SAIC has been shifting the Roewe i5 in China since 2017, and the car on sale now is the 2023 facelift with a 2026 model year still listed — a plain, honest little saloon that does the boring jobs well. What the spec sheet doesn’t say is how unpretentious the thing is. No hybrid badge, no giant screen theatre, just a 1.5-litre petrol engine, five seats and a boot you can actually fill. For plenty of buyers that alone is the selling point.

Exterior

Start with the face, because it’s what sticks. Roewe put a wide grille with horizontal chrome bars up front, a ROEWE wordmark where a roundel would normally sit, and headlights that sweep back into the wings. Move up the trims and the halogen units make way for LED, while the daytime running lights come as standard even on the cheapest version — a small touch, but it stops the car reading like a fleet special.

On size it’s 4,676 mm nose to tail, 1,838 mm across and 1,498 mm tall, and the lot of it sits on a 2,680 mm wheelbase. That wheelbase is the headline number: it’s what gives the back seat its legroom, and it’s long enough that the i5 feels a class above what the price suggests. The roofline stays sensible rather than fastback, so the boot opening is a proper rectangle you load from without a fight. Base cars wear 205/60 R16 wheels, and climbing the range gets you 205/50 R17. A short paint list — grey, white, a pale yellow — and that’s about the extent of the drama.

Interior

Inside it’s a clean, symmetrical dash with a 10.25-inch screen doing double duty as instruments and infotainment on the upper trims, running SAIC’s Zebra system with phone mirroring built in. Cheaper models keep physical buttons for the air-con, which older buyers tend to like, and the wheel is a plain multifunction item rather than some touchpad experiment you have to learn.

Space is where the i5 earns its keep. Rear passengers get a flat floor and enough knee room for a six-footer, and the seats are wide and soft in the Roewe “sofa” manner instead of bolstered like a hot hatch. Drop the backrests and the 422 L boot opens into something far longer for flat items — a pushchair, a bike with a wheel off, the weekly shop. Cabin storage is the usual scatter of door bins, cup holders and a cubby: nothing clever, nothing missing.

Powertrain and Chassis

The engine is the whole story here, and it’s a simple one. A 1.5-litre naturally aspirated four, code 15FCD, putting out 95 kW (129 hp) and 158 Nm, fed by direct injection and happy on 92-octane petrol. You can have it with a five-speed manual or a CVT that fakes eight steps; both send drive to the front wheels only. Performance is what a commuter needs rather than what a brochure brags about — 180 km/h flat out, 0–100 in the low elevens, and it’ll sit at motorway speed without sounding busy.

Economy is the actual selling point. WLTC comes in at 5.98 L/100 km with the manual and 6.38 with the CVT, so a full 50 L tank is good for well over 700 km of mixed driving, and a steady motorway run does better still. Underneath there’s a MacPherson strut at the front and a torsion beam behind, with electric power steering and discs all round — cheap to service, easy to live with, and exactly the layout a small fleet or a first-time owner won’t fear.

Worth a note before the questions: the i5 is sold as the MG5 across a number of export regions, which catches people out. Same car, different badge, same numbers underneath.

FAQ

Is the Roewe i5 a hybrid, or is there an electric version? It’s a straight petrol car — no battery, no plug, no hybrid system, the 1.5-litre does everything. If electric is what you want, that’s the Roewe Ei5, a separate estate wagon on a different body, not a version of this sedan. Confusingly close name, completely different shape, so check which one your market actually lists.

Is this the same car as the MG5, and what about the Ei5? Same car, mostly. SAIC sells this very sedan as the MG5 across plenty of export regions — the Middle East, parts of Latin America, that sort of place — so the sheet metal, the engine and the specs are identical, only the grille badge changes. The Ei5 is the odd one out: it’s the electric wagon, unrelated to the i5 sedan despite the name. Search both names and you’ll find the same dimensions underneath.

How practical is it day to day — boot, rear room, fuel range? The 422 L boot takes a couple of cabin cases and the weekly shop without an argument, and it folds flat when you need length. Rear knee room is genuinely good for the class thanks to that 2,680 mm wheelbase, and three across the back is fine for a short hop. On fuel, the 50 L tank and roughly 6 L/100 km appetite mean 700–800 km between fill-ups, so it’s a do-everything runabout rather than a weekend toy.

Can the Roewe i5 be imported to my country? Many markets put no import certification requirement on a built car like this, so it goes in as it leaves the factory. A few want type approval first — the EU comes up most often — and there we’d need to confirm whether this model can be supplied with the certificate your authorities accept. Tell us where it’s headed and we’ll check it properly before anyone commits.

How do you supply the i5, and how do we start? We’re a China-based trading company on the export side of the business. Cars come from the manufacturer and we handle what follows — export paperwork, sea freight and delivery to your port. Most of the people we work with are overseas dealers and importers after a steady supply line out of China, though private buyers organising their own import are welcome too. Send us your market, a rough volume, and whether you’d rather have the manual or the CVT. We’ll come back with availability, shipping options and the customs documents you’ll need, then take it from there.

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