Mazda 6e vs MG IM5

The Mazda 6e is £455 cheaper to buy. The Mazda 6e is cheaper to charge, roughly £152 a year versus £192 for the MG IM5, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the Mazda 6e comes out roughly £655 cheaper overall. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 290 miles for the Mazda 6e and 217 miles for the MG IM5 - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The Mazda 6e goes roughly 73 miles further between charging stops. A rapid charge to 80% takes around 24 minutes in the Mazda 6e and 65 in the MG IM5, so the Mazda 6e loses less time at each stop. That makes the Mazda 6e the stronger long-distance car.

The Mazda 6e is the easier car for tight UK car parks: it is 70 mm narrower than the MG IM5. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 510 mm of total clearance for the Mazda 6e and about 440 mm of total clearance for the MG IM5. The MG IM5 also turns in a 1.6 m tighter circle, which helps with U-turns and multi-storey ramps.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 90% battery health for the Mazda 6e and 90% for the MG IM5. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use LFP-type cells, which are happy charged to 100% every day.