2025 MG Cyberster review: Australian first drive

All brands evolve. It's a natural effect of changing market forces. For MG, which started out as a builder of modified Morris vehicles, and morphed into a more approachable mass-market brand over a century, the focus is now back on performance.

As a true flagship for the brand, and a car that's certain to attract attention, the MG Cyberster is unmissable. The classic roadster form factor recalls the highlights from MG's past, while the heady electric performance points to the brand's new-found confidence as an EV manufacturer.

Then there are the Cyberster's impressive stats: a 375kW dual-motor powertrain, a 0–100km/h time of 3.2 seconds, and a claimed 443km driving range.

It puts the brand into an area it's been absent from for decades. MG of the past may have form with drop-top sports cars, but in its current form, the MG badge is more likely to be affixed to cheap city hatchbacks and affordable compact SUVs.

With big shoes to fill, and the eyes of the world watching, does the MG Cyberster stack up?

Rather than offer a range of models and variants, the MG Cyberster arrives in Australia as a single model. It's a true headline act too.

The dual-motor electric drivetrain pairs a 150kW/250Nm front motor and 250kW/475Nm rear motor for a rear-biased all-wheel-drive powertrain outputting a combined 375kW and 725Nm. Those are huge figures, no matter how you slice them.

The striking design is also complemented by power-operated scissor doors. Rather than pivoting outward, these follow the Lamborghini example of rising skywards. There is no way to be subtle either. The unusual operation gets attention.

Beyond that party trick, the Cyberster also comes with 20-inch alloy wheels, a power-folding fabric roof, LED head and tail-lights, electrically adjustable sports seats with heating, Alcantara and faux-leather seats, heated nappa leather steering wheel, 360-degree cameras, dual-zone climate control, and a multi-screen driver's cockpit that looks like something out of a jet fighter.

The base price only gets you the English White paint shown here. Sterling Silver and Camden Grey add $1000 to the price, while the hero colours, Diamond Red and Royal Yellow are $1200 over the base price. All colours can be paired with a black and red, or white and grey interior. A black roof is standard, but a red roof is optional with white, silver, and grey-finished cars.

The price is set higher than any other model in the MG range, yet it somehow retains the brand's value edge. An MG Cyberster wears a $115,000 sticker in Australia, before on-road costs. Overseas there is a cheaper single-motor variant (with only the rear 250kW motor), but it's not on the cards for Australia – at least not yet.

You get a car unlike any other in the MG range, but it's probably worth highlighting that a Cyberster is almost twice the price of a 320kW MG 4 XPower (from $55,990 plus on-road costs, before any special offer discounts).

It also presents an interesting contrast to potential competitors.

The closest philosophical match is the petrol-powered BMW Z4, priced from $99,200 for the 145kW four-cylinder sDrive 20i, up to $139,800 for the 285kW six-cylinder M40i.

The Porsche 718 Boxster is between generations, with the old petrol-powered model set to be replaced by an EV next year.

If you want to play the numbers game, you can buy a Ford Mustang GT V8 Convertible for $86,752 and get close, with 347kW, or make the switch to something like a BMW M4 Competition Convertible that packs in 390kW and all-wheel drive, but asks for $197,900.

Of course, if the open-top aspect isn't as important there's also the Tesla Model 3 Performance. It comes with a 3.1-second 0–100km/h claim from its 380kW electric powertrain and can be yours from $80,900, making it something of a performance bargain.

Hyundai also plays in the performance EV arena with the Ioniq 5 N. It has a barely believable 478kW peak output and a 3.4-second 0–100km/h time, with specific tuning for performance driving and even track work, from $111,000. All prices listed here are before options and on-road costs.

While it looks reasonably compact in photos, the Cyberster surprises by being larger than you might expect when you see it in the metal. Make no mistake, it's still not huge, but at 4535mm long it sits a considerable 620mm longer than an MX-5 (and 592mm longer than the MG TF was). The relatively long 2690mm wheelbase is also 380mm longer than that of an MX-5 (and 314mm up on a TF).

A closer match is the BMW Z4 – though it too is still 211mm shorter and built atop a 220mm shorter wheelbase.

Interior space as a result is good, but the MG design team have been very careful to maintain a close-fitted sports car cabin feel. The interior is very clearly all about the driver, with the trio of instrument screens angled to be driver-facing, and a cowl panel that sweeps into a passenger grab handle, sectioning off the passenger.

The console sits high, and the seats are as low as they can be. That positioning divided opinion in the Drive office, though. For me at 169cm tall, the fit felt right. Low in the cabin, but noticeably not bum-on-the-ground low. It's handy for navigating regular roads and being able to spot surrounding traffic without feeling too vulnerable, and still allows you to get in and out without looking like a newborn calf taking its first steps.

Taller drivers about 180cm and above felt lofty, and said that the windscreen header rail felt like it impeded forward visibility. All drivers, no matter their size and scale, like the available foot room. Without the intrusion from a centre tunnel, the footwell is wide and there's no need to squeeze in or compromise to make the Cyberster work.

The seats themselves offer limited adjustment with slide, recline, tilt, and lumbar adjustment only. There's no way to adjust the bolstering on the backrest or base, and no length adjustment for the base cushion. While that might not sound crucial, the seats themselves are quite broad, and the bolsters aren't particularly pronounced, so being able to cinch them in a bit would help give a sportier feel.

The choice of cabin materials feels well considered. There are soft-touch surfaces anywhere you'd expect to lay a hand, with stitched faux leather wrapping over the dash, across the doors, and on parts of the console. You can opt for an airy white and grey interior treatment, but the black and red of our test car feels a bit more sporty.

The only problem I couldn't reconcile is that the red roof is very clearly red, but the red interior sections are more of a terracotta colour, so you might be best to avoid putting these two elements together. There is no option for a fully black interior nor a classic roadster tan.

The nappa leather wheel has a nice chunkiness to it, and feels nice in hand with its fine-grain leather. Both the steering wheel and seats are heated too, extending the top-down capabilities further into the cooler months, if that's your thing.

Cabin storage is impressive. You get a regular glovebox and storage under the centre armrest – the equal of what you'd expect in a regular passenger car. The cupholders have a pop-up infill to hide them away when not in use, and there is a compact lidded bin in each door.

Behind the seats, there is a netted storage nook that's easily big enough to fit an attache case, laptop bag, or small backpack. There's also a bag hook to loop the straps through to stop things sliding around.

The boot itself offers 249 litres of space; it's a big number for a roadster with more than an MX-5 (130L) but less than a Z4 (281L). The boot floor is very high, though, leaving a small loading space that reaches a long way forward. Most regular suitcases will be too tall to fit here, so slim luggage or soft bags are recommended. There's also a warning not to sit, or place items, on the prominent load lip.

Up front there's no additional storage. The long bonnet hides access panels for the washer fluid and coolant, but not any kind of stow-away space.

Then there are the doors. The unmissable theatre of them sailing skyward is not for introverts. People notice, point, take photos... At least while the Cyberster is so new it's something you'll need to get used to.

There are switches on the console, on the outside of the doors, and on the remote to activate them. The remote required a long press and I found that if you push too hard, you'll also accidentally pop the boot as well.

There's a sensor on the top and side of the door to prevent contact if anything nearby is too close. After putting this to the test, we found that the doors would effectively avoid close vehicles or solid objects, but would happily nudge a human obstacle out of the way. When closing, the doors stop dead if they detect an impact – you'll feel the bump, but won't be left mangled or crushed.

The doors have a default 80 per cent open marker, but you can adjust this to be lower or higher. Handy if you have garage clearance issues, but you can't set different heights by different locations, which could be a handy feature.

The doors are a bit of fun to begin with, but unless you plan ahead you can find yourself waiting impatiently by the door as it swings up – on a rainy day you'll take no joy in the process. The positive is that the opening space required is quite compact, so getting in and out is much easier than in a traditional long-doored coupe or convertible.

The roof is fairly swift to drop, just 15 seconds is all it takes, and you can raise or lower it at speeds of up to 50km/h. Because it lives in a dedicated compartment above the boot, you don't need to make sure there's a cargo barrier in place, and boot space isn't impacted by the roof position.

The three-screen instrument display ahead of the driver imparts a real jet fighter feel to the cabin of the Cyberster. I can see a lot of potential for a system like this, but the Cyberster has some way to go to live up to it.

The primary instrument screen is a 10.25-inch display, and on each side sits a 7.0-inch touchscreen.

As you'd expect, the display ahead of the driver offers speed, power/regen mapping, battery and range details – and user-selectable info including 'now playing' media, trip details, and tyre pressure monitoring displays. Rather than being a fully customisable display, there are two layouts to choose from, one with an MG octagon power meter surrounding the speed readout, and one more linear version.

To the driver's left the sub-screen can display radio, Bluetooth, or phone mirroring, plus the inbuilt navigation. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are by a cabled connection, which feels a little old-hat for such a flagship model. To the right, you get access to connected services like weather, plus charge info and energy use, and a setting screen to delve into some – but not all – of the Cyberster's customisable parameters.

Because of the high positioning, these two screens are blocked by about a third each from the steering wheel. As they don't really display crucial data it's not a deal-breaker, more of an annoyance. To make using the screens easier, it's possible to flick through functions using a button on each side of the steering wheel.

The final screen is another 7.0-inch display down on the console. This one looks after climate controls, but also has tabs to adjust drive modes and one-pedal mode, plus menus for cabin lighting and other comfort functions. Its placement is problematic, though. It's not a particularly bright screen, and the glossy finish means it's quite hard to see and adjust accurately on a bright day.

Overall, the experience is a bit much. One regular infotainment screen could easily handle all the functions spread across multiple displays here. It's a bit fussy to use, and though it will get more familiar with time, the screens at the side of the instruments don't really enhance the user experience – and push air vents to a position where they're far less useful.

The standard eight-speaker Bose audio system at least carries some punch. You can opt for driving noises, one that mimics a combustion engine and one more EV-like, but I didn't particularly like either, so to combat the roaring silence, the Bose system is the way to go.

The connected side of the Cyberster includes access to MG's iSmart system, allowing you to pair your car via the iSmart app. It's not a particularly slick user interface (we didn't get to pair it on this occasion, but the app is the same across all MG models) and can be slow to register inputs, and rather than relying on inbuilt phone security, like face or fingerprint recognition, asks for a PIN at every command input.

Access is included for the first 12 months, and is available via paid access after the first year.

At the time of writing, safety body ANCAP (and its partner organisation Euro NCAP) hadn't tested the MG Cyberster. As such it is currently unrated.

Often sports cars aren't always as well equipped as their more sedate range mates when it comes to safety tech, but the MG Cyberster wants for very little.

Standard safety and driver assist features include forward autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane-keep assist with lane centring and departure warning, blind-spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go, rear cross-traffic alert with braking, rear collision warning and door open warning (to prevent opening the doors into the path of an oncoming vehicle or cyclist), plus tyre pressure monitoring.

The cabin has four airbags, including dual front airbags and combined head/thorax-protecting side impact airbags. The roll hoops at the back of the cabin are fixed in place, and do not raise when a roll-over is detected.

The safety systems tend to work well. Much like the MG 4, the Cyberster has some room for improvement – the lane centring can wander from side-to-side rather than tracking straight in a lane, and in corners it saws at the wheel lightly, rather than turning smoothly.

Those are minor disturbances, though. Overall the system is cooperative. The adaptive cruise control slows for bends in the road far more than it needs to, but switching from 'intelligent cruise control' that includes lane centring to 'adaptive cruise control' reduces this dramatically. Switching modes is as simple as a long press on the left steering wheel button.

While our loan of the car was only short for this first drive, we did experience one phantom brake moment, where the car – with no other traffic nearby – instigated an emergency brake. With no obstacle ahead, it didn't feel like it went into full-panic brake mode, and pressing the accelerator was enough to overcome it and continue on.

The MG Cyberster comes with one of the longest new car warranties in Australia with vehicle coverage for 10 years or 250,000km – almost double the time of most rivals. As with almost all new vehicle warranties, this covers defects and malfunctions but not wear and tear or misuse – still it's handy to know that if you're worried about the longevity of those complex doors, MG's warranty should back them up for 10 years.

The high-voltage battery is also covered for the same period, 10 years or 250,000km. Again, outlasting most EVs that carry an eight-year battery warranty.

Some parts of the car do carry a shorter warranty term, however. The convertible roof is only warranted for five years, the 12-volt battery for two years, and the paint and anti-perforation warranty has a seven-year term. For vehicles used commercially (as rentals, for instance) warranty is capped at seven years or 160,000km.

MG also runs a capped-price service schedule covering 10 years, at 12-month or 25,000km intervals (whichever comes first). Service pricing isn't as cheap as you might expect for something that forgoes an internal combustion engine, with services at four years/100,000km, six years/150,000km, and eight years/200,000km priced at over $700 each. Over the first five years servicing adds up to $2264.

That's close to a BMW Z4 ($2500 for five years) and far above something like a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N ($1875 for six years).

Sports cars aren't typically cheap to insure, and a representative quote for the Cyberster came to $2888 per year – for consistency between reviews we use the same insurer each time and use a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male, living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

A base Z4 returned a similar $2863 quote, and a Tesla Model 3 Performance for the same driver info was priced at $3088 per year.

With a 77kWh ternary lithium-ion battery, the MG Cyberster has a claimed driving range of 443km from a full charge. Given the battery chemistry, however, it's not recommended to fully charge the battery for day-to-day use, but at a 90 per cent charge, that's still a useable 398km range.

MG quotes efficiency at 19.1 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometres, but in our time with the car we sat at 20.5kWh/100km. Close to the claim, and in a driving scenario that included some far from efficient press-on driving.

The Cyberster is equipped with an 11kW AC onboard charger, and takes a claimed nine hours for a full charge. A 7.4kW home charger stretches that to 11 hours and 33 minutes. A more realistic 10–90 per cent charge will see those times take 6h 13min and 9h 14min respectively.

For charging away from home, the Cyberster's 400-volt battery architecture can handle a maximum charge rate of up to 144kW, allowing an indicative 10–80 per cent top-up in 40 minutes.

Given the Cyberster's dramatic styling, and the flourish of supercar in its scissor doors, not to mention the prodigious 375kW output and the ability to rip off a 3.2-second run to 100km/h, then the Cyberster can only be brilliant, right?

It's certainly very likeable, but the suggestion that this might be an agile and darty sports car, or a supercar in training, is quickly dashed from behind the wheel. There's fun to be had, but the Cyberster has the kind of exuberance that suits the GT moniker more so than the sports car label.

I can assure you, the very, very rapid acceleration never really wears thin, but in the default Comfort mode, you press the accelerator and then wait a moment as momentum builds like a tidal wave. In Sport mode, or Super Sport mode, it's much more accessible. Even still, there's a pause and build of power – perhaps to prevent overeager drivers from feeding in too much zest at the wrong moment mid-corner.

If you really want to impress your mates, there is a Launch mode too, complete with warp graphics and a rocket logo in the cluster when engaged. This helps extract maximum off-the-line acceleration. It's definitely not essential, but it is good for a giggle.

Anyone hoping for a scalpel-sharp, corner-to-corner track beast will be disappointed. The Cyberster is very good at feeding the straight sections between bends together, but responds better to a slow-in, slow-out approach for the corners themselves. In saying that, 'slow' is a relative term. With so much potential just a flex of the ankle away, the Cyberster does rob you of supercar agility thanks to its tendency to 'round down' corner speeds.

The steering feel itself is remote, and while you can vary the amount of assistance, you don't experience a telepathic connection to the front wheels. Brakes are similar. Smooth and progressive, but a little dull, and quick to lose effectiveness on a high-pace run.

The suspension tune is similarly GT-esque. There's a lot of comfort baked into the suspension tune, and I can see a lot of room for improvement here. The sad reality is, the trek out to good driving roads often involves a decent amount of scarred road surfacing and potholes, so to make your way past those without gritting your teeth the whole way, the MG compensates by being far more squishy than you might expect.

You may find that this also results in bottoming out or bunny-kicking over speed humps unless you take them at a literal walking pace. Similarly, mid-corner bumps, when feeding in more power, can cause the car to lurch alarmingly. Although it is quite secure, the roller-coaster feel isn't the stuff of sporting legends.

The suspension runs fixed-rate dampers too, so rather than being able to tighten up or soften off the ride as driving conditions demand, you get a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn't quite fit. The hardware is up to scratch, though, with a double-wishbone front and multi-link rear suspension set-up.

But if you park your boy-racer (or girl-racer) aspirations aside, and forget the white-knuckle side of things, the Cyberster delights.

Being able to silently charge away from a standstill is quite a novelty. My tip is to leave the fake noises off too – the car feels quicker without them, even if it's only a trick of the mind.

Adjustments like driving mode and braking regen levels can be adjusted by the steering wheel paddles, which is a nice touch. The one-pedal mode is also a lot smoother and more fluent at low speeds than it tends to be in MG's other EVs.

Aim for your favourite coastal road, or winding mountain pass, and (this bit is mandatory) drop the top and it gets much harder to pick holes in the Cyberster experience. If handling is all that matters to you, perhaps save up a little longer for the forthcoming electric Porsche Boxster.

Overall, the refinement with the roof off is impressive here. There's a removable baffle between the roll hoops that helps keep the cabin serene.

The only real pain point is the road noise, which feels a bit trapped-in with the roof up. Blame that, in part, on the Pirelli P Zero tyres that are equipped for their traction potential more so than their isolated silence.

MG has really stamped its authority in this space. Porsche and Polestar have electric convertibles on the way, and brands with long histories of open-air motoring, like BMW and Mercedes-Benz, haven't even started talking about what they have coming to this segment, focusing instead on electric sedans and SUVs.

As a branding exercise for 'new MG', the Cyberster is a fantastic way to connect new and future products with the company's past. It shows the brand is capable of more than just low-cost commuter cars, and elevates the perception of the company.

But none of that matters if the car itself is no good. That's not the case here, though. The Cyberster is good in a number of ways, with impressively resolved styling, a well-crafted interior, and impressive performance that's easy to access.

True motoring enthusiasts may baulk at the needlessly complex multi-screen interface, and they probably won't love that the handling doesn't set benchmarks, but this might be MG's smartest play.

The MG is a car for a broad audience. Approachable and special at the same time, and attuned to the image-first needs of a social-status-driven clientele.

The Cyberster is a niche product and a bit of a toe in the water for the brand, and given the potential colour customisation, expect dealers to carry limited stock. Rather than buying off the floor, though, get the car you want. Pick the paint, roof, and interior colours that speak to you – though this means facing a few weeks' wait for delivery.

A test drive is essential. The softer GT-style suspension tune and complex interior layout may not appeal to all drivers, so it would be wise to set up a test drive with your local MG dealer. Stock isn't as plentiful right now as for other MG models, but you can browse the full range of MG cars for sale at Drive Marketplace.

If you want to stay updated on the Cyberster, as well as the rest of the MG range, you'll find all the latest news here.

Kez Casey migrated from behind spare parts counters to writing about cars over ten years ago. Raised by a family of automotive workers, Kez grew up in workshops and panel shops before making the switch to reviews and road tests for The Motor Report, Drive and CarAdvice.

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