IM Motors Launches New LS6 With Standard Steer-by-Wire, Orders Top 11,000 in 57 Minutes

The LS6 comes with three battery specifications, 76 kWh, 93 kWh and 103 kWh, and standard features including steer-by-wire, an all-domain 800V high-voltage pure electric platform, B&O audio and 4D mechanical massage seats. Its limited-time starting prices are 197,900, 217,900 and 259,900 yuan. Steer-by-wire became the focus of the launch.

Steer-by-wire originated in 1960s aviation, where it helped reduce airframe weight, improve response speed and control precision, and significantly lower the risk of flight loss. It was first applied to million-yuan luxury cars and later to high-end models such as NIO ET9/ES9 and Li MEGA. IM Motors broke what Leiphone described as an invisible threshold by putting the aviation-grade technology into the 200,000-yuan segment, making it a key driver of mass production for steer-by-wire.

Xiang Jiao, CTO of IM Motors, said in a post-launch group interview that the team spent eight years on the technology, accumulated 1 million kilometers of testing and carried out many cold and hot weather experiments before bringing the product to market. At the Chengdu auto show this year, IM Motors proposed its NEXT·2028 strategy, aiming to deliver advanced technology to users two to three years ahead of the industry. "The full-wire-control chassis is a strategic configuration that can comprehensively improve driving safety and bring an extreme driving experience, so we will strive to put it on every car," Xiang said. The LS6 is the first model under that strategy and the first to use the full-wire-control chassis.

The full-wire-control chassis removes the mechanical link between the steering wheel and the wheels. Steering, braking and other commands are converted into electrical signals and sent to the wheels through controllers, lifting steering response to 20 milliseconds. The technology was first used in civil aviation 40 years ago, where it cut accident rates by about 90 percent, according to the article. Before the official launch, the LS6 underwent a five-part extreme safety challenge: the vehicle had to pass tests in crosswinds, heavy rain and slippery conditions, a 25-ton heavy truck side impact, a tire blowout and emergency obstacle avoidance to verify stability at the edge of losing control. It stopped safely and passed.

Pei Yichen, technical director of IM Motors' vehicle motion control department, told Leiphone that the number of test items for the steer-by-wire chassis exceeds 10,000 and will continue to rise in later product development, with new matching functions to be created. He compared the difference between electronic and mechanical watches: mechanical watches need maintenance over time, while electronic watches are always convenient to use, like a new species. He said steer-by-wire is similar. "With reasonable and precise safety redundancy design, a steer-by-wire system can be safer and more reliable than a mechanical steering system," he said.

The technology is also preparation for the long-term realization of autonomous driving. "The chassis is the eternal core value of a vehicle, and it will carry future high-level intelligent driving," Xiang said. L3 and above driving places higher demands on millisecond-level response for driving and braking functions, and the full-wire-control chassis is the best physical foundation and technical base for L3 and L4, according to the article. Combined with Momenta's intelligent driving functions and the IM Claw intelligent agent jointly developed with the Qwen large model, the new car completes the "body," "brain" and "cerebellum" needed for a vehicle to move toward embodied intelligence, the article said.

IM Motors is also bringing flagship experience to the mainstream market. Fu Yuchen, product manager of the LS6, recalled that he first experienced the mechanical massage seat on the test prototype of the LS9 and decided to apply the configuration to the LS6. Subsequent subjective research gave him more reason: the mechanical massage seat ranked among the top three high-perception configurations for LS9 users. But the challenges were clear. Early in the application of the new technology, costs were high. Compared with traditional airbag massage, the mechanical structure is more complex and the seat thickness would increase by about 40 to 50 millimeters, eating into second-row legroom, an unsatisfactory result for a family SUV. Gong Jiasen, project manager of the new-generation LS6, formed a research team to redesign the massage ball head and mechanical force arm structure, optimize the back massage range, increase the foam density of the backrest and cushion, and upgrade the 4D mechanical massage seat to version 2.0. The seat became 13 millimeters thinner than the first generation, allowing the comfort feature to be brought into the LS6.

The average age of IM Motors' R&D team is only 34. They can keenly perceive the real needs of young families and better grasp product boundaries, while SAIC's years of technology accumulation provide sufficient technical soil, according to the article. "The technologies seen on this generation of cars are not developed from the previous generation as a starting point; they have gone through a long period of iteration," Xiang said. He disclosed that in October this year, under the NEXT·2028 strategy, IM Motors will also launch a pure electric version of the LS8, with the product goal of being "the safest, best to drive, largest in space and strongest in three-electric system among 8-series cars."

Behind SAIC, the LS6 achieves scale cost reduction. The LS6 first launched in 2023, and each annual iteration has involved major technology evolution. The first-generation LS6 made lidar and high-level intelligent driving standard in the 200,000-yuan class. The second-generation model introduced the Lingxi digital chassis and standard rear-wheel steering. The third-generation LS6 was the industry's first to apply large-battery super range extender technology. The fourth-generation model has achieved the large-scale popularization of steer-by-wire. SAIC Group's system advantages provide generous resource guarantees. As a top project, IM Motors is a core lever for SAIC to achieve brand upward movement and technological breakthrough. SAIC Group President Jia Jianxu has said that SAIC will be "All in on the entire industry chain's resources, All in on technology and All in on the ecosystem to build IM Motors," and that all of the group's forward-looking technologies will be first mass-produced and deployed on IM models. In 2024, Jia Jianxu was promoted to president of SAIC Group and concurrently chairman of IM Motors. He began integrating the large passenger car segment, concentrating the battery, intelligent driving and chassis technology projects of IM, Feifan, Roewe and MG under unified management, and building a "big single product" development model. Through platformization and standardization, the scale of single products is enlarged and costs are reduced. Xiang said that relying on SAIC technology, parts and development in the self-research process are in a "white box" state, which can remove the cost brought by "black boxes." IM also relies on SAIC's supply chain to keep product costs controllable and make the configuration standard across the current 200,000-yuan class.

Pei disclosed that SAIC Group established a VMC team, a vehicle motion control organization, to take on the group's vehicle motion control business. This VMC team is deeply bound with IM's internal VMC team in all development work, promoting the birth of the steer-by-wire chassis. Earlier, in 2018, the chassis department of SAIC's technology center had already set up a forward-looking steer-by-wire project team. "It took us eight years to polish this product, and it was only in response to the market's pursuit of new technologies and better safety performance that we brought the product to mass production at the right time," Xiang said.

The new energy industry's decade of full competition has re-challenged traditionally successful models and forced many automakers out. Powertrain formats and product definitions iterate quickly, but technologies that fit user needs and achieve mass adoption remain a constant in the market. In each cycle, products that grasp this point are seen by the public. Now it is the IM LS6's turn, according to Leiphone.