MG, the British car brand famous for the Midget sports car and now owned by SAIC Motor Corp., opened a flagship store in Paris last week, expanding into a key Europe market despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The four-level store is in central Paris near the upmarket French department store Galeries Lafayette.
The store initially will sell the MG EZS, a full-electric compact crossover, SAIC said, without revealing the price of the vehicle.
The EV is 4,314 mm long, 1,809 mm wide and 1,644 mm tall, with a wheelbase of 2,585 mm. It has a range of 263 kilometers under WLTP and a maximum speed of 140 km per hour.
The EZS, the battery-powered variant of the gasoline ZS, is the only full-electric vehicle in MG’s product lineup. It went on sale in China in March 2019 with a starting price of 119,800 yuan ($16,920) after government subsidies.
SAIC started exporting the MG EZS from China to Europe in September 2019. France is the fourth European country where the vehicle has been launched, following the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Norway.
Earlier this year, the electric crossover went on sale in Singapore, Israel and India, SAIC noted.
SAIC builds cars and light trucks under the MG brand in China, Thailand and India.
The company obtained the MG brand from a state-owned peer, Nanjing Automobile Group Co.
In 2005, Nanjing Auto purchased the brand from bankrupt U.K. automaker MG Rover in 2005. Two years later, Nanjing Auto was acquired by SAIC.