MG Motor


MG Motor is an automotive manufacturer owned by SAIC Motor, a Chinese state-owned carmaker based in Shanghai. It uses the British MG marque, founded in Oxford, United Kingdom, in 1924. SAIC Motor gained control of the marque in December 2007 by acquiring Nanjing Automobile Corporation, which had bought the brand from the defunct MG Rover Group in 2005. Currently, MG operates as a division within SAIC's passenger vehicle branch.
MG vehicles are designed and developed by SAIC, and manufacturing mainly takes place at SAIC's plants in China. Additionally, SAIC produces MG vehicles in Thailand, India, Indonesia, and Taiwan for their respective regional markets. The brand briefly assembled cars at the Longbridge plant in the UK from 2007 to 2016, before reverting to sourcing vehicles directly from China.
In China, MG is also known by its Chinese name, and it is one of several passenger car brands directly owned by SAIC, alongside IM Motors, Rising Auto, Roewe and Maxus. Outside China, MG has been positioned as SAIC's primary brand. Since 2019, it has become the largest single-brand car exporter from China. In 2023, MG Motor sold approximately 840,000 vehicles globally, with 88 percent of those sales coming from markets outside of China.

History

Background

MG was established in 1924 by Cecil Kimber in Oxford, UK. After a series of ownership changes, including a merger with Austin to form the British Motor Corporation and later British Leyland, MG faced financial struggles in the late 20th century. In 1994, BMW acquired Rover Group, which included MG, but sold off the marque in 2000 due to ongoing financial losses. MG and Rover were then purchased by Phoenix Venture Holdings, a consortium owned by four British businessmen, forming MG Rover Group. The company went into administration in 2005, with debts of over £1.4 billion.

2005–2009: As NAC MG

Following MG Rover's collapse, in July 2005, Nanjing Automobile Corporation purchased the MG marque, the Longbridge plant, and its production tooling for £53 million. NAC outbid the larger SAIC Motor, which had also sought to acquire the brand. Although SAIC was able to secure the intellectual property rights for the Rover 75 and Rover 25 models, it was unable to acquire the Rover trademark, which was purchased by Ford from BMW in 2006. SAIC responded by creating the Roewe brand to produce and market the former Rover vehicles in China.
On 12 April 2006, NAC formally established NAC MG UK Limited as the UK-based holding company for the Longbridge plant and the MG marque. Production of MG vehicles, including the MG TF, MG3, and MG7, resumed at an NAC facility in Nanjing on 27 March 2007, with production tooling shipped from Longbridge. In August 2008, production of the MG TF LE500, MG TF135 and MG TF 85th Anniversary models also restarted at the Longbridge plant in the UK.
On 26 December 2007, NAC merged into SAIC, becoming its subsidiary. This merger granted SAIC full control of NAC MG and resolved a production bottleneck for its Roewe brand, as NAC owned the rights to Rover engine production and other key technologies. In early 2009, NAC MG UK Limited was renamed MG Motor UK Limited and became the national sales company for the UK market.

2007–present: Under SAIC Motor

In October 2008, SAIC began exporting the Roewe 750 and 550 to Chile under the MG brand, rebranded as the MG 750 and MG 550. The company stated that the MG brand, compared to SAIC's own Roewe, has the "popularity, loyalty, and premiumness" necessary to compete in export markets, including Europe.
In 2011, SAIC and General Motors which are joint venture partners in China announced a tie-up to develop a new petrol engine family called the SGE, which include 1.0, 1.2, 1.4 and 1.5 litres, all turbocharged. The engine family are used in many MG models.
The first all-new MG-branded model for 16 years, the MG6, was officially launched on 26 June 2011 during a visit to MG Motor Longbridge plant by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao. By March 2012, SAIC had invested a total of £450 million in MG Motor. The MG3 supermini or small hatchback went on sale in the UK in September 2013, after being previewed as the MG Zero concept car in 2010.
Following multiple rounds of workforce cuts, on 23 September 2016, MG Motor announced that all vehicle production had ceased at the Longbridge plant. The closure affected 25 jobs at the assembly plant, while sales, marketing and after-sales departments based in the Longbridge complex were unaffected. The company cites "improving production scale efficiencies" as the reason of the plant closure, promising that production in China will "allow faster access to product and help to meet ever-increasing customer demand." Since then, MG vehicles had been imported from China into the UK.
In December 2017, MG Motor opened its first overseas plant outside China and UK, located in Chonburi, Thailand. It is a joint venture between SAIC and Charoen Pokphand, a Thai conglomerate company. The plant has a total annual production capacity of 100,000 units.
In 2018, SAIC Design opened a new advanced design studio in London, which deals with the advanced design of MG and Roewe vehicles.
MG vehicles became available in the rest of Europe since late 2019 with the release of the ZS EV in the region. SAIC Motor established operations based in Amsterdam, Netherlands to oversee sales activities in the region.
During the 2020s, MG saw significant sales increase in UK and Europe. This growth was primarily driven by the expansion of its dealer network and the introduction of several new electric vehicle models. Between 2020 and 2023, MG was one of the fastest-growing brands in the UK and Europe, where it posted growth amid the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many other brands experienced a decline in sales. Sales of MG vehicles in Australia also quadrupled between 2020 and 2023 due to its attractive pricing. The MG4 EV, MG's first ground-up-developed EV that was launched in 2022, significantly contributed to driving MG's sales growth and received widespread acclaim from the press. In 2025, MG Motor was awarded as Best Manufacturer at the Autocar Awards which highlighted the companies "quality, affordability and new design appeal" for its decision.

Products

Initial MG Motor products consisted of refreshed MG Rover vehicles, such as the MG TF, the first-generation MG3 and the first-generation MG7. MG Motor began releasing new vehicles in 2011, starting with the MG6 then the second-generation MG3. MG Motor also markets rebadged vehicles from parent company SAIC Motor such as Roewe and Maxus, alongside vehicles dedicated for the MG brand.
MG Motor started producing vehicles in India since 2019, where some of the products are sourced from corporate sibling SAIC-GM-Wuling. Products such as the MG Hector and MG Comet EV are exclusive to India. The marque also offered commercial vehicles only for Thailand, such as the MG V80 and MG Extender which are sourced from Maxus.
At the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2013, MG showcased a concept car that previews its first SUV model, the MG GS. The production version of the GS went on sale in China in March 2015. The GS went on sale in the UK in June 2016. MG Motor followed up the release of the GS with a smaller SUV, the ZS, which went on to become the most popular MG model globally. In 2018, the GS was replaced by the MG HS, and by January 2023, it was named the best selling car of the month in the United Kingdom. Sales of MG vehicles in the United Kingdom had increased 108% when compared to sale figures from January 2022.
The first production electric car from MG is the eZS, which was announced at the 2018 Guangzhou Auto Show in November. Based on the ZS SUV, the vehicle became available in export markets such as the UK and Europe as the MG ZS EV since 2019. The ZS EV was followed by the MG5 SW EV, which went on sale in the UK in September 2020 and in Thailand in November 2020. The MG4 EV, introduced in July 2022, helped MG increase its sales in Europe significantly. The model is a European-focused C-segment hatchback with a dedicated electric vehicle platform called the Modular Scalable Platform. The XPower variant, borrowing its name from MG's older performance line, went on sale in 2023. In 2023, MG introduced another electric car and its first roadster, the Cyberster, which went on sale in 2024.
In 2024, MG introduced the new generation of the three of its internal combustion engine vehicles, the MG3, MG HS, and MG ZS. The new generation HS is a rebadged model of the Chinese market Roewe RX5.
The most popular MG Motor product in international markets is the MG ZS. It is one of the most exported car from China, with 201,874 units exported from China to international markets in 2023, not including the MG ZS EV with 49,418 units exported. Total cumulative sales of the ZS since its introduction reached 999,612 units as of 2023. The ZS consistently ranks amongst the top ten of the best selling cars in the United Kingdom., it ranked as the 6th best selling vehicle in the United Kingdom of the year so far. In 2025, the hybrid version of the MG ZS was awarded Best Hybrid Car by British motoring magazine Carbuyer.

Operations

Development

MG Motor cars were once engineered by SAIC at the Longbridge facility in Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Longbridge was formerly home to Austin, British Leyland, Rover Group and, later, the MG Rover Group. Currently, most of the design, development and R&D takes place in China by SAIC Motor R&D Innovation Headquarters.
The Longbridge facility has been retained as the base to SAIC Motor Technical Centre UK, which had significant design and engineering input into SAIC products globally. SMTC once employed around 500 people at its peak. SAIC reduced its presence in Longbridge in 2019 with the large Technical Centre downsized to 20 staff and moved to London. The facility used to host a design studio, before moving to London.
SAIC Design Advanced London at Marylebone Road in London succeeded the Longbridge design studio. Led by Carl Gotham and Robert Lemmens with 20 employees, the studio conducted some key design work for MG vehicles and works in conjunction with the automotive manufacturer's other studios to support future product designs for brands including MG, Roewe and Rising Auto.
Some MG models particularly in India were developed by SAIC-GM-Wuling, a joint venture that is majority owned by SAIC.