MG Cyberster Review 2024

If you want a convertible sports car that happens to be electric, then yes, because it’s just about the only one you can buy right now. Tesla has been promising a second-generation Tesla Roadster for several years now, but it still hasn’t materialised, and we’re beginning to wonder whether it ever will. The canniest Cyberster customers will be those wanting a stylish and glamorous company car. They’ll get what they asked for in spades, and thanks to the low benefit-in-kind tax rates currently available on electric cars, they’ll pay very little for the privilege. 

For us, it’s the range-topping GT version. OK, so it’s more expensive than the entry-level Trophy model (albeit by only five grand), and comes with pretty much exactly the same level of equipment. It also has a shorter range, and looks visually indistinguishable from the standard car. However, it’s a considerably sweeter car to drive, and not only because it has an additional electric motor that gives it four-wheel drive and a power hike from 340PS to 510PS. No, it’s also because the suspension feels more tied down - we suspect due to the additional 100kg it’s carrying - making it a more composed car in terms of both ride and handling.

None, to be honest. The Cyberster really is like nothing else on the road, and that makes it the best car of its type by default.

There are combustion-engined two-seat convertibles, such as the BMW Z4 and Porsche Boxster, that might also compete for your cash, while there are solid-roofed sporty electric cars like the Porsche Taycan and Audi E-Tron GT, but no car matches up with the Cyberster precise in terms of size, seats, bodystyle, powertrain, and price.

With MG’s plight over the last couple of decades, and the budget-focused approach it’s had to take in order to survive, many see it as something of a bargain-basement brand these days. However, when you’re spending a minimum of £55,000 on your convertible that everyone can see into, you really don’t want it to have a budget interior. Happily, the Cyberster really doesn’t.

Most of the materials you come across look and feel of an appropriately high grade, and there’s a nice mixture of trim pieces, textures and finishes that makes the cabin interesting and pleasant to look at. The numerous digital screens also help things feel appropriately space-age.

OK, things aren’t perfect. A couple of parts - the wiper- and indicator stalls, for example - have a bit of a cheap-and-cheerful finish to them, while a few of the switches have a slightly flimsy feel in the way they operate. However, these shortcomings are neither numerous enough, nor severe enough, to ruin the overall illusion.

As we mentioned earlier, the Cyberster’s dashboard comes festooned with no fewer than four digital screens. There’s a 10.25-inch one directly behind the steering wheel that acts as your instrument panel, and either side of this sit two 7.0-inch touchscreen displays, and the whole arrangement is supposed to wrap around the driver.

The screen on the left takes care of your nav and entertainment functions, while the one on the right provides various snippets of information about energy usage, battery charge level, weather information, the whereabouts of local MG service centres, and more. The final touchscreen sits in the middle of the dashboard, and this allows you to switch between various car settings - driving modes, safety systems, lighting, seat settings, and more - and operate the finer points of the climate control system. Happily, there is a separate bank of touch-sensitive climate control buttons just above the screen, so you don’t always have to go delving into on-screen menus to perform basic functions.

Now, all of that sounds great in theory, and admittedly, it does look pretty cool on first encounter. The instant you attempt to try and actually use the system, though, you’ll realise how monumentally difficult it is to do so.

Firstly, the menus are arranged in tabbed submenus, which you swipe between horizontally. Granted, this gives you a fighting chance of finding the function you want, but the act of swiping itself is a fiddly business (you have to put your finger in exactly the right place on the screen, which requires too much concentration), and many often-used functions are buried too deep within the submenus. And that’s before you factor in the fact that, even before you get to this stage, you have to remember which of the myriad screens you need to use to access a particular function. 

And there’s more. Large portions of the two 7.0-inch screens are obscured by the top corners of the steering wheel, so you can’t see them properly without craning your neck sideways. There’s even a problem with the separate climate controls: the touch-sensitive buttons aren’t all that sensitive, and often fail to register an input unless you press really hard, and even then, it’s hit and miss. The same can be said for some of the graphics, which look good in most cases, but the screen transitions can often be a little glitchy.

In short, the whole system is way too complicated, and even performing the simplest of functions can be a thoroughly bamboozling process. Even worse, the amount of concentration needed to navigate your way through the system diverts your attention from the road for far too long, far too often. And if you weren’t already painfully aware of that fact, you’ll be informed by the car’s attention assist warning system which, as soon as you start trying to hunt around for a particular function, immediately scolds you for not concentrating enough on the road ahead.

Those seeking ultimate practicality are rarely the same people who choose to buy two-seater open-topped sports cars - electric or otherwise - so it’s entirely forgivable that the MG Cyberster doesn’t provide it.

The two seats are surrounded by enough space to accommodate a pair of tall adults in comfort, and depending on how far back your seats need to be set on their runners, there’s space behind them to carry a small amount of stuff, although the narrow shape of the space means it’ll be for coats and jumpers, rather than bags.

That aside, there isn’t a huge amount of cabin storage. There’s a small glovebox underneath the dashboard in front of the passenger seat, a lidded cubby under the central armrest and a couple of cupholders in the centre console, but that’s about your lot. The glamorous scissor doors mean you get no door pockets - if you did, their contents would be tipped out onto the pavement every time the doors were opened - but there are small lidded storage boxes where you would otherwise expect to find them.

The 249 litres of boot space you get is about the same as you get in a city car like the Hyundai i10, but the space is also very shallow and hard to access through the narrow opening. None of this is in any way surprising in a car like the Cyberster, though, and as a result, is again entirely forgivable. MG says you’ll get a golf bag in, but, even if that’s true, you might never get it out again…

Bear in mind, also, that there’s no concealed storage for your charging cables, either under the boot floor or under the bonnet, so these will most likely take up a bit more of what little boot space you do have.

In terms of dimensions, the Cyberster is 4535mm long, 1329mm tall and 1913mm wide if you don’t count the door mirrors.

Both versions of the Cyberster get the same 77kWh battery pack, but otherwise, the powertrains of the two versions are quite different.

The entry-level Trophy gets a single electric motor delivering 340PS to the rear wheels. The official 0-62mph time is given at a very handy 5.0 seconds, and the top speed at 121mph (a relatively low-sounding top speed is the norm on electric cars). The GT, meanwhile, gets an additional electric motor on the front axle - giving it four-wheel drive - and that hikes the total power output up to a supercar-worrying 510PS. The 0-62mph dash is trimmed to just 3.2 seconds, although the top speed only rises to 125mph. In both versions, the amount of power and torque you’re served up remains constant regardless of which driving mode you select, but the throttle mapping - in other words, the eagerness with which this power and torque is applied when you press the accelerator pedal - does vary.

So those are the numbers, but what about the sensation? Well, let’s begin with the Trophy, which feels appropriately rapid, and that applies whether you’re pulling away from a standstill or picking up speed on the move. The single-speed transmission also means that this pickup occurs in one steady, unbroken stream. However, the Trophy maybe doesn’t feel quite as rapid as its generous numbers would suggest, and the differences in throttle response make very little difference to the sensation of speed you feel in each driving mode.

Step into the GT, however, there’s a much bigger difference in sensation between the modes. Stick to Comfort mode and the GT doesn’t really feel all that much quicker than the Trophy in the way it picks up speed: rapid, sure, but not bonkers. However, set the driving mode to the maximum-attack setting, and the rate of acceleration you feel becomes a lot more explosive. It feels good for every ounce of that impressive 0-62mph time, and it has enough pace to worry far more expensive and exotic machinery.

Both versions of the MG Cyberster get the same 77kWh battery capacity (74.4kWh usable). The official WLTP range of the Trophy version stands at 316 miles, while the GT model, with its bigger wheels and elevated power levels, has a theoretical range of 276 miles between charges. 

You might detect a very slight whine from the electric motor(s) as you accelerate, but the noise is very distant - certainly more so than a combustion engine would be - and it’s also masked by synthetic noise that’s piped into the cabin. In Comfort mode, your acceleration is accompanied by a faint whooshing noise, while in the sportier modes, you’re served up a noise reminiscent of a distant four-cylinder petrol engine. We’re not sure that really in the spirit of things if you’re buying an EV - you’ll make your own mind up on how appropriate it is - but to be fair, it’s pretty inoffensive, and not as gimmicky as it sounds. 

Road noise is fairly well contained at all speeds, but wind noise is quite prevalent with the roof up. When it’s down, you do feel a bit of wind buffeting in the cabin. You’ll be particularly affected by this if you’re much over six feet tall, because the high seating position puts the top of your head level with the top edge of the windscreen, and in the line of fire of the onrushing wind.

The MG Cyberster hasn’t been crash-tested by Euro NCAP yet, and given that we expect it to sell in very low numbers, we’re not sure it ever will be. It shares a platform and parts with the MG4 hatchback, which scored the full five-star rating when it was tested back in 2022, but there’s only so much you can read into that given how different the cars are in other ways.

As standard, the Cyberster comes with an extensive suite of driver assistance measures known as MG Pilot. This brings together systems such as blind spot detection, lane change assist, lane keep assist, intelligent speed assist, traffic jam assist, front collision warning, rear cross traffic alert, and door opening warning.

With the MG Cyberster still being so fresh out of the box, there hasn't been time for any reliability issues with the car to come to light. It shares a platform and parts with the MG4 hatchback, and we haven’t heard of any reliability horror stories with that car, so hopefully that’s a good sign.

Look at the most recent HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, and it tells a very middling story about MG. The brand placed 18th out of 29 carmakers for overall customer satisfaction, a distinctly middle-of-the-pack ranking. It didn’t feature in any of the study’s top 10 lists of the best cars in terms of both customer satisfaction or reliability, but it didn’t feature in the corresponding lists of the worst cars, either. 

Like all MG models, the Cyberster comes with a generous warranty of seven years or 80,000 miles, whichever happens first. The service intervals on the car stand at 12 months or 15,000 miles, meanwhile.

The MG Cyberster is still very new, new enough that insurance groups for the car haven’t yet been announced. We’ll update this review once they are, but rest assured that with the level of power that both versions of the Cyberster have, insurance bills will not be cheap.

At the time of writing (June 2024), the Cyberster - like all electric vehicles - is exempt from paying road tax. However, this exemption is due to be lifted in April 2025, so buying an electric car will save you very little tax from that point on. 

Granted, the first-year tax bill will only be £10, but from the second year onwards, you’ll be paying the same flat rate of tax as drivers of petrol and diesel cars, a rate that currently stands at £190 per year.

What’s more, the exemption that EVs currently get from the ‘luxury car’ surcharge is also being lifted as of April 2025. This surcharge dictates that all cars that cost more than £40,000 when brand new must pay an additional sum on top of their regular annual tax payment between years two and six of the car’s life, a sum that currently stands at £410 per year. And because all Cybersters cost more than the threshold, all will be liable.

If you’re talking about benefit-in-kind company car tax rather than VED road tax, then the Cyberster immediately starts to make a huge amount of sense. If this car appears on your firm’s company car list, and you don’t need a car with family-friendly practicality, then you can have one of the most stylish convertibles on the road for a pittance of a monthly company car tax payment. That’s because electric cars are only liable for a fraction of the tax that combustion-engined cars are.

This is an area in which the Cyberster does really well, because the list of standard equipment is very generous. Both versions of the car have pretty much the same extensive kit list: the only difference between the two - apart from the power level - is the size of the alloy wheels you get, the Trophy having 19-inchers and the GT getting 20s. Indeed, looking at the numbers on the sidewall of the tyres is the only way to tell the two versions apart visually.

That means all owners get a fully electric hood, electric scissor doors, automatic lights and wipers, 360-degree parking cameras, keyless entry, and adaptive cruise control. Inside, the seats are heated, electrically adjustable and upholstered partly in man-made leather and partly in alcantara. You also get a heated steering wheel and dual-zone climate control. 

The infotainment system, while complicated and distracting to use, does at least come with all the functionality you expect, including Bluetooth, DAB radio, navigation, voice control, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and an eight-speaker Bose audio system.

You won’t be adding dozens of optional extras, either, because ease-of-choice is MG’s thing. A couple of the paint colours cost extra, while you can also choose the colour scheme of both your fabric hood and interior, but that’s about all the customisation you’ll be able to apply.