Forget for a moment that the MG 4 XPower is a fully electric vehicle. Forget that it’s a now-only pseudo-British brand that is actually made in China.

Forget that it looks like an awkward hatchback morphing into a crossover with rather polarizing looks. Forget that the interior looks so simple, so sparse, and frankly so uninspiring, with tight seats not meant for fat arses like mine.

Focus instead on what’s exciting about the XPower: 430hp, 600Nm of torque, twin electric motors with all-wheel drive, 0-100km/h in 3.8 seconds, torque vectoring for mad cornering ability, a decent 385km range, all for the price of P2,001,000. And you’re number-coding-exempt, too.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the 2024 performance car bargain of the year.

The MG 4 platform is built atop SAIC’s Nebula Modular Scalable Platform, with a super-thin 110mm battery pack designed to be swappable out of the MG and help to lower its center of gravity in the interest of lowering the car, improving aerodynamics, and improving dynamic handling abilities.

Over the standard model, the suspension is 25% stiffer all around to tame the wild horses, with massive 345mm front disc brakes and orange brake caliper covers. The regenerative braking efficiency has also been increased to harvest more charge.

It all does seem impressive on paper, but stats and numbers do not lie (and also never deliver a conclusive verdict on how well a car drives). Only one way to find out.

On the open road, the MG 4 XPower feels alive. The steering is the biggest surprise: light yet perceptible and very intuitive.

Sure, more heft is welcome, but it feels very precise, progressive, and predictable. So much so that you find yourself sawing madly behind the wheel, your grin ear to ear. The suspension is equally sublime, very much like a BMW M suspension.

Firm but perfectly damped and possessing sufficient stroke and travel. It allows you to concentrate on your driving, metering the throttle precisely and flowing from corner to corner seamlessly while soaking up all the bumps, the ruts, the dips, and the crests with confidence and stability.

Indeed, this is SAIC’s magnum opus yet for enthusiasts, EV or not.

On the highway, the tell-tale sign that this car has massive reserves of grunt is the feeling of immense torque barely contained by your foot.

You get a similar sensation when driving a modern turbodiesel SUV, resisting the urge to lay down its power and releasing all chaos. Pinning the throttle to the floor is akin to being sucked into a black hole.

You momentarily lose focus (and perhaps consciousness) as the car hurtles at a terrifying rate. It’s the party trick of this car, literally jumping, almost teleporting itself a few frames ahead in your visuals, all the way to its 200km/h top speed.

It also makes it a devastatingly effective B-road bomber, a proper tarmac terrorist as it easily picks up its considerable heft from corner to corner, aided by the powerful brakes and the sublime suspension and merrily connecting the corners between the straight bits.

Sadly, it comes with a smallish 64kWh battery. Utilizing the onboard 7kW charger will fill up the battery in just over five hours, while 150kW DC charging sees it fill up from 20% to 80% capacity in just five minutes.

With a CCS Type 2 plug, the XPower can make use of the growing number of public EV charging stations using the now industry-default plug type.

When you’re not being an absolute hooligan, you’ll be pleased to know that there is an available 365L of boot space, growing to 1,165L with the rear seats down. You also get a 5.3m turning radius, which is average considering its modest size.

You get three USB ports, a wireless charger, six speakers, and a 10-inch infotainment screen with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, but for some reason, I couldn’t get CarPlay to work. Later, my colleague did get it to work after numerous experiments with different cables.

But the seven-inch display for the instrument cluster feels like an add-on atop the steering column. Lastly, power-operated seats offer a good amount of adjustment, but squeeze my bottom tight making long drives a bit wearisome.

The MG 4 XPower is fairly safe, too. A five-star Euro NCAP rating, six airbags, ABS-EBD with brake assist and cornering brake control, hill-hold assist, lane-keeping assist, blind-spot monitoring, and more. Not just the power and the performance, but the technology truly makes this a bargain.

Are you a dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast looking to make a transition to EVs? Look no more: This is for you.