The Chinese love their gadgets.

Sit in the cockpit of the MG Cyberster and you’re presented with three small screens for your instrumentation. On the left is a screen that you can switch from showing tire pressure to several simulated “engine” sounds. One boosts the natural whine from the electric motors so it sounds like you’ve engaged your afterburners; another weirdly sounds like the Gran Turismo version of a four-cylinder engine.

Neither is particularly pleasing to the ears, and worse, when you select either one, a low hum that gradually rises to an ear-piercing shriek will have first-timers wondering what the hell is going on.

Fortunately, you can deselect these gimmicks and just enjoy the normal sound of the motors, because at full power, there are no other words to describe it but stupendously awesome.

It’s like “whhooooOOOOSSSSHHHHH!” accompanied by the near-silent rush of wind flowing past the fabric roof as the speed zips into triple digits, along with some muted tire roar from the 20-inch Pirellis.

I will never get to sit in an F-22 (or J-20, since this Brit-badged car is actually Chinese) in this lifetime, but the Cyberster is a good substitute.

The raw numbers will intimidate anyone who has grown accustomed to ICE-powered daily drivers making anywhere in the area of 150hp to 200hp.

But even sports car aficionados will take heed of the Cyberster’s output: 537hp and 720Nm from two motors, all-wheel drive, and a range of 446km from the WLTP test cycle.

For comparison, the Nissan GT-R makes 565hp and 633Nm, and a Porsche 911 S only has 388hp and 449Nm. The 911 GTS does get 532hp, but at considerably more expense.

None of these three can touch the Cyberster’s price of P4,500,000, though. You could buy two Cybersters for the price of one GT-R with enough change for a Honda CR-V for those days when you want to travel incognito.

Numbers aside, the first thing anyone will notice about the car is its drop-dead styling. Swathed in arrest-me red, the swoopy two-door is a selfie magnet anytime you leave it in a parking slot.

Even the locals had no shame in whipping out their phones to take videos of the car as we made our way to our photo-shoot location.

The lithe bodywork is an aerodynamic masterpiece, too. On the highway with the top up, it’s as quiet as a steel-roofed car, and any wind resistance as the speed climbs is easily overcome by that powertrain. With the top down and the windows up, it’s possible to hold a conservation to around 80km/h without raising your voice up.

That electric roof is a gem, too. The entire operation takes less than 15 seconds to bring the top either down or up, with the mechanical/hydraulic ballet of fabric and steel mesmerizing onlookers as you breeze through traffic.

As roadsters go, the Cyberster is a relatively painless car to get in and stay in. Substantially longer than a Mazda MX-5 with a length of 4,535mm (or just a little shorter than a Mazda 3), you can plop into the driver’s seat without contorting yourself as long as you’re not more than 6ft in height.

Getting out is also a nonissue, as you sit low enough to the ground to feel sporty, but not too low that you’ll need someone to actually help you unfold yourself just to egress the car. The scissors-style doors seem like a design gimmick at first, but they have a practical side. Doors that swing up are doors that won’t bang into walls or other cars in a parking lot. You can squeeze into a tight spot and not worry about not having enough space to extract yourself if there’s another object besides your car.

The doors have several buttons to open them with, too. One outside by the window, another on the door panel, and yet another on the center console. Sensors also detect if there is an object or a body in the way of the door’s movement, so there’s no risk of being guillotined by your own car.

It’s all a very complex system of pistons, sensors, and other mechanical wizardry, so the only caveat I can think of is: How many years will this run smoothly before something eventually breaks?

The attention to detail continues inside, which uses a combination of leather and Alcantara. The cockpit is angled toward the driver, so there’s nothing much for the passenger to look at or fiddle with.

The center console is also a touch panel for managing the climate control and checking the battery charge. Aside from the glove box, there’s a small storage area behind the seats for a small bag. There’s a Bose audio system, but the sound quality isn’t that great, probably owing to the tight confines of the car.

The screens could be larger to make it easier to read everything at a glance since the steering wheel tends to obscure the central display, but then that would ruin the view out the windshield.

When you’re strapped in, looking out gives you a panoramic view except for directly behind. Again, like a fighter-jet cockpit.

While the car makes enough power to send you into hyperspace, it handles more like a grand tourer than a traditional sports car.

This is because, even with a suspension tuned by Marco Fainello (the guy who tuned Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari F1 car back in the day), the damn thing weighs 2,000kg or about as much as a pickup truck. That’s the price you pay for two motors and a battery with enough juice to keep you going for a fairly long distance.

This substantial mass lends itself to a planted feel on smooth stretches of highway, with good road feel and sharp responses from the steering as opposed to the typical PlayStation sensation.

Who doesn’t love a double-wishbone and multilink setup, right? Incidentally, the top speed is just 200km/h, which is on the low side for sports cars, but getting there is a blast.

Zero to 100km/h is just 3.2 seconds, and if you’re not paying attention, you’ll be well over the speed limit just dipping into the go-pedal a little too deeply. Midrange acceleration is stellar. See that car up ahead? You’re well past it in just a few seconds. It doesn’t overtake as much as it teleports.

Geopolitics aside, the only real downside to this car is also its greatest strength. Dual electric motors give it the thrust that an ICE-powered car can only achieve with turbocharging and lots of displacement (and at much more expense).

But it also limits your travel distance to roughly half of the rated maximum range (if you’re charging at home), while hunting for fast EV charging stations in the city and outside of it is time-consuming and potentially stressful.

When I was down to 10% and less than 100km of range, the car (in a female voice) urged me to find a charging station right away.

I dutifully went to Vermosa, and left the car for an hour and a half to charge, only to come back and find that the station had malfunctioned and not a single watt had charged back. Moving to another charger got things back on track, but now I was delayed for another 90 minutes.

Any savings in fuel are literally eaten up as you kill time waiting at cafés and restaurants.

The EV industry is still in its infancy in the Philippines, but if you have P4,500,000 to spare and want a sexy two-door with a thrust-to-peso ratio that absolutely kills it, your Cyberster awaits.