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MG 07 hit the core issue MG faces right now: How can a brand that has regained success overseas return to its domestic market to gain the same presence and recognition? Chen Cui proved one thing, taking on difficulties head-on: Grappling with the toughest opponents. Only through true localization for the Chinese market, connecting yesterday's MG and today's MG, can Chinese users who truly love MG emerge.
Written by | Smart Driving Network, Ling Jiang
Edited by | Lang Lang Shan and Ming Zhi Shan
Chen Cui, born inthe year 1990 still retains a rare youthful spirit.
On June 29, during the MG 07 styling design live stream, which was interrupted after netizens were moved to tears, it was exactly Chen Cui's first anniversary asGeneral Manager of SAIC MG Brand Business Unit, and MG 07 is clearly the product he values most.
MG 07 targeting the Xiaomi SU7 in product definition is indeed true, and Chen Cui being criticized and directly confronted by netizens is also true.
A brand head being scolded off the live stream is not strange today; the difficulty lies in how to deconstruct online biases and stand up again to let the public accept their product.
So-called youthful spirit includes both a serious attitude and an obstinacy for victory.
01.
MG Gains a 'Chinese Flavor'
In #MGGeneralManagerLiveStreamAttacked becoming a hot topic in the car circle and trending on hot searches for two days, on July 2, MG held a static review event quickly at the SAIC Design Center, where Chen Cui directly came clean to the media:
「Yes, I copied, but I copied the MG brand.」
In 1955, the MGA model first introduced the two-stage shoulder line; in 1957, the EX181 was equipped with a clamshell hood; the MGB GT launched in 1965 began captivating the boys and girls on London streets with its fastback styling.
MG's history as a British brand was unexpectedly presented to Chinese next-generation consumers in a debate.
The design of MG 07 is 'copying from its own heritage'.
On July 23, MG rode the wave to release Chen Cui's personal Rap single 'WO CHAO (I Copy)'.
Chen Cui played the guitar and shouted at the camera 'I copy from my own heritage, I have more confidence than you'.
At the MG7 launch event on July 27, new Rapper Chen Cui invited MG's 'grandpa-era' sports cars onto the stage.
MG was established in 1924, the MG name is the abbreviation ofMorris Garages, Morris is the first letter of the founder of MG, Morris, and Garage is exactly the garage where Morris started his business, does it sound like Xiaopeng and Li Xiang building cars today?
Morris's dream was to create affordable sports cars distinct from expensive Ferraris and Aston Martins; his lightweight convertible sports car M-Type Midget launched in 1928 became a classic MG car series selling for more than half a century, accepted by ordinary British people through 'speed, handling, accessible pricing' by participating in many British hill climbs and rallies.
A century later on the mysterious continent of the East, whether entrepreneur Lei Jun was inspired by Morris when launching his first car product SU7 in 2024, we do not know.
We are just surprised to find that history is sometimes so similar; the difference sometimes is just people from different eras演绎ing different spirits of the times.
After SAIC owned the MG brand in 2005, it began a new history of production in China and global sales; from then on it had a Chinese name: MG.
A magical scene is that MG quickly became one of the most representative samples in the narrative of Chinese brands going global.
Official data from SAIC shows MG has ranked first in European sales for Chinese brands for 11 consecutive years; in January-June 2026, MG sold over 190,000 units cumulatively in Europe, with year-on-year growth exceeding 20%, and cumulative historical sales passed the million unit threshold in February of this year.
Based on MG's single-month sales of 30,292 units in Europe in May 2026, it ranked 15th in the entire European passenger car market, accounting for 44.5% of total Chinese brand sales.
Over the past century, MG's good reputation established in Europe, leveraging China's complete vehicle manufacturing system, has not only quickly regained life in the European market but also established footholds in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, the Middle East, and Thailand, restarting overseas production, setting up factories in Thailand, the UK, and South America, becoming a global brand once again, and this time it is fully led by Chinese automotive professionals.
However, unfortunately, flowers blooming outside the wall did not bring favor inside.
The live stream incident on June 29 actually revealed a harsh truth: MG, which is dominating everywhere in overseas markets, actually lacks emotional connection when facing domestic users; 'British style' not only feels veiled to today's next-generation users but also lacks attraction.
The aesthetic labels MG has established overseas: Young, Sporty, Coupe-like, Emphasizing Visual Posture have not gained strong recognition in the Chinese market; it can even be said there is no desire to understand.
As Chen Cui introduced the MG 07 styling like counting treasures, the live stream's danmu was flooded with questions like 'Copying Porsche', 'Looks like Xiaomi SU7', 'Porsche-ish' etc. MG's history is too long, and today's digital natives do not care what design languages British brands from the 1950s and 1960s used.
And after Chen Cui directly quoted Lei Jun's famous saying 'No detail is plagiarized' to counterattack, the comment section quickly erupted into a battle: 'Can you compare to Lei Jun?', 'Do you deserve to quote Mr. Lei?'.
The new car design show turned into an idol defense battle.
Luckily, the post-90s Chen Cui did not continue to retreat after withdrawing the broadcast choking up; instead, unexpectedly in a public opinion crisis, he broke down a wall, a wall spanning between British brands and the Chinese market after de-mystifying Western brands, where emotions increasingly grew distant.
MG was born in the UK, but today its products inside and out are already pure Chinese cars. The hot sales in its overseas market have made MG's management cling tightly to the 'British style' to emphasize its identity inheritance for many years, and they could not establish a deep emotional link with the Chinese market.
After going through a storm of public opinion where enemies become friends, Chinese next-generation consumers have developed a desire to know MG, and MG finally has the youthful spirit only found in the Chinese market.
It started in Britain, traveled 100 years, and under the leadership of China's youngest generation of automotive professionals, it finally has a Chinese flavor.
MG 07's length, width, and height are 4886/1900/1485mm, wheelbase 2825mm, featuring integrated stamped clamshell hood, frameless doors, 5-position adjustable electric wing, and hatchback fastback styling, drag coefficient 0.23 Cd.
As a low-slung coupe, MG 07 achieved a space utilization ratio of 87%; in terms of storage capacity, MG 07 owns the world's largest 168-liter frunk for a sedan.
SAIC Passenger Vehicle Vice President and Sales General Manager Zhang Liang described this space performance as 'balance of the Impossible Triangle of styling, space, and range' in communication with the media.
「This is the coupe genes and technical foundation.」
In Zhang Liang's view, the coupe's 'Impossible Triangle' is a design challenge existing in the industry for a long time:
Fastback streamlined styling lowers the roof, sacrificing rear seat space; if raising the roof to gain a spacious cabin, it will compromise aerodynamics and styling.
Breaking the 'Impossible Triangle' means MG 07 will no longer return to the old road of 'Sports sedan = niche preference' in the fuel era, but will integrate the emotional value of a coupe into a framework that can cover more mainstream family users and young urban users.
They infused 'family experience' into a performance coupe, equipped with a 30L dual-zone freezer, zero-gravity seats, 21-speaker panoramic sound system, and Momenta's City NOA.
MG 07 carries Chen Cui's youthful spirit and also entrusts the hope of the SAIC Group to win over mass users in the pure electric market.
MG 07 is an intelligent coupe that can only be manufactured in China.
02.
Get 300k Value out of 150k
In the puzzle piece planned by SAIC Group, after solidifying the base market, MG will focus entirely on the 100,000-200,000 yuan core range, and launch a new electric coupe in the second half of the year to promote 'technology accessibility' to continue exploring downwards.
MG 07 was born with such a mission, but before MG 07 launched, this was already a red-hot market.
For MG 07's competitors, Chen Cui set three screening criteria: 840km range, 800V high-voltage platform, and LiDAR hardware representing intelligence.
Adding the three, Chen Cui screened out 10 target models from 864 new energy vehicles in the domestic market:
Removing Zeekr 009 and Yangwang U7 with large price differences, the eight models opposite MG 07 are: Xiaomi SU7, BYD Tang, BYD Seal 08, Zeekr 007, Denza Z9GT, Voyah Zhiyin, Luxeed S7, and Qijing GT7, with an average starting price of 255,000 yuan.
Among them, of course, including the Xiaomi SU7 that triggered public opinion waves.
Facing the above eight star competitor models, Chen Cui and MG's strategy was extremely direct and rough: lower prices.
MG 07's entry-level 650 Comfort Edition is equipped with a 67kWh semi-solid-state battery, CLTC range 650km, and all models come standard with mCDC smart electromagnetic suspension with 200 damping adjustments per second, with a pre-sale price of only 125,900 yuan.
The two versions with real killing power are the 135,900 yuan 610 LiDAR version and the 155,900 yuan 845 LiDAR version: the former gives 'world's only mass-produced, stable charging/discharging at minus 30 degrees' semi-solid-state battery + Momenta R7 World Model + LiDAR, the latter directly mounts 91kWh CATL ternary lithium battery + 800V high-voltage platform + 5C super fast charging, CLTC range 845km.
Among them, MG 07 is first equipped with Momenta R7 Reinforcement Learning World Model, equipped with Xheart X7 large model dedicated chip and integrated LiDAR, supporting City NOA and full-scenario memory parking.
SAIC is Momenta's largest institutional shareholder; this solution was originally reserved for 300,000 yuan class models, now downgraded to models starting from 135,900 yuan.
According to industry conventions, the final official launch price usually has another 5,000 to 6,000 yuan room to drop, which means the 845 LiDAR version has a chance to enter below 150,000, and the 610 LiDAR version may burst into below 130,000.
Did MG 07 use hardware specs roughly halved the price, meaning SAIC decided to lose money just for the sake of hype?
Facing this question, Zhang Liang's answer was also very direct:
「Definitely won't do loss-making business.」
He stated in communication with the media that MG's next core direction is to maximize value, not simply make a fuss on prices.
He summarized two MG 'value methodologies' to the media:
First is Scale and Modularity—MG 07 is built on SAIC's next-gen global architecture; batteries, chassis, and core modules can be shared by multiple models; suppliers conduct forward-looking joint development based on expectations of sales volume, amortizing costs through scale.
Second is Technical Integration—18-in-1 active heat dissipation electric drive lowers costs while releasing space and improving performance.
MG 07 has the potential to achieve making a 150,000 yuan car into a 300,000 yuan car's configuration without losing money.
But cars are ultimately a scale industry; without enough sales to amortize costs, everything will return to illusion.
Chen Cui revealed a set of data to the media after the launch event: the order volume within 50 minutes of the event start reached the level of 3 hours after MG4 launched; pre-launch overall user heat was about twice that of MG4.
Subsequently, official data showed: MG 07 pre-order 20-hour small reservations broke 21,000 units, doubling compared to MG 4 same period.
This number, of course, cannot be directly equated to terminal sales, but it at least shows that the first round of stimulus from price and configuration worked, and consumers are willing to take a serious look at MG.
Final Thoughts:
MG's base today is still the overseas market; in the short term, overseas sales greater than domestic may not change.
But uncertainty in the overseas market environment is also increasing.
Discussions around EU tariffs and local production have been going on for a while.
Some media reported that pure electric models sold by SAIC/MG in the EU face an additional tariff of 35.3%; after stacking with the existing 10% base tariff, tax burden pressure is significantly raised. In response, MG is also advancing its European factory construction plan to cope with the new trade environment.
For MG, this means the rhythm of expansion along the export dividend in the past is entering a more complex stage: channels, policies, costs, capacity layout, all need to be re-calculated next.
This also makes it more urgent for MG to develop the Chinese local market than before.
Unlike many Chinese local brands deeply layouting going global, MG wants to take a reverse global path where success abroad strengthens domestic presence; changing the 'strong overseas, weak domestic' sales structure, the difficulty here is on par with many joint venture brands trying to keep up with the rhythm of the Chinese market.
MG's advantage is it has local talent who understand the Chinese market best; for the young Chen Cui, what he needs to do most is both respect MG's history and glory, and also prevent this heavy history from becoming a burden for MG to contact Chinese next-generation users.
What MG needs today is not a new overseas good news; it needs a main product that can stand in the Chinese market to help the brand re-calibrate its identity.
MG 07 undertakes exactly this role.
However, there are always people in the industry who like to tell a car story too grand, as if one launch event can rewrite brand destiny.
MG 07 of course cannot bear the bet of deciding the outcome in one battle.
But MG 07 is a beginning; it hit MG's core issue right now: How can a brand that regained success overseas leveraging China's three-electric and intelligent technologies return to the domestic market to gain the same presence and recognition?
Chen Cui proved one thing, taking on difficulties head-on: Grappling with the toughest opponents.
Only through true localization for the Chinese market, connecting yesterday's MG and today's MG, can Chinese users who truly love MG emerge.
