Living with the MG M9

There’s a funny thing that happens when you spend enough time reviewing cars for a living. You begin believing that every good car needs to speak to the driver. You start looking for steering feel, weight transfer, throttle response, chassis balance, and all those little details that make driving enjoyable. Over time, you become conditioned to evaluate cars from behind the wheel because that’s usually where the story begins.

Then a car like the MG M9 enters your life and quietly changes the question. Instead of asking, ‘How does it drive?’, it asks, ‘How does everyone else feel?’ It sounds like a simple shift in perspective, but after living with the M9 for a few days, I realised it completely changes the way you judge a vehicle.

The first impression is exactly what you would expect. The M9 is enormous. It has that classic luxury MPV silhouette with a tall roof, a huge glass area, an upright nose, broad proportions, and a design language that immediately reminds you of premium people movers. The front end feels imposing with its oversized grille and slim LED lighting, while the side profile makes no attempt to hide the car’s sheer size either.

It doesn’t look sporty. It doesn’t look aggressive. It simply looks expensive. And honestly, that suits the brief perfectly.

What surprised me most was how quickly the intimidation disappeared once I started driving it.

You sit high, visibility is excellent, the cameras cover your blind spots well, and the steering is so light that manoeuvring this massive MPV through Navi Mumbai traffic became far easier than I had expected. Even the dimensions, which initially feel impossible to judge, start shrinking around you after a while.

There were moments when I expected trouble too. Looking at the low stance and sizeable overhangs, I assumed every speed breaker would become an exercise in patience. However, over a few days of use, the M9 never really complained. It cleared obstacles better than expected and never made me overly conscious about damaging an expensive luxury MPV.

And that’s where the car slowly begins revealing itself. Beneath all the screens, leather, and luxury touches, the MG M9 is surprisingly easy to live with.

Luxury and practicality rarely belong in the same sentence. Usually, the more luxurious a vehicle becomes, the more compromises it demands. Massive wheels ruin ride quality, fancy interiors sacrifice storage space, and third rows become more decorative than functional.

The MG M9 takes a completely different approach. It feels like somebody started with practicality first and then layered luxury over it.

The front cabin immediately reveals the priorities. You sit high with excellent visibility, and there’s a sense of openness that begins with the dashboard design itself. The dashboard doesn’t overwhelm you with physical controls and instead adopts a cleaner, more minimal layout.

The tan leather upholstery elevates the ambience significantly. Combined with the large glass area and upright seating position, the cabin feels more lounge-like than automotive.

Storage has also been intelligently executed. The floating centre console frees up a huge amount of usable space underneath, creating practical areas to store everyday items without cluttering the cabin.

The front seats deserve special mention because they immediately set expectations for the rest of the vehicle. They are broad, comfortable, supportive, and loaded with features such as ventilation, heating, massage, and memory functions.

But the truth is, the front seats stop being interesting the moment you move to the rear. Because the second row is where this car truly begins.

Luxury MPVs live or die by their second-row experience, and MG clearly understood that assignment. The captain seats are exceptional, not simply because they recline or because they feature premium upholstery, but because the entire experience feels deliberately engineered to make passengers forget they are inside a car.

Each seat gets access to a dedicated control interface that allows you to adjust almost everything. Massage functions, seat heating, ventilation, reclining angle, seat extension, and multiple comfort settings can all be controlled independently.

The recline function itself deserves appreciation. You can lean back enough to comfortably watch content, read, work, or simply relax. The extendable leg support completely transforms the seating posture and makes long journeys genuinely relaxing.

Then there’s the glass area. MG has used a massive quarter-glass section around the rear cabin, and it makes a much bigger difference than expected. When seated upright, the cabin feels airy and spacious. Recline slightly and suddenly the outside world becomes part of the experience itself.

The electrically operated sliding doors further reinforce the premium feel. There are multiple ways to operate them, ranging from dedicated switches to touch-sensitive grab handles. And yes, after using them repeatedly, you become lazy very quickly.

Move further back and the M9 delivers another surprise: the third row. Usually, this is where most vehicles quietly give up. Not here.

The third row itself can slide, which already feels unusual in this segment. There’s meaningful adjustment available and, combined with a slight recline function, it significantly improves usability.

I’m almost 6 feet tall and head room was never remotely concerning. Leg room remained genuinely usable, while shoulder room never felt restrictive either.

The seat base itself is well executed. It’s firm enough to remain supportive and wide enough to stay comfortable over long distances. For two people, this feels genuinely premium. For three adults, it still works surprisingly well. That’s rare.

The MG M9 feels like a car developed by someone who sat inside every luxury MPV available and simply kept adding features until nobody objected.

The obvious highlights are the rear seats. Massage is available. Heating is available. Ventilation is available. Seat extension is available. More importantly, none of these systems feel like gimmicky checklist features added purely for brochure value.

The massage function actually works surprisingly well and quickly became one of the features everybody in my family kept returning to. The ventilation performance deserves equal appreciation because it is genuinely strong.

The same applies to the air-conditioning system. The three-zone climate control setup allows independent front zones along with dedicated rear climate management. Across our usage, cooling performance remained consistently excellent, even with a fully loaded cabin.

The roof itself becomes an experience. Ambient lighting runs across the cabin and completely changes the atmosphere at night. There’s a smaller sunroof for the front passengers and a much larger panoramic section for the rear occupants, making the cabin feel even more spacious and airy.

Clever phone storage, roof-mounted AC vents, reading lamps, grab handles, coat hooks, and intelligent storage solutions further reinforce the feeling that this vehicle was designed around long-distance family comfort. Even the third row hasn’t been forgotten. Rear passengers get dedicated AC vents, storage areas, cup holders, speakers, and proper safety provisions extending further back than expected.

Then there's the digital IRVM, which proves handy given the sheer size of the M9 and the limited rear visibility.

There are some misses though. Charging options feel oddly old-school in certain places. Type-C availability should have been far more widespread considering how digitally focused the rest of the cabin feels.

The instrument cluster also feels less premium than the rest of the experience, while the infotainment graphics, despite being responsive, occasionally look slightly cartoonish.

This is where expectations need to be reset. If you approach the M9 expecting driving excitement, you’re looking at the wrong product.

The steering is extremely light, body movements are noticeable, and the ride itself isn’t quite as soft as appearances initially suggest. In fact, I’d describe the ride quality as slightly firm. You do feel road imperfections, particularly from the driver’s seat where you are more aware of what the suspension is doing underneath you.

What surprised me was the lack of the plush, floaty ride quality that luxury MPVs are often associated with. Looking at the M9’s dimensions and its comfort-focused positioning, I expected it to glide over broken roads and absorb imperfections with complete composure. Instead, the suspension feels firmer than anticipated.

Low-speed ride quality is where this characteristic is most noticeable. Potholes, sharp-edged road joints, and uneven surfaces tend to send a distinct movement through the cabin. Similarly, road undulations can occasionally unsettle the body, resulting in a vertical motion that feels more pronounced than what you would expect from a vehicle designed primarily around passenger comfort.

That said, the experience differs depending on where you are seated. As the driver, you are constantly aware of these movements through the steering wheel, seat, and overall vehicle response. Rear passengers, particularly those in the second row, are far less likely to notice them because the seats themselves do a good job of isolating occupants from the harsher edges of the road.

So, while the M9 may not offer the magic-carpet ride quality of some significantly more expensive luxury MPVs, it still delivers a comfortable experience overall. It simply prioritises body control and stability slightly more than outright plushness.

However, refinement is where the M9 immediately fights back. NVH control is excellent. Road noise, wind noise, and overall cabin isolation have been handled beautifully. The electric powertrain also suits the character of the vehicle perfectly.

Performance feels brisk enough for urban use, and the instant torque delivery makes moving this large MPV surprisingly effortless.

On paper, the claimed range sounds ambitious at 548km with a 90kWh battery pack. Realistically, I’d expect somewhere around 400km depending on driving conditions and usage patterns. The stronger regeneration settings and Eco mode definitely help stretch efficiency further.

​As for charging, if you have access to a 160W DC fast charger, the M9 will juice up from zero to 100 per cent in approximately 90 minutes. On the other hand, the standard 11W AC home charger will take about 10 hours to do the same job, something to keep in mind if you are considering buying one for yourself.

But this also revealed the M9’s biggest compromise: range anxiety. Because while the car itself encourages long-distance road trips, charging infrastructure still enters your thought process far more often than you’d like.

That becomes especially relevant for families like mine, where discussions about Mumbai-to-Hyderabad road trips happen regularly. Suddenly, instead of discussing seat comfort or luxury, people begin discussing charging stops and route planning. And that says everything.

The most important review of the MG M9 wasn’t mine. It happened during a family dinner outing.

We packed seven adults into the M9 and headed out for a proper evening drive, including a long stretch across Atal Setu. And this became the moment where I stopped behaving like a reviewer and started observing people naturally interacting with the car.

One person adjusted the massage function. Another started playing with the ambient lighting. Someone opened the panoramic roof. Someone reclined the seat completely.

And almost immediately, somebody claimed permanent ownership of the second row.

Nobody spoke about horsepower. Nobody cared about battery size. Nobody asked about steering feel.

Instead, people started saying things like:

‘This seat is ridiculous.’

‘Can all cars have this?’

‘This actually feels expensive.’

That reaction matters.

Because most people don’t buy cars the way automotive journalists evaluate them.

The consensus within my family was simple. Everyone loved the comfort. Everyone appreciated the space. Everyone felt the luxury experience justified itself. Only two concerns repeatedly came up: range and pricing.

This question stayed in my head long after I handed the keys back. As an enthusiast, my answer remains conflicted. I love driving. I enjoy involvement, feedback, and cars that feel alive from behind the wheel. The MG M9 simply doesn’t speak that language. But that doesn’t make it a bad car. It simply means I’m not its target audience.

Because when I looked at my family’s reaction, things became much clearer. They weren’t evaluating steering feel. They weren’t analysing regeneration settings. They weren’t thinking about chassis balance. They simply asked one question: ‘Can we spend hours in this?’ And the answer was yes. Very comfortably.

So, if you’re somebody who drives purely for pleasure, the M9 may not convert you. But if you value comfort, luxury, practicality, and creating a space that people genuinely enjoy spending time in, this becomes one of the most interesting luxury family vehicles currently available. All while being easy on your pocket, be it the upfront acquisition cost or the charging expenses later on.

That said, the journalist in me respects it. The enthusiast in me walks away. But the family man in me? He’s already sitting in the second row with the massage switched on.

Pictures by Kaustubh Gandhi