Operations

Facilitiesedit

MG Motor continues to operate at the historic Longbridge plant. Formerly home to Austin, British Leyland, Rover Group and, later, the MG Rover Group. While production no longer continues at Longbridge, there is a major research and development facility at the site which employs around 500 people, together with a design studio.

MG has a £30 million flagship dealership in the heart of London's Piccadilly, which was opened in July 2015. Its location is 47-48 Piccadilly, opposite the historic Fortnum & Mason store.

MG Motor India, a fully owned arm of China's SAIC Motor, took over the manufacturing facility from General Motors at Halol in India in 2017. The company has made an investment of ₹22 billion (US$310 million) to refurbish the Halol manufacturing facility and roll out its first product, the Hector, from the facility. MG has installed an all-new assembly line, a press shop, a body shop, a parts distribution centre, a testing track and a new state-of-the-art training facility in the plant – all within a span of 18 months. The plant also has a captive vendor park to facilitate aggressive localization for all MG vehicles in India.

MG Motors now has dealers across New Zealand, including Auckland, Tauranga, Palmerston North, Christchurch and the Hawkes Bay.

Developmentedit

MG vehicles are designed between the Longbridge and Shanghai facilities in the United Kingdom and China, respectively, and are then manufactured in China.

Longbridge has been retained and Research and Development is currently undertaken at the Longbridge Facility, with Longbridge being home to SMTC, which has significant design and engineering input into SAIC products.

In 2018, SAIC Design who are responsible for MG and Roewe's design, opened an Advanced Design Studio in Central London. The studio is based in a newly renovated building in the heart of London on the Marylebone Road. The new creative space is SAIC first facility, to specialise in Advanced Digital Design Technology, and will work in conjunction with the automotive manufacturer's other studios to support future product designs for brands including MG and Roewe. Advanced London is the second SAIC Motor design studio to be established in Europe, following the studio in Longbridge, which opened in 2011. The London Design Studio will focus more on advanced design research projects and creative exploration of conceptual ideas. London makes use of advanced virtual reality technology to design vehicles, which allows for the designers to fully immerse themselves into the design concepts, greatly improving the level of detail at which ideas can be reviewed before they are turned into more costly physical models. Using state-of-the-art functions such as this will allow Advanced London to explore innovative design concepts, broadening design possibilities." Advanced London is managed by SAIC Design European Advanced Design Director, Carl Gotham.

Productionedit

After MG Rover collapsed, Nanjing Automobile continued production at the Longbridge plant. Nanjing used Longbridge to produce the MG TF, which they mildly redeveloped.

SAIC took ownership of the MG brand, and from 2010 onwards, the newly released MG 6 was produced in China. However, from 13 April 2011, MG Motor produced the MG 6 at Longbridge. From 2013, the MG 3 also saw some limited final assembly at the same factory.

Activity at Longbridge was gradually reduced. It was announced in September 2016, that production at the Longbridge facility was to be stopped in 2016 and moved to China, with Matthew Cheyne, head of sales and marketing at MG Motor UK citing "moving production abroad was a necessary business decision". Twenty-five employees were made redundant as a result of the move and other employees moved to different areas. It marked the end of MG production in the UK. and production was fully moved to China, with a later factory in Thailand.

In 2019, MG Motor is set to open a fourth factory in China, The factory will be in Ningde, Fujian Province. The factory will specialise in producing electric vehicles, with the new all-electric production sports car being produced at the factory. MG and Roewe's upcoming SUV, codenamed IS 32 (MG) and IS 31 (Roewe) are also set to be produced at the factory.