2026 MG IM5 Performance Review: Porsche performance for a pittance from a Chinese electric sedan

December 20, 2025December 19, 2025 Stephen Corby 131 Views 0 Comments IM IM6, IM Motors

Are my learned colleagues on drugs? This is the question I’m forced to ask after comparing their frothing frenzy over the MG IM5 – “it’s a cut-price Porsche Taycan” and “I had a trouser tent constantly while driving this performance EV” – with the reality of spending a week in one.

I will grant you that, on paper, the Taycan comparison looks plausible, because this gussied-up MG (apparently it’s “IM presented by MG, which is like saying “Lexus, presented by Toyota,” or very silly in other words) is wildly powerful, with 572kW and 802Nm from its twin-motor set-up and 100kWh battery.

Despite weighting 2.3-tonnes, this strangely sedan-shaped monster can hit 100km/h in 3.2 seconds and can basically rip your arms off and hit you with the soggy ends at pretty much any speed.

But that doesn’t make it a Porsche.

If you’re sitting in Economy Class, you’re going just as quickly through the air as those in First Class, but they are having a very different experience to you.

Step inside the IM5 and you quickly feel the “cut-price” part of the equation, although there’s no doubt the $80,990 Performance model we’re driving does seem like bargain in bang-for-bucks terms.

Then there’s the design, which is at least interesting when compared with other, lesser MGs. I think it looks like a jelly bean crossed with a marshmallow. But then, to my surprise, a lovely young man who was helping this old fellow lift heavy things into the IM5’s hatch-boot, became very excited about its looks, and said, I kid you not: “it looks like a Porsche” and, even more tellingly for a young person, “can I take a photo for my Dad?” (Yes, I did think he meant a photo of me, but apparently not.)

2026 IM5 Performance price and equipment

The $80,990 IM5 Performance sits at the top of a three-option IM5 line-up that starts with a 75kWh, RWD Premium at $60,990 drive away, followed by a 100kWh RWD Platinum for $69,990.

The Performance has a 372kW/500Nm motor at the rear, which is sensibly more powerful than the 200kW and 300Nm front motor and, as mentioned above, this adds up to a lot – 572kW and 802Nm.

Just pause for a moment and reflect on 572kW, it’s not far off the 610kW you get in a Ferrari 296 GTB and more than the 520kW you’d get in a Porsche 911 Turbo S.

Claimed range is 575km on the WLTP scale and it rides on double wishbone suspension up front and multi-link at the rear, combined with air suspension and what it calls “Continuous Control” active damping. Which does all sound very Porsche as well, and seems quite posh for an $81K car.

The glass is all double glazed and the cabin features active noise cancellation technology, so it would be very quiet in there, if it wasn’t for the stupid safety bleeping.

You also score nine HD cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors and three radars, which sounds impressive, but unfortunately the car looks like someone only thought to add the cameras (including one that watches your face and beeps at you if you even dare to yawn) at the last minute, so they seems stuck on in an after-market fashion.

2026 IM5 Performance: What we think

Unfortunately, the big problem I had with the IM5 Performance is that its safety system bongs, bells, chimes, whines and whistles were so unendingly infuriating that I just couldn’t enjoy driving it.

Worse still, for a performance EV, it seems to throw its atonal beeping toys out of the pram instantly and then unendingly if you exceed the speed limit even slightly.

Honestly, most Chinese cars are awful when it comes to this kind of noise pollution, but this is by far the worst.

It’s like BMW hired Hans Zimmer to design nice, pleasing sounds for its EVs, but MG went out and hired someone far more evil, Katy Perry perhaps, or maybe an actual musician, like Keith Urban, to make its cabin as annoying as humanly possible.

And yes, I’m sure you can turn these systems off, every time you get in the car, but with no actual labelled hard buttons, you have to use the touch screen for everything, including adjusting your wing mirrors, which is exhausting.

I also hated the fact that it has no internal door handles – there’s something about that that just makes me feel trapped.

Quite incredibly, the car I was in actually refused to beep in one way – when you reversed it towards anything. It did appear to have reversing sensors, but they might have been painted on, or just broken. Handy.

After a couple of days of driving the IM5 around very slowly – and it is admittedly quite pleasant if you do this, with excellent ride quality, reasonable steering feel, I rang another colleague to shout at him about how much I hated it, and he – perhaps on drugs, it’s hard to say – insisted that I was insane and that surely I’d noticed how fast and fun it was to drive it with gusto.

So I sallied forth, spent five minutes adjusting the car to its Sport settings and the Safety ones to Leave Me Alone and I must say, in a word, wow.

Obviously, I knew it would be fast, because I can read, but the way this IM5 combines speed with poise, a lack of body roll and heftier steering, once you engage that Sport mode, is genuinely surprisingly good.

You can genuinely shock yourself with how fast it is, but then it doesn’t feel like it’s going to bite you when that does happen.

There’s also a sense, despite it being all-wheel drive, of it being a bit rear biased, like a proper sports car should be. And in terms of value, it’s hard to think of many cars that deliver so much for such relatively so little.

2026 IM5 Performance: Verdict

To be clear, this is not. Porsche, it feels a bit nasty inside, and a lot plain, but I have to say, once you turn the Nanny State down, I can kind of, almost see what my excitable colleagues are raving about.

SCORE: 4/5

2026 IM5 Performance specifications

Price: $80,990 (drive-away)
Basics: EV , 5 seats, 5 doors, sedan, AWD
Range: 575km (WLTP – good luck getting that if you put your foot down)
Battery capacity: 100kWh NMC
Battery warranty: 8 years/160,000km
Energy consumption: 17.3kWh/100km (ADR)
Motors: 1 front, 1 rear, 572kW/802Nm
AC charging: 11kW, Type 2 plug
DC charging: 395kW, CCS combo plug
0-100km/h: 3.2 seconds

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Stephen Corby

PharmacySydney.com

Stephen is a former editor of both Wheels and Top Gear Australia magazines and has been writing about cars since Henry Ford was a boy. Initially an EV sceptic, he has performed a 180-degree handbrake turn and is now a keen advocate for electrification and may even buy a Porsche Taycan one day, if he wins the lottery. Twice.