IM5 versus IM6 – a head-to-head of the new Tesla rivals

There are two new MGs in town and they don’t look like MGs anymore… Just when you thought you could pigeonhole modern day MG, the now Chinese-owned brand has launched an entirely new range of cars that are entirely different. MG has brought parent company SAIC’s Intelligence in Motion cars to the UK and in doing so has shaken up everything car buyers can expect from its electric car offerings. The attention-grabbing IM5 ‘hatchback’ and IM6 SUV stand alone in a new premium MG line, under an arm called ‘Technology Showcase’. They sit below the ‘Aspirational/Halo’ Cyberster EV roadster offering, and far above the ‘Core’ MG EV offerings such as the S5 EV and the M4 EV.

MG says the range centres around four pillars: ‘Purposeful Innovation, Ultimate Performance, Intelligent Safety and Elevated Experience. But corporate speak aside, what are these IM models all about, where does IM come from and are these models going to live up to the hype they’ve already garnered in China ? To answer all our IM questions, Motoring Reporter Freda Lewis-Stempel drove the IM5 and IM6 back to back on launch in West Sussex – and a head-to-head seemed the natural conclusion.

IM Motors is a Shanghai-based brand that’s a tie-up between SAIC, e-commerce power player Alibaba and Zhangjiang Hi-Tech, a leading R&D specialist. IM introduced its L7 electric saloon in 2021, but it’s the L6 (first launched in China in May 2024) that’s arrived in the UK as the IM5. So, IM sits under the same SAIC umbrella as MG but, whether that’s enough for people to be convinced it’s an MG, is up to each and every buyer to decide. We don’t really think it matters.

When you see them on the road neither the IM5 nor the IM6 will have an MG badge. Instead, there’s just very discrete MG lettering on the back dwarfed by the IM motif front and back. Not only does this visually sit the IM models apart from the sensible, affordable MG reputation MG has, but it also stops MG itself having to fork out a lot of money to homologate the cars for the UK market. People certainly gawk at the cars more as you drive by for their lack of MG badge – attention is never a bad thing in marketing they say.

The IM5 is the Tesla Model 3 rival, and the IM6 is the Tesla Model Y rival. The IM5 is longer and sleeker, with a length of 4,931mm and a height of 1,474mm. The IM6 comparatively has a length of 4,904mm and a height of 1,669mm. But while the IM6 SUV is chunkier than the sculpted saloon-like IM5 (the IM5 is technically a hatchback but only on paper), it’s still far more contoured than the Model Y.

We all like different looking cars (there’s probably someone out there who doesn’t even believe the E-Type is a beautiful vehicle), but I imagine most people would agree with me when I say both IMs are far sexier (not a word usually used to describe an MG) than their Tesla counterparts. They are worlds away from MG’s family offerings and seriously attractive.

The good news is that both the IM5 and IM6 are cars you’ll be happy to get behind the wheel of – they share the same architecture after all. If you want headline stats then go for the Performance variant of the IM5 or IM6. The IM6 does 0 to 62mph in 3.5 seconds and has 740bhp to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. The IM5 does the same sprint in 3.2 seconds and also delivers this stonking 740bhp.

As you can tell both cars are blisteringly quick, and off the line the power is delivered as a smooth, successive build in both. The IM5 and IM6 come with all-wheel drive options (just Performance for the IM5 and Performance and Launch Edition for IM6), both of which I drove on launch. The two cars also share the same pin-drop quiet driving experience thanks to the ‘Road Noise Cancellation’, laminated glass and double-glazed panoramic roof.

But while the IM6 has active damping control and advanced air suspension, it still juddered slightly on the typically pothole-ridden roads of Kent and West Sussex, not fairing much better than the IM5 which uses a passive spring-and-damper set up. The IM5’s ride quality actually seemed pretty much on par, and managed to add executive-style refinement to a low riding, extremely fast ‘hatchback’. They both landed solidly in the ‘very good’ driving category, so there’s not much in it. Handling-wise, there was a little bit of roll in the corners of the IM5 but compared to the IM6’s steering which seemed to get itself in a pickle no matter the driving mode, I much preferred threading the IM5 around the leafy country roads and stop-start traffic in towns than I did the IM6.

On a sunny day, the IM5’s…