MGS6 EV Trophy Long Range Review: The MG Electric SUV You NEED to Know About!
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A week with the MGS6 EV Trophy (Long Range), reviewed by Ian Campbell
First Impressions
A new year, a new review — and I’m back behind the wheel of an MG for the first time since the MG4 EV Extended Range in July. This month’s subject is the MG S6 Trophy Long Range, the new mid-size electric SUV that sits between the smaller MG S5 and the pricier, plusher MG IM6 in the UK range. On paper it’s positioned to take on the Kia EV6, Tesla Model Y, Skoda Enyaq and VW ID.4 — but it undercuts most of them on price. On the drive, it looks genuinely confident: clean lines, a tidy grille, the sort of mid-size SUV silhouette that will slot into school car parks and company car choice lists alike without fuss.
What a grand car this is, honestly. First impressions on the test week were overwhelmingly positive. The Trophy trim lifts it from workaday to properly welcoming — big 20-inch wheels, head-up display, heated and ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, panoramic sunroof, 11-speaker stereo and that lovely cooled wireless phone charger I’ll come back to. It is, in a sentence, a very capable family SUV with bags of space and bags of character. The engine stats are impressive and it genuinely goes.
Here’s the fleet headline: at 4% Benefit-in-Kind for the 2026/27 tax year, a 20% taxpayer is looking at around £27 a month in BiK on this top-spec Trophy Long Range. A 40% taxpayer, roughly £55. And — this is important — because the Expensive Car Supplement threshold for electric cars rose from £40,000 to £50,000 on 1 April 2026, the S6 Trophy at £40,995 now sits comfortably below the current EV threshold. That saves fleet drivers £440 a year in VED supplement from years two to six that would have applied under the old rules.
Design and Interior
Externally the S6 is a confident, modern mid-size SUV. It’s longer than you might expect at 4,708mm — roughly matching a Kia EV6, Smart #5 or Tesla Model Y — and that extra length translates directly into interior space, which is a genuine selling point. There’s an active grille shutter system, aero wheel covers and front wheel deflectors contributing to MG’s claim of nearly 30 extra miles of range from those details alone. It’s not a showstopping design in the Lepas or ID. Buzz sense, but it’s clean, tidy and will age well.
Inside is where the S6 Trophy earns its keep. The interior is a smart, well-made place to spend time — particularly in the light beige colour scheme my test car came with. There are plenty of soft-touch materials across the upper dashboard and door tops, the switchgear feels properly solid, and build quality overall is a step above where MG has historically played. On balance I’d put it in the same ballpark as a Skoda Enyaq or Kia EV6 for perceived cabin quality — which is high praise given the price delta.
The Trophy’s equipment list is seriously generous. Heated steering wheel and heated front seats come as standard across every S6 (SE included), which is still worth calling out when some rivals charge extra for those; the Trophy adds ventilated front seats, heated rear outer seats, electric driver’s seat adjustment, a panoramic sunroof, powered tailgate, head-up display, ambient lighting and the 360-degree camera. The heated wheel and heated seats are very nice indeed on a cold Lancashire morning — you can feel both working within a minute or two of starting up, and on a frosty school-run morning you really do appreciate that MG hasn’t left the wheel off the list the way the Lepas L8 did last month.
Rear-seat space is brilliant. The back seats of the S6 feel genuinely bigger than most mid-size SUVs — I had two six-footers behind another six-footer in the front with legroom to spare on all three, and the flat rear floor (a benefit of the dedicated EV platform) means the middle passenger isn’t straddling a transmission tunnel. Family passengers travel in genuine comfort back there. The 674-litre boot is quoted (MG measures to the roof, so take that with a pinch of salt in rival comparisons), but even at tonneau-cover height it’s amongst the biggest in class, and there’s an additional 124-litre frunk under the bonnet for charging cables — a lovely practical touch.
The wife test, now entering its tenth consecutive month, was passed with proper enthusiasm. She loved the space, the premium feel, the heated wheel in particular, and — I quote — “this is actually a really nice car.” Progress.
Infotainment and Physical Controls
Let’s start with the thing MG keeps getting absolutely right: physical buttons. Just like on the MG4 EV I tested last summer, the S6 keeps a proper row of switches, knobs and buttons below the central touchscreen for temperature, fan speed, media volume and drive settings. Adjusting the climate control while driving, or nudging the stereo down for a phone call, is a matter of feel — no glancing away from the road to hunt for a touchscreen icon. Once again, happy to see the physical buttons MG has provided. Other manufacturers really do need to take notes on this.
And again, the MG Pilot button — I remain a proper fan. One press of the shortcut gets you to your preferred combination of driver-assistance settings, so the lane-keep alerts and speed warnings can be tuned to sensible levels without diving three levels deep into menus. For a fleet driver who’s going to be in this car every day, this single feature is worth more than almost anything else on the equipment list. It’s MG’s best current-model advantage and it carries over beautifully from the MG4 EV into the S6.
The 12.8-inch central touchscreen itself is a bit of a mixed bag. Graphics are decent, wireless Apple CarPlay connects reliably, the home-screen shortcuts are easy enough to customise. But it is a touch laggy at times — swipes don’t always register first time, and some menu navigation feels a step slower than you’d want. Not a dealbreaker, but worth being honest about. The 10.3-inch digital driver display is clearer, and the head-up display on Trophy trim is genuinely useful, keeping your speed and navigation prompts right in your eyeline.
Now a specific niggle on the gear selection. The S6 has a rotary dial on the centre console — twist left for Reverse, right for Drive, press for Park. It works perfectly well, and most of the time you’ll forget it’s there. But I’ve come to prefer the stalk-mounted gear selector that MG has started fitting on the newer MG4 Urban — much quicker and more natural to the hand, especially for three-point turns and reverse-into-forward direction changes. The rotary on the S6 is OK, but it’s not my favourite layout and I’d love to see MG standardise on the stalk setup across the range in future.
Final mention on controls: the 50-watt cooled wireless phone charger on Trophy trim is a lovely feature. Phones generate heat when wirelessly charging at high power, so most wireless pads throttle after a few minutes to protect the battery; the cooled pad in the S6 keeps the charger working at full tilt without the phone overheating. Nice touch, genuinely practical for a working day of maps and calls.
On the Road
The Trophy Long Range’s single 241bhp rear-mounted motor delivers 350Nm of torque to the back wheels, dispatching 0–62mph in a brisk 7.3 seconds. Impressive stats for a mid-size family SUV at this price point, and it genuinely feels every bit as quick as the numbers suggest. Instant torque off the mark, strong continuous acceleration up to motorway speeds, and plenty in reserve for an overtake. For a family SUV at under £41k, this is proper performance.
Being rear-wheel drive gives the S6 a nicely balanced feel through corners. Body control is tidy, the steering is accurate and well-weighted, and — as I noted on the MG4 EV — you can genuinely feel the rear-drive setup working under you when you power out of a bend. It’s nice to drive, in that honest, confident, grown-up way that doesn’t ask you to think too hard. The ride is a touch on the firm side, especially unladen on the 20-inch Trophy wheels — patchy B-roads send a bit more jolt through the body than a softer-sprung Citroën ë-C5 Aircross would — but it never crosses into uncomfortable. The brakes deserve a particular callout: MG has got the blend of regenerative and friction braking working smoothly together, which many EVs don’t manage, so you can slow the S6 down with proper confidence.
Cabin refinement is good rather than exceptional. There’s a bit of wind noise around the mirrors at 70mph and some tyre roar on coarser surfaces, but it’s never intrusive to the point of raising your voice for conversation. On a long motorway run the S6 is a thoroughly civilised companion. The active noise suppression on Trophy trim helps. The one honest quibble: because the accelerator mapping is quite aggressive off the first inch of travel, feeding power in super-smoothly in slow stop-start traffic takes a bit of practice. Not a problem, just worth a mention.
Battery, Range and Charging
The S6 Trophy Long Range uses a 74.3kWh usable (77kWh total) NCM battery, delivering an official 329 miles WLTP. In real-world driving in winter conditions I saw indicated range around 240–260 miles across mixed motorway and A-road use — roughly in line with the 243 miles that cold-weather testing by independent reviewers has delivered. That’s a comfortable working day for most drivers and realistic enough for most fleet applications. Summer conditions and better efficiency would stretch that figure out considerably.
DC rapid charging peaks at 144kW, enabling a 10–80% charge in around 35 minutes. That’s respectable rather than class-leading — the Skoda Enyaq charges a touch quicker and the Smart #5 Pro+ is in a different league at 400kW — but it’s perfectly workable for a service-area break on a long trip. Home charging at 7kW takes around 12 hours for a full fill, which is standard overnight-wallbox territory. There’s one-pedal driving available via the strongest regenerative braking mode, which is nicely calibrated and holds the car to a complete stop smoothly.
Efficiency came in at around 4.0 miles per kWh in my mixed-use testing, which is a solid real-world figure for an SUV of this size and weight (1,908kg kerb weight). In perfect summer conditions and gentle driving MG claims up to 4.9 mi/kWh. The S6 isn’t going to break any hypermiling records but it’s not going to disappoint drivers watching their energy consumption either.
The Niggles
Not many for this one, honestly. The rotary gear selector I’d prefer to see replaced with the stalk layout from the newer MG4 Urban — it’s OK but not my favourite. The infotainment touchscreen could do with being a touch quicker to respond. The ride is a bit firm on patchy roads, especially unladen on the Trophy’s 20-inch wheels — drivers who prize ride comfort above all should test the SE on its smaller 19-inch alloys as a comparison. And the standard 7kW onboard AC charger isn’t the fastest in class — rivals offering 11kW three-phase charging will top up faster at a workplace
charger if your fleet has one.
Then there’s the honest flag I owe you: MG’s brand-wide reliability record has been weaker than most of its rivals in recent industry surveys. The S6 itself is too new to have its own long-term record established, but for a fleet operator running a mixed brand pool it’s a factor worth putting into the whole-life-cost model rather than glossing over. The seven-year warranty is a genuine mitigation — particularly for a fleet running a four-year, 80,000-mile cycle, where the car will still be covered at defleet — and MG’s UK dealer network is now one of the broader ones in the country, so service support is less of a concern than it was five years ago. But the honest flag belongs here, as it did on the MG4 EV review.
Safety and Warranty
The S6 holds a five-star Euro NCAP rating, with strong scores for both adult and child occupant protection. Standard safety equipment is comprehensive: autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, driver attention monitoring, Intelligent Speed Assist, adaptive cruise with stop-and-go. The Trophy adds the 360-degree surround-view camera system and front parking sensors, both of which make urban manoeuvres properly straightforward. An alarm and immobiliser are standard across the range.
The warranty remains MG’s seven-year/80,000-mile package — one of the stronger offerings in the industry, though a touch behind Kia’s equivalent seven-year/100,000-mile cover. For a fleet running a typical four-year, 80,000-mile cycle, the vehicle will be exactly at warranty expiry at defleet time, which is a genuine whole-life risk-management advantage against a three-year warranty from most European rivals.
The Fleet and Sal-Sac Case
Here’s where the S6 Trophy makes its most convincing argument. Pure electric cars sit at 4% BiK for the 2026/27 tax year, rising to 5% in 2027/28, 7% in 2028/29 and 9% in 2029/30. For the Trophy Long Range at a P11D value of £40,995, that translates to:
- 20% taxpayer, 2026/27: around £27 per month in BiK (£328 per year) • 40% taxpayer, 2026/27: around £55 per month in BiK (£656 per year)
Compare that to a similarly-powerful petrol or diesel SUV in the 30%+ BiK bracket — a 40% taxpayer would typically pay £400–£500 a month in company car tax on that kind of car. The S6 Trophy saves that same driver roughly £350–£450 a month in tax. Over a four-year contract, that’s £16,000–£22,000 straight back into the driver’s pocket.
The really important fleet-specific point to flag is the Expensive Car Supplement position. Prior to April 2026 the Trophy at £40,995 would have attracted the £425/year ECS supplement from year two onwards, costing drivers over £2,100 extra across a five-year cycle. From April 2026 onwards, the EV threshold rose to £50,000, meaning the S6 Trophy now sits comfortably below it and attracts no supplement at all. For fleet decision-makers who dismissed the Trophy under the old rules, this is a reason to put it back on the choice list — the whole-life numbers have improved materially.
On salary sacrifice the S6 Trophy is similarly compelling. For a 40% taxpayer, broker-published figures for cars at this price and spec typically land in the £400–£500 per month range, all-inclusive of insurance, servicing, tyres and often a home charger. For a 241bhp mid-size family SUV with this amount of equipment and space, that’s a strong proposition — and more affordable than a petrol-equivalent choice at the same spec level. The entry-level SE Long Range at £37,995, incidentally, qualifies for the £1,500 Electric Car Grant since it sits below the £37,000-£42,000 banded ECG threshold — making it an even sharper proposition for lower-paid staff in a sal-sac programme.
The Competition
The S6 arrives into one of the fastest-moving corners of the UK EV market. The Tesla Model Y Long Range is the obvious benchmark and comparably specced — but it’s pricier trim-for-trim and the Tesla cabin is more divisive. The Kia EV6 is sharper to drive and faster-charging but costs materially more. The Skoda Enyaq matches the S6 on space and finish but typically costs more trim-for-trim. The Smart #5 is more comfortable to ride in and premium inside but, again, more expensive. The Citroën ë-C5 Aircross undercuts the S6 on price but with less power and a less engaging drive. The Peugeot e-3008 and the newer Kia EV3 occupy slightly smaller segments. What the S6 Trophy uniquely offers is that specific combination of 241bhp performance, a genuinely spacious family interior, properly premium equipment levels (heated/vented seats, head-up display, cooled wireless charger, 360-degree camera) and a price that sits below the EV supplement threshold — making the whole-life numbers really hard to argue with.
The Verdict
The MG S6 Trophy Long Range is a thoroughly convincing family electric SUV, and the single phrase I keep coming back to is ‘bags of character’. It drives well, with proper 241bhp rear-wheel-drive performance. It’s spacious — the back seats feel bigger than most and the boot is amongst the biggest in class. The equipment list is properly generous for the money, with heated seats, heated steering wheel, cooled wireless phone charger, 360-degree camera, head-up display, ventilated front seats and panoramic sunroof all contributing to a genuinely welcoming cabin. The MG Pilot one-button ADAS shortcut remains my favourite single feature on any current MG, and the retention of physical climate buttons is exactly the right call. The fleet maths — 4% BiK, below the £50k EV supplement threshold, strong sal-sac positioning — is amongst the sharpest in the segment.
It’s not perfect. The rotary gear selector works but I prefer the stalk setup from the newer MG4 Urban. The infotainment screen is a touch laggy at times. The ride is a bit firm on 20-inch wheels. And MG’s brand-wide reliability record remains an honest factor that fleet operators need to price into their whole-life-cost models — though the seven-year warranty does a lot to mitigate it.
Four stars from me — and genuine enthusiasm with it. For fleet managers looking to add a comfortable, spacious, generously-equipped family electric SUV to the choice list at a sensible price, the S6 Trophy Long Range deserves serious shortlisting. For sal-sac programmes aimed at middle-tier staff, particularly those with growing families and the need for both space and performance, this is a properly compelling package. MG has delivered a very capable family SUV with bags of space and bags of character, and the pricing position — particularly the ECS story — makes it hard to argue with. Grand car indeed.
