BYD Atto 3 vs MG S6 EV

Before anything else: the MG ZS EV is no longer on sale new in Australia. If you are reading an older comparison that lines it up against the Atto 3, that car is now a used buy. MG's replacement small electric SUV is the S5 EV, which does not yet have a confirmed Australian recommended retail price in our data, so we have used the S6 EV Essence RWD, MG's current electric SUV at the closest money to the Atto 3.

The BYD Atto 3 Premium is $44,990 and the MG S6 EV Essence RWD is $49,990, both recommended retail before on-road costs. That is a $5,000 gap, and the MG is the more expensive car for the first time in this matchup.

If $44,990 is your ceiling and you want an MG, the MG4 Excite 64 at $41,990 is the alternative, though it is a hatchback rather than an SUV. If you want to stay under $40,000 in a BYD SUV, the Atto 3 Essential at $39,990 drops you to a 49.9kWh battery and 345km of range.

On long-term cost, both are relatively young brands in Australia and neither has a long resale track record here, so depreciation remains the biggest unknown for either.

The Atto 3 holds a five-star ANCAP rating from 2022. The MG S6 EV has no ANCAP rating on record yet, so we will not quote a star count for it. Both list AEB, lane keep, blind-spot monitoring and adaptive cruise. The Atto 3's Blade Battery uses LFP chemistry, which is regarded as one of the more thermally stable EV battery designs. On published safety credentials the BYD is currently the only one of the two with a rating you can look up.

The Atto 3 has the more characterful cabin, with a rotating 12.8-inch screen, colourful trim and an NFC key. The S6 EV is the larger car at 4,708mm against the Atto 3's 4,455mm, and that shows up where it counts: 581 litres of boot against 440. If you regularly load the car up, the 141-litre difference is worth more than any styling preference.

Both use a single electric motor and a single-speed reduction gear, but the Atto 3 drives the front wheels and the S6 EV the rears. The MG is the stronger and more efficient of the two.

Chemistry is where the Atto 3 answers back. The BYD Blade Battery is LFP (lithium iron phosphate): more thermally stable, happy to be charged to 100% daily, and rated for more cycles than a typical NMC pack. The MG's 77kWh NMC battery is the bigger and denser unit, but conventional advice is not to sit it at 100% as a routine. If you charge at home every night and want to stop thinking about it, that is a genuine point for the BYD.

The other real-world difference is charging speed. On a DC fast charger the S6 EV pulls up to 144kW and is quoted at 38 minutes from 10 to 80 per cent; the Atto 3 peaks at 88kW and takes 46 minutes, from a smaller battery. On a long drive the MG is meaningfully quicker to turn around.

Running costs are close, as you would expect from two electric SUVs, but the efficiency advantage has swapped sides. The S6 EV is rated at 14.5 kWh/100km against the Atto 3's 16.0.

Near-identical running costs, with the MG's better efficiency offset by slightly higher insurance and tyre costs on a bigger, heavier, rear-drive car. The real ownership variable is resale, and neither brand has a long enough Australian track record to call it reliably. Both will probably retain somewhere around 45-50% at five years, but that is an estimate, not a forecast.

Warranty is a clear MG win. Ten years and 250,000km against BYD's six years and 150,000km is not a close call, and the kilometre cap matters: at 30,000km a year the BYD is out of warranty in year five while the MG still has cover to spare.