The compact urban commuter, the MG Comet makes its way to the Throttle Blips Garage. Here is our first report with this EV.
Ever since the launch of the little Comet, I have been intrigued about this rather quirky car. The smallest car our market has seen recently, MG has mentioned that it is targeted at a niche market. Called an urban commuter, the Comet is meant to be a second or third car in a family. That means I am a target audience for this car. With two cars in the family, I gladly welcomed the Comet as my mode of transport to the office, here is how the past 1800 or so km have been so far.
The car itself has been an attention magnet, you could be driving beside me in an exotic low-slung sports car and people would be staring at my ride. The design grabs as many eyeballs as possible, with some people even walking up to me and starting a conversation. A smile from a random person or a thumbs up from a young car enthusiast greatly impacts my day as it progresses. The compactness of it allows me to pass through traffic with zero effort, keeping me cocooned in a nice cool cabin. Summer is just hitting Mumbai and the AC does do quite a good job. However, during a hot afternoon, I find myself increasing the fan speed to the max, making the rather silent cabin a bit noisy. At times, my legs do feel a few vibrations from the air conditioning unit, which I guess would normally be masked by the operation of an engine. The compact size also comes with a small drawback. Big cars tend to not leave me enough space, perhaps I tend to find their blindspot or maybe they just take advantage of their size. Not much of a problem though as the electric motor pushes me clear of them as soon as a signal turns green.
The compact size of the car also allows me to take it to roads where I normally would take my scooter. The Comet has replaced the scooter as the grocery shopping vehicle. I also take it to the Kandivali railway station in the morning to drop off my wife for her office commute. Parking also is not much of a hassle, the Comet can fit in almost anywhere and everywhere. Making it the car of choice now for grocery shopping. Additionally, I can get out of either door with no gearbox tunnel in the centre. However, only the co-driver seat folds down and slides ahead for the rear seat passengers. So rear passengers have just one door out. I wonder why MG did not provide that ability at both ends.
The motor has been doing quite a good job at rotating the rear wheels. The power and torque feel sufficient and keeping up with traffic in city streets is no problem. Even on the short duration I have to be on the Western Express highway, I have enough grunt to keep up with the traffic. That said, with a major chunk of my journey being during peak traffic hours, speed has been in the southside of 60kmph. There is a certain bit of lag while starting from a standstill in eco mode which is why I keep the car in normal mode most of the time. The Sports mode brings a bit more life to the A pedal but drains the battery rather quickly. Regen has 3 modes, I keep it at the maximum ‘heavy’ setting which is why I can drive the car with one pedal. In heavy mode, it feels as if the car is braking the moment you lift off and I find myself keeping my eyes on the rearview mirror for traffic behind as the brake lights do not light up despite me slowing down by quite some margin.
Talking about the rearview mirror, the seats are designed in such a way that the inside rearview mirror is directly in my line of sight. The option of having a height-adjustable seat would have been a nice thing to have. The interior in itself feels quite premium and everything feels quite solid. The dual screens that the car has have great resolution and brightness. Android Auto works quite well and connects automatically every time the car is turned on. That said, a certain amount of lag is present in the infotainment screen during the start-up of the car. The speakers, only two of them do a decent job of keeping me entertained during the office commute.
The lack of fast charging gave me some anxiety in the beginning. However, for a car I use only for office travel, it does fare quite well. For the past 1600 km, I have never gone below 20% on my battery. Every 3 or 4 days I manage to connect it to a purpose-built, 15-metre-long extension to a plug in my office which goes to the parking spot of the car. I manage to charge the car in a normal long day at work which serves me well for the next couple of days.
As I spend more and more time with the Comet, I have built a certain amount of confidence to take it beyond the regular office commute & grocery shopping. With more time with this long-termer, I Shall cover the travels beyond my work boundary in the next report.
Written by – Videh Vora
