MG gets Australian approval for SUV S5, its new low-cost EV

MG’s upcoming electric SUV, the S5 EV, has now received approval to be sold in Australia with a filing now revealing up to 6 variants that could be on their way to the market in 2025 in what could well emerge as one of the lowest cost EVs on the Australian market.

The new S5’s road vehicle type approval documentation which was released this week, shows 3 battery packs on offer, ranging from 49 kWh up to 64 kWh.

Of these packs, two are of Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) chemistry which includes 49 kWh and 62 kWh capacities.

The top-spec appears to have the 64 kWh battery pack which has the Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese (NCM) chemistry.

All these battery packs are available in two variants which the regulatory documentation calls “COM” & “LUX”. 

At this stage, its unclear what these two acronyms mean, but the LUX could be the top luxury trim.

In October, MG launched this car in China, setting a new pricing benchmark in its home market. 

The new compact SUV has a starting price of under $A21,300, making it quite an attractive model given the features this car packs.

One of these features is a new battery pack, which the brand’s parent company, SAIC, says is the world’s thinnest, coming in at just 110 mm.  

This battery pack was developed by both CATL and SAIC and features lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry and is likely to be featured in the four 49 kWh and 62 kWh LFP battery eqipped variants.

Like the MG4’s rear-wheel-drive variants, the new MG S5 comes with a single rear-mounted motor that delivers up to 125 kW of power. This helps this small SUV get from 0-100 km/h in around 8 seconds which is reasonable for a family SUV.

On the inside, there is an upgraded infotainment system, which is increased to 15.6 inches from the 10.25-inch screen found in Australian-bound MG4 models.

This new MG is already on sale in China, with exports to market like Australia and Europe likely to begin in 2025.

After seeing the S5 being tested on local roads as far back as October this year and now the approval documentation showcasing the variants likely to launch in our market, it’s pretty clear that MG plans to bring this to help grow its EV sales in our market.

The MG4 is now the 3rd best-selling EV in Australia, selling 6,080 so far in the first 11 months. The MG4 has also outsold every BYD EV model and is only behind the dominance of Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y.

See our data base here: Australian electric vehicle sales by month and by model in 2024

More details on the upcoming S5, including key local specifications and pricing, are likely to be announced in the first half of next year. At this stage though, we expect the starting price of this model to be closer to $40,000 when it is announced.

For more details on individual EV models available in Australia, please visit our EV Models page.