Having already had a fair crack at the mainstream market – and having secured its place inside Australia’s top 10 – Chinese brand MG is making the shift to premium.
The vehicles it hopes will take them there are the IM5 and IM6 (the latter we’ve tested here), which technically aren’t MGs, but rather vehicles “presented by MG”.
In fact, the IM brand is a joint venture between SAIC (MG’s parent company) and Alibaba (China’s Amazon), amongst others, and is designed to act in the same was as an Audi is to Volkswagen, or a Lexus to Toyota.
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But saying you’re moving upmarket and actually doing it are often two very different things. So is the IM6 good enough to pull it off?
2025 MG IM6 Performance: Price and equipment
Deep breath: My IM6 performance lists at $80,990 on the road. At its cheapest, the MG4 Excite 51 was at one stage $30,990 drive-away, and you could have put 2.5 of those on your driveway for one of these. So clearly this is a very different proposition.
To be fair, mine is the most expensive variant in the IM6 range. There is also the single-motor premium grade ($60,990 drive-away), and the Platinum ($69,990 on the road).
But the Performance is the punchiest of the lot, scoring an 800v architecture, a big 100kWh Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt battery (for a WLTP driving range of 505kms), and a twin-motor powertrain that produces a sizeable 578kW and 802Nm, delivering you to 100km/h from a standstill in just 3.4secs.
Charging is a properly strong point, too. The IM6 is set up for 396kW DC fast charging, which actually outperforms Australia’s fastest chargers, at least for now, with our DC capability currently capped at 350kW. MG tells us you can expect to go from 30-80 per cent charged in 15 minutes using our fastest chargers.
There’s also LED lighting, 21-inch alloys, a glass roof (double glazed, helpfully), as well as thick faux-leather seats, a 20-speaker stereo, wireless charging and wireless phone mirroring. Also premium-feeling is the active noise cancellation and the seat-aware personal assistant that can detect where a voice is coming from and respond to its demands. So a backseat rider can ask it to “lower my window” for example.
There’s a twin-screen set-up, but not the kind you might usually expect. In this case, there’s a smaller 10.5-inch screen beneath bigger 26.3-inch screen that stretches from the driver to the middle of the cabin. The smaller screen acts as a control for the bigger one, and you can set up your widgets and favourites and always have access, even when CarPlay is running on the big screen.
Also pretty unique are the embedded magnets in the dash, the seat backs and the boot, which are used to hold phones or iPads or even vanity mirrors, while the self-parking tech and crab-walk function are interesting, too.
The IM6 is 4904mm long, 1988mm wide and 1669mm tall, and it rides on a 2950mm wheelbase – it’s what MG calls a mid-large SUV. Space inside, including leg and headroom, is plentiful and I had no problems stretching out in the back.
Up front, there’s a 32-litre frunk, while the boot grows from 646 litres with the seats in place to 1621 litres with them folded flat.
There is a long list of safety aids on the IM6, but weirdest is the way you see out the back. Rather than fit a digital rear-view mirror to counteract the poor rear vision, you instead push up on a little toggle on the steering wheel to bring up a live view of what’s happening behind you on the central screen.
The IM6 is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, and capped-price servicing (20,000kms or 12 months) is offered for the first five years, with your total bill just under $3000.
2025 MG IM6 Performance: What we think
The IM6 is a convincing crack at a premium vehicle, with prodigious power, a comfortable ride and a serene cabin.
I wouldn’t take the word “performance” to heart here. It doesn’t feel like a performance car, and there isn’t much that’s raw and engaging about the drive experience. Instead, take the extra power as another premium element – the acceleration feels utterly effortless at any speed.
I can take or leave the design, and I think some of the features will never be used (crab walk, for example), but it rides nicely on its air suspension, is incredibly quiet in the cabin, has a ton of torque, and feels plenty plush.
It can clang a bit over the biggest of bumps, but it’s mostly a peaceful and calming space. The steering is solid, if not overly communicative, and the rear-wheel steering is a high-end touch, too.
The downsides? Well, it does feel very digital and overly thought-out in places. The door handles, for example, almost alway foil first time users (the trick is to be patient and almost let them come to you), while the secondary screen is good in theory, but feels difficult to immediately get a grasp on. The safety systems can still be very annoying.
But while the money demanded is a little shocking, I’d argue it’s only because it’s unexpected from MG. This much car, and this much tech, would be well into the six figures should it be wearing a German badge.
2025 MG IM6 Performance: Verdict
A convincing first crack at the premium space, MG has thrown everything it has got at making the IM6 feel as feature-packed as possible. The price will be a sticking point for those used to MG’s discounted EVs, but those who give it a go will find potent and premium-feeling product, despite its quirks.
SCORE: 3.5/5
2025 MG IM6 Performance: Specifications
Price: $80,990 drive-away
Basics: EV , 5 seats, 5 doors, mid-size SUV, AWD
Range: 505kms
Battery capacity: 100kWh NMC
Battery warranty: 8 years/200,000km
Energy consumption: 23.4kWh/100km
Motors: 1 front motor – 200kW/302 Nm, 1 rear motor – 372kW/500Nm
Combined output: 578kW/802Nm
AC charging: 11kW, CCS Type 2 plug
DC charging: 396kW, CCS plug
0-100km/h: 3.4 seconds
