• Plenty of space front and rear
• Reasonable boot space
• Keyless entry comes as standard

How much space is there?

The MG HS is a big car, which means there’s lots of space in the cabin. There’s ample elbow and knee room up front, as well as door bins that are large enough to store litre-sized water bottles. The centre console is unusually laid out – you store your phone on its side in a slot on the tunnel rather than on a shelf under the infotainment system, for example – but it all works well enough.

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Leg room in the back is equally plentiful, being beaten only by the longer Skoda Karoq. It’s worth noting that the bench is best suited to carrying just two adult passengers – it’s a bit of a squeeze with someone in the middle. Transporting older children is easier, and you get a pair of Isofix mountings to secure smaller ones, too.

Boot space and storage

Boot space is average rather than exceptional for the class – the HS offers 463 litres with the rear seats in place and 1,454 litres with the bench folded flat. However, if you opt for the plug-in hybrid model, these figures fall to 448 and 1,375 litres respectively, as the electrical components and battery pack are housed in the rear.

Range-topping models – previously the Exclusive, now called the Trophy – come with a power-operated tailgate, which is handy when staggering up to the car with armfuls of shopping. However, the boot floor is quite high off the ground, meaning it can be a struggle to get cumbersome items (such as suitcases) stowed.

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Unlike some rivals (such as the Nissan Qashqai), the HS doesn’t have a variable-height boot floor or any usable storage under the boot board. The space is occupied by a puncture repair kit on the standard petrol model, while the plug-in gets an extra bin to house the car’s charging cables.

Is it easy to park?

Surprisingly so for a car that measures more than 4.5 metres long and two metres wide. Even the most basic versions – formerly the Excite, now called the SE – come with a rear parking camera, while the flagship Exclusive and Trophy models feature a 360-degree setup. The latter system even has a function that activates the camera nearest to the kerb at junctions to help prevent you marking the alloys.

However, the cameras MG selected aren’t particularly high resolution – but quality issues like this are almost to be expected given the HS’s low price. Still, the corner-cutting means that the system is rendered near-enough useless on rainy nights, as the camera’s aren’t powerful enough to cut through the darkness, while the water running off the door mirrors collects on the camera lens and muddies the image further.

Safety

• Five-star Euro NCAP safety rating
• Lane assist system is very clever
• Alerts you to hazards at the rear

It wasn’t that long ago that Chinese cars struggled to meet European safety regulations – but it seems those days have passed. The HS scored five stars across its Euro NCAP crash test programme in 2019, meeting the standard set by its smaller sibling, the ZS.

This rating was boosted by the HS’s level of standard safety equipment. Every model comes as with MG Pilot, which is the company’s name for its suite of driver assistance technology. The package includes:

• Automatic emergency braking
• Adaptive cruise control
• Lane keep assist with lane departure warning
• Rear cross traffic alert
• Blind spot detection

MG’s driver assistance technology functions well in the real world. We were especially impressed with its adaptive cruise control system, which works just as well as the system used across the Volkswagen Group. Automatic MG HS variants also feature traffic jam assist, which can steer, brake and accelerate for you when crawling.

Watch: Euro NCAP crash test video