The MG Windsor is a great city car – India’s finest – but its 38-kWh battery (250-300 km range) means you cannot drive it for long distances without having range anxiety.
Enter the Windsor Pro. With a 52.9-kWh battery and 449-km range, it feels like all the car you ever need. I tested it on mountain roads – from Guwahati to Shillong – which can take the juice out of any EV. How did the Windsor Pro fare?
How’s the design?
Barring the ADAS badge, new colours (shades of blue, silver and red), and a different wheel design, it looks similar to the 38-kWh battery variant.
It has a practical design – MG calls it CUV (crossover utility vehicle), which combines features of a hatchback, a sedan, and an SUV. It’s compact on the outside and really spacious inside.
How’s the cabin?
It has a wheelbase of 2,700 mm (longest in segment), and that means a huge cabin. This space is enhanced by a glass roof, which lets in a lot of sunlight (but AC takes long to cool the cabin, if it you had parked it in the sun). Rear seats are not seats, but a big sofa whose backrest can be reclined 135-degree – it’s possibly the only car in India in which three tall adults can sit cross-legged on the rear seat.
Its boot space is a huge 579 litres (far more than Hyundai Creta Electric – 433 litres).
What about convenience?
Walk towards the car with the key in your pocket and doors will unlock automatically. It doesn’t have a start-stop button. Take the driver’s seat, shift to the D (drive) mode on the gearlever to the left of the steering wheel, press the accelerator, and the car will start moving. But if you aren’t wearing seatbelt, the car won’t move.
To stop, apply brakes, then press the P (park) button, open the door, and walk away with the key in your pocket. As you walk almost 10 feet, the car will lock automatically.
Is it tech-loaded?
It’s actually tech-cessive – more tech than you possibly need. For instance, while driving on wavy mountain roads, I had to adjust rear-view mirrors, but couldn’t find any button (I had to stop the car, select the control inside the touchscreen, and use the button on the steering wheel to adjust the mirrors).
Similarly, for most basic controls such as adjusting headlights, using dipper, selecting drive modes, or operating sunshade, I had to go inside the touchscreen and do it – it was quite complicated, and for such operations you actually need physical buttons so that you don’t take your eyes off the road.
How about range?
At about 95% charge, the onboard computer showed a range of 395 km, and driving in stop-and-go traffic of Guwahati, the range increased (because of battery regeneration every time I applied brakes).
On the highway, the range dropped marginally, but my rough calculations showed that it can easily do more than 400 km in the city, and 350-375 km on the highway.
How’s the drive?
It’s addictive – and accelerates from 0-100 km/h in less than 10 seconds. Driving uphill, there is absolutely no loss of power, and because the floor has the battery pack, the seating position is high. The suspension feels a bit stiff (for the extra battery weight), and on broken roads the ride feels a bit harsh, but on smooth roads, the cabin turns really quiet. The ADAS works very well – it keeps the car in the lane, gives steering inputs, and even applies emergency brakes automatically.
What about pricing?
You can buy it under the Battery as a Service (BaaS) scheme for Rs 12.49 lakh, plus Rs 4.5 per km of driving – the more you drive, the more you pay, and the less you drive, the less you pay – or you can pay upfront Rs 17.49 lakh.
Closest competitors are the Creta Electric (Rs 17.99-20.88 lakh for the 42-kWh variant, and Rs 21.49-24.38 lakh for the 51.4-kWh variant), Mahindra B 6 (Rs 18.9-26.9 lakh – 59- and 79-kWh options), and Tata Curvv EV (Rs 17.49-21.99 lakh – 45- and 55-kWh options).
