MGS6 First Drive Review | MG’s Biggest Electric SUV Yet
Hello and welcome back to Buckle Up. My name is Rob Wilson and this is the brand new MG S6 EV and today I’m going to find out if it’s any good. Right, but before we drive it, I just need to make an apology for the mustache. I am doing November. That’s it. don’t need to worry about it. Please ignore it for the rest of the video. Let’s start at the front as we normally do. And I want to talk about how this has got a very familiar family MG face going on. You’ll have seen the S5 that Jasper reviewed earlier in the year. This is the bigger brother of that car. So, we’ve still got the MG design cues with the new style daytime running lights. We’ve got the split off main beam lights below further down in the bumper. And you’ll see at the bottom there the bumper there that familiar sort of split lower grill that’s been on the MG4, the Cyberster, and a lot of other cars in the MG family as well. And that grill at the bottom there is active, so it opens and closes to make it more aerodynamic as well. The drag coefficient is 27 for those who are interested. And while we don’t normally talk about luggage space while we’re at the front, under this bonnet here, we have either 124 or 102 L of space depending on whether you go for the rear wheel drive or all-wheel drive configuration. That is a huge amount of space to be offering up here, which makes it really competitive against rivals. And then down the side, you’ll see we have some 20in alloy wheels on this trophy specification. We’ve got some bodycoled mirrors. We’ve got keyless entry into the doors. We’ve got these nice silver elements around the window on the roof rails and towards the bottom of the doors. And then as we get to the back of the car, we’ve got the charging flap. And this car has a 77 kWh battery and you can charge it at up to 144 kW, which means a 10 to 80% charge can be done in around 38 minutes. Now, that is slightly off and that’s down to the chemical makeup of this particular battery. It is a nickel, cobalt, and manganese setup, which means that it should in theory last longer because it charges less quickly. So, they’re going for longevity rather than the absolute fastest charging speeds. But obviously, if you have a home charger, you’ll be able to charge it up overnight anyway. And then at the back we have a nice little spoiler with your third brake light in the center, a rear wiper, MG badge, massive light bar that goes the full width of the rear of the car, and again further down you can see that diffuser in quotation marks design that you see on a lot of other MG products. We’ve also got the MG EV logos over there as well. And then if I open up the boot, which is electronic, inside you will find 674 L of space. And if I fold down the rear seats, that goes up to 1,910 L. So that combined with the frunk is just a huge amount of space in this car for the price point, which we’ll come to later. If I retract the parcel shelf out the way, you can find nets on either side of the boot. We’ve got tie down points in the corners there as well. We’ve got a light, but no 12vt socket to speak of. If I lift up the boot floor, we actually find the 12vt battery for the car. So, if it ever goes flat, that’s where you need to come to. But if I lift it up again at the back, we’ve got things like your warning triangle and your tire goop. There is no spare wheel as you would come to expect these days. But a really good size shape of boot. There’s only a very small lip to lift things over, but very practical indeed. Let’s go and check out the back seats and see if they’re just as practical here in the back. And well, what a surprise this is because there is a huge amount of space back here. For reference, I am 6’2 or 188 cm tall. And this driver’s seat is currently set up in my driving position. And even though I am on the taller side, I have absolutely loads of knee room. Head room is gargantuan. You’d be absolutely fine in here if you’re 6’5. And even with the seat in its lowest position for me driving, I can still fit my feet under there. So, I’ve got plenty of room for those as well. The central seat, while not as comfy as these outer seats, is actually quite wide, as is the interior. It feels big in here. So, I think you’d actually be fine with three people across this rear bench. And the floor is completely flat, so there’s not going to be any arguments over where people’s feet go. We’ve also got an armrest here in the middle, which I can pull down. It’s got two cup holders in it. We’ve got isoix on both of these outer seats. We’ve got door pockets, which are big enough for a bottle of water. I’ve got seat back pockets on both of the front seats. I’ve got my own climate vents here in the center, but I don’t have the ability to change the temperature from back here. That’s something I’d have to ask for nicely. Up there, we’ve got two USB chargers. And in this topsp spec trophy model, you get the option of having this lovely light interior or the dark interior. And that also means that I get heated seats in the back here. That is something that you don’t get on the lower SE trim. Another thing that you miss out on the SE trim is this massive fixed panoramic roof, which is really nice. So, if you want those things, you got to step up to the trophy spec. But what are the front seats like? Well, rather lovely, if I say so myself. I’ve got the classic sort of not quite round MG steering wheel. On the left side, I’ve got my controls for the cruise functions to set the distance and the speed. Got the self steering buttons as well. And then on the right hand side, it’s more controls for your infotainment and driver display which is behind the steering wheel. That’s a 10.25 in display. And you can have various different things showing in there. So you can have the maps or your music or more of your driver information like your speed and that sort of stuff if you would like it. There are also obviously your two favorite buttons which you can set to do various different things. But what I really like is that in your central 12.8 in screen, they’ve now incorporated a new MG Pilot Custom setup. So I can just swipe down from the top and then hit the MG Pilot Custom button twice when I get into the car. And by doing that, it sets up my pre-saved preferences for the MG Pilot safety systems. cuz I’ve had an MGHS on a long-term loan previously and it was an absolute nightmare to go in and switch off the annoying beeps and bongs that modern cars come with. Now I can just set it up once, save the profile, and then all I have to do when I get in the car, swipe down the screen, press the button twice, everything’s how I want it. That is a brilliant piece of design that just massively improves the user experience, I think. Anyway, while we’re talking about the screen in here, I’ve got buttons along the bottom for shortcut things. So, phone, car stuff, music, nav, the usual sort of stuff, 360° cameras. I’ve then also got shortcut buttons for my heated steering wheel, for my heated seats. And in this topsp spec trophy trim, I also get ventilated front seats. Again, that’s another step up over the SE. Obviously, I can connect my Apple CarPlay and Android Auto to this wirelessly, so you don’t really need to worry too much about what the normal systems like, but it’s relatively quick to use and understand, and they’ve improved it significantly since the first heavily software orientated MGS came across a few years ago. It’s also worth mentioning that this trophy spec has apps incorporated into it for Spotify, YouTube, Tik Tok, and Amazon Music if that’s your jam. Don’t know why you’d be interested in YouTube. I think it’s a complete waste of time, obviously. Below the screen, we have air vents, and we have physical controls, which is something that MG introduced earlier this year on its S5 model. This for me was an absolute gamecher because it was frustrating. Yes, I know you could use the favorite buttons on the steering wheel, but this is just a much simpler setup. It doesn’t take away from the modernity of the design in here in my opinion. It just makes it easier to live with. So, I’ve got dials for changing up and down the temperature and the fan speed, as well as a volume up and down button as well and shortcut buttons for the front screen blower and the rear screen heater and your hazard button. Now, you will also notice that this center console is raised over the S5, and that’s because we’ve now got a ventilated 50watt wireless phone charger here in the center, and that means that it needed to be brought up a bit to get some more goubbins in behind it to make it work properly. We’ve still got the drive selector that is a dial. fully twist it to the various different drive directions. Electronic parking brake, two cup holders, and under my armrest, a large storage bin, which is really useful. Speaking of storage, we’ve also got a giant cubby below that raised center console, which has got a 12volt power outlet and two more USB C’s. We’ve got huge door pockets, enough for a bottle and other items in either side. And then the glove box is a decent size and full width at least. So that’s also good to see. We’ve also for the first time on an MG model in the UK got a heads up display again only on that trophy trim. I feel like you could be noticing a theme here. And I’ll talk more about pricing when we drive it, but I think that stepping up to that trophy trim is probably the way to go just to get the maximum out of this car. But materials all very soft and squidgy. Everything that I touch feels really quite nice. There’s no real piano with black in here which I appreciate. And yeah, just the amount of space I think is the thing to take away from this interior. It is really really nice in here. So without further ado, let’s go out and drive it. Right. Okay then. So driving the S6. And I guess I will start by talking about the figures. So as I mentioned, we have a 77 kWh battery. That is the same on both the rearwheel drive and all-wheel drive configurations. The only difference is that on the all-wheel drive one, you get an additional motor on the front axle. You can get the rearw wheelel drive configuration in both trophy and SE trims. But if you want the all-wheel drive, it’s trophy only. So rear wheel drive, we have 244 PS, 350 new m of torque. That means naugh to 60 in 7.3 seconds and a top speed of 124 mph. That also means that we get a range of 329 miles because that is what is called the long range option. And if we go for the all-wheel drive, we get 361 PS, 540 Newton m of torque, naugh to 60 in just 5.1 seconds. Still a top speed of 124 mph, but a slightly reduced range of 301 miles on the WLTP cycle. Now, it’s extremely cold today. It’s about 2° or something at the minute. And this car currently has 83% of its charge left and 217 miles of range. And this is the big daddy dual motor car. So that means that around 80% charge around 200 miles you’re going to be looking at sort of 240 250 in the real world which is not too bad really for something this powerful especially with the conditions that we’ve got today. It is pretty gnarly out there. It was snowing this morning when I started this. So, I haven’t really been getting anywhere near the claimed miles per kilowatt hour that you would need to be to be getting those figures. But I can’t really fault the car for that because I mean it’s we’re not in perfect test lab conditions here, are we? So, I’ve mentioned the different specs that we can get. So, prices start for the SE Long Range at a Fiverr under £38,000. If we step up to the long range in the trophy spec, then it’s a fiverr under £41,000. And then if we step up to this trophy dual motor, then it is a fiverr under £44,000. So there’s basically a £3,000 jump each time you go up the specs. And at that price, this feels to me like a lot of car for the money. It feels like extremely good value. This dual motor has definitely got more than enough power. I think that the sweet spot in the range is going to be the long range with the trophy trim at that £41,000 mark. I think that’s what MG are expecting to sell the most of as well. I’d only really recommend going for the dual motor if you are an absolute speed freak and that’s all that matters to you because the standard long range car is plenty powerful enough and you still get all of this lovely trophy stuff in that car as well. And then in terms of how it drives, well, yes, it’s a big electric crossover thing, so we’re not expecting miracles here, but it drives reasonably well. The steering does have some actual weight to it. I feel like MGs do tend to have that sort of weightier steering over rivals like BYD where it sometimes feels like the steering wheel is not even connected to the front wheels. that their steering is just too light for me. But this feels a bit more traditional and a bit sportier. But it’s not necessarily a sporty car. I think it’s balancing on that tight rope between sporty and comfort. It is quite comfortable and I can quite easily sit in these seats and do many, many miles. I mean, these are all electrically operated and I’ve got lumbar support and all of that lovely stuff that you come to expect on a modern car. Now that I’ve engaged the MG Pilot custom mode, I haven’t had any beeps or bongs. Nothing saying, “Oh, you’re not looking where you’re going,” or all of that usual stuff that I always seem to get in modern cars. Modern safety systems do not like my face along with the rest of humanity. So, it really just it’s nice to be in a modern car and it’d be that easy to turn everything off. I really appreciate that. And it shows that MG have listened to customer feedback as well. I’ve also got the ability to control the regen in here, including a one pedal mode, which I really like. I’ve also got different drive modes that I can select between to get the most out of the range or if I’m feeling particularly sporty. So, so far as I can tell, this is a very well-rounded package. The only thing that I’m slightly disappointed about is the fast charging speeds, but I understand the reason behind choosing the different chemical makeup in the battery to extend longevity. So, I can’t even really complain about that all that much. But the thing we come back to time and time again when we drive these MGs is just the astonishing value for money. And with that in mind, let’s go back and do a conclusion. Okay then. So that is the S6 tested. So what am I thinking? Well, I think that this car represents incredible value for money when you consider it’s got a pretty decent range. It’s got an absolutely fantastically practical interior. The amount of storage that it has, the massive boot, the enormous frunk means that it’s really, really useful for families, and you’re just getting a lot of car for your money, I think, especially when you look at what else is out there. So, let me know if you agree down in the comments section. And while you’re there, please make sure to give the video a like if you’ve enjoyed it. But most importantly, please subscribe and ding that notification bell so you never miss one of our uploads. And if you want to support what we do, while you’re down there, you can have a look in the description where we’ve got links to our social media pages. You can become a channel member, or you can get some lovely Buckle Up merch there as well. So, thank you again for watching, and I will see you next time. Goodbye. Heat. Heat.
Today on Buckle Up, we take our first drive in the all-new MGS6, the largest electric crossover MG has ever built. Sitting above the MGS5 in the range, the MGS6 aims to push the brand upmarket with a more premium cabin, more road presence, more space and more tech — all while keeping MG’s signature value-packed pricing.
We test the MGS6 on UK roads to see whether MG’s biggest EV has the refinement and capability to take on the established mid-size electric SUV rivals. That means digging into ride comfort, real-world efficiency, performance, chassis feel, interior quality, infotainment, rear-seat practicality and boot space, plus charging speeds and everyday usability.
MG says this is its most mature and refined EV yet — but is the MGS6 genuinely good enough to tempt buyers away from the likes of Hyundai, Kia, VW and BYD? Or is it just a bigger MG that still leans heavily on price to win the argument?
We find out whether the MGS6 is the value-packed family EV upgrade Brits actually need, or if the competition still has the upper hand.
Key rivals: BYD Sealion, BYD Atto 3, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Renault Scenic E-Tech, Skoda Enyaq 85, VW ID.4, Peugeot e-3008, Tesla Model Y, Ford Explorer, Toyota bZ4X and Audi Q4 Etron.
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