec MG 5 – even on the top-spec Essence.
While MG hasn’t confirmed what extra safety equipment will be made available, we can look to China and Thailand for ideas.
In China, where our vehicles are sourced from, the MG 5 can be had with adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, intelligent speed assist, and traffic jam assist.
In Thailand, it can also be had with blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert. These features can also be found in the Chinese-market MG 5 Scorpio, a sportier counterpart to the regular MG 5.
The MG 5 is the only vehicle in its segment in Australia to not offer adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, lane-keep assist or rear cross-traffic alert in any variant.
While the MG 5 betters the cheaper MG 3 and ZS in offering standard AEB, it’s a far cry from even other MGs like the ZST which offer a comprehensive suite of active safety and driver assist technology under the MG Pilot name.
The shorter equipment list may have helped MG keep the sedan’s price down, however.
The MG 5 is priced at $24,990 drive-away in base Vibe trim, making it Australia’s cheapest sedan – undercutting the smaller Mazda 2 G15 Pure, priced at $24,720 before on-road costs.
The flagship Essence is priced at $28,990 drive-away. For context, the Kia Cerato starts at $27,890 drive-away.
In November, MG sold more of its two-model MG 5 range than Mazda did of its entire 3 line-up (758 sales vs. 654). It also came close to matching the Kia Cerato range (782 sales).
Sales only began in August, and already MG has sold 1888 examples, putting it narrowly behind the Subaru Impreza (1951 sales).
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