8,000 Pre-Orders in 45 Minutes: Can the IM LS6 Turn Things Around with Steer-by-Wire?

On September 10, the all-new IM LS6 opened for pre-order. With a starting price of 209,900 yuan and more than 8,000 pre-orders in just 45 minutes, it has become one of the most talked-about products in the 200,000-yuan-class all-electric SUV market.

IM has long carried an unflattering label—great technology, but not a great seller. This time, it has packed a next-generation full steer-by-wire chassis, the NEO powertrain architecture, and all-domain physical AI into a family SUV. Whether it can finally convert "good technology" into sales is the most interesting thing about this car.

Bringing Steer-by-Wire to the 200,000-Yuan Class: IM Wants to Talk About Safety

Before and after the launch of the all-new LS6, the concept discussed most by outsiders was the A320. Placing a family SUV alongside an Airbus A320 initially seemed more like marketing talk, but Xu Yin, deputy general manager of IM Motors, explained at a media briefing that both point to the same technical origin—steer-by-wire. Airbus has long used fly-by-wire, primarily for safety, and safety is precisely what matters most in a family SUV.

In terms of concrete specifications, this full steer-by-wire "Lizard" chassis features aviation-grade triple safety redundancy, with a response speed of 20 milliseconds—four times faster than conventional steering. In an emergency, the system assists the driver in braking and evading, reacting faster and more consistently than a human.

To make this capability visible, IM conducted what it internally calls a "safety pentathlon" at the launch event. Wei Pengda from IM's high-performance sports division shared the full test process: within a stretch of more than 20 meters, six crosswind simulation fans, heavy rain, crosswinds, and a truck impact were stacked together. During the impact, a tire blew out at an angle, and immediately afterward an obstacle box was thrown out. Five items were completed in one pass within the same zone. Wei Pengda emphasized that the video was not AI-generated but actually filmed.

Xu Yin summed up this approach as "safety before loss of control."

Beyond safety, the full steer-by-wire chassis also brings several capabilities rarely seen at this level: a 4.49-meter ultra-small turning radius, half-a-turn lock-to-lock for a one-shot U-turn, and the industry's only three-level adjustable steering ratio, switchable between sensitive, normal, and relaxed modes. Xu Yin said in a group interview that no brand currently makes this technology standard across its entire lineup, especially not at the 200,000-yuan level.

This is also the most tangible part of the "Next·2028 Strategy." According to Xu Yin, research on this technology began two to three years ago, gradually rolling out from the LS9, through the L6, and finally arriving on the LS6.

Steer-by-wire / brake-by-wire refers to eliminating the mechanical or hydraulic hard connection between the steering wheel and the steering mechanism, and between the brake pedal and brake calipers. Instead, electrical signals transmit driving intent, and motors execute the action. Traditional steering relies on physical channels such as the steering column and rack-and-pinion, which have mechanical delays and layout constraints. Steer-by-wire hands steering commands to an ECU, with the actuator driven by a motor, so response can be measured in milliseconds. The steering ratio can also be switched in software between sensitive, normal, and relaxed, and during parking the rear wheels can even steer in the same direction to reduce the turning radius.

The real challenge of steer-by-wire is fail-safety. Mechanical connections may be sluggish, but if they break, there is still a physical backup. If an electrical signal or actuator fails in a steer-by-wire system, the steering wheel may instantly lose function. That is why aviation widely adopts multiple redundancy: the Airbus A320's flight controls are a typical multi-channel redundant fly-by-wire system. What IM calls "aviation-grade triple safety redundancy" essentially means preparing multiple independent backups for critical links such as steering, braking, and power, so that basic control can be maintained if any one path fails. This is also why steer-by-wire has long remained in high-end models and is hard to bring down to the 200,000-yuan class—redundancy means extra sensors, power supplies, and actuators, significantly raising both cost and packaging difficulty.

Behind 12.7 kWh per 100 km: 0.2mm Silicon Steel Sheets

For all-electric SUVs, the easiest comparison is always energy consumption. The all-new IM LS6 consumes 12.7 kWh/100 km, and the rear-drive large-battery version has a CLTC range of 782 km. IM emphasizes that this figure was not achieved by simply fitting a bigger battery.

IM CTO Xiang Jiao explained the logic to Leiphone's "New Smart Driving": the larger the battery, the greater the weight, which does not necessarily bring an energy consumption advantage and may even affect handling and safety. What IM pursues is lower energy consumption, not a bigger battery.

Behind this goal is a seemingly unremarkable component—0.2mm silicon steel sheets. Xu Yin spent considerable time on this during the group interview: making silicon steel sheets as thin as 0.2mm is what enabled a 2.8% improvement in motor efficiency and an 8% reduction in weight. His exact words were: "This number may not look very big, but this motor is already excellent, and improving on excellence is very difficult."

Combined with the latest NEO Hurricane motor, NEO rear-drive, dual-layer oil cooling, and other hardware, as well as the IM ECU Master new energy efficiency management system 3.0, the vehicle's energy management is coordinated across the board—air conditioning, drive, and energy recovery are all scheduled together. One detail: the vehicle's low-voltage power consumption dropped from more than 600 watts to more than 200 watts, a reduction of two-thirds.

On charging, the all-new IM LS6 is based on an all-domain 800V high-voltage platform, with a maximum charging power of 396 kW and 500 km of range added in 15 minutes. But what Xiang Jiao emphasized was not the peak figure, but accessibility—"Many competitors have announced supercharging, one-sidedly pursuing maximum single-point power, but often these power levels can only be achieved on special chargers. The ultra-fast charging we provide can reach the full charging power of the charger on 90% of fast-charging piles."

Winter performance was also singled out. What affects winter and summer energy consumption most is the thermal management system. This car features a new-generation thermal management system and a ten-way valve integrated management system. Compared with the previous generation, winter and summer energy consumption is reduced by 10% to 15%; while maintaining a comfortable temperature, hourly energy consumption can drop below 0.5 kWh in both winter and summer. For the battery, it uses a 93 kWh CATL battery with PPB aviation-grade reliability, equipped with a rapid cutoff device that can cut power in milliseconds when risks are detected.

On cost trade-offs, Xiang Jiao was firm: "We will not cut costs in places you cannot see. Precisely these invisible places, such as the chassis and NOH, are the most responsible for user safety and handling."

Silicon steel sheets are the core material for the stator and rotor of drive motors. When the motor operates, the constantly changing magnetic field in the core causes eddy current losses and hysteresis losses; the higher the speed and frequency, the more obvious the losses. Making silicon steel sheets thinner can compress the eddy current circuit and reduce eddy current losses; at the same time, higher-grade silicon steel has higher silicon content and greater resistivity, which also helps suppress losses. Mainstream drive motors in the industry usually use 0.25mm to 0.35mm silicon steel sheets, and achieving 0.2mm is a more aggressive orientation, placing higher demands on rolling processes, stamping precision, and stacking consistency, with scrap rates and costs rising accordingly.

The benefits of 0.2mm silicon steel sheets are not simply a matter of stacking numbers. A 2.8% improvement in motor efficiency means either more range from the same amount of electricity or a smaller battery for the same range, thereby reducing vehicle weight and in turn lowering driving energy consumption, forming a positive cycle. For an all-electric SUV, differences in motor efficiency under conditions such as high-speed cruising and hard acceleration are amplified, so optimization of this component ultimately shows up in vehicle energy consumption figures like 12.7 kWh/100 km.

AI Cockpit and Smart Driving: From Passive Response to Active Assistance

If the chassis and powertrain are the body of this car, intelligence is the new story IM most wants to tell this time.

At the cockpit level, the all-new IM LS6 is the industry's first to feature the IM Claw lobster agent. Xiang Jiao summarized its difference from common voice assistants in two points: first, from single-point, command-based Q&A to understanding human intent; second, from directly executing a single command to continuous execution of multiple modules and multiple tasks.

She gave two examples. In the past, after voice wake-up, you had to give an explicit command—"set the air conditioning to 23 degrees" or "navigate to a certain place." IM Claw needs to understand vague expressions like "I'm a bit cold" and then adjust the cabin to a comfortable temperature. The second example is a family travel scenario: a single sentence like "what time should we get home" may involve multi-destination navigation, itinerary planning, food ordering, and a series of other needs. The agent can extend from intent understanding to multi-task analysis and finally execute everything in one go.

"We hope the AI cockpit in the vehicle can shift from a passive responder to an active assistant," Xiang Jiao said. She compared the goal to Jarvis and mentioned that in the future it will directly connect to a richer Alibaba AI ecosystem.

On smart driving, IM's relationship with Momenta was repeatedly mentioned. Xiang Jiao said IM is Momenta's only founding lighthouse^Ad partner in the industry, with the two holding mutual equity and jointly researching technology. At this launch, the result of their cooperation is the IM AD ZETA assisted driving system, empowering L2 functions with L4-level model capabilities and fully adapting to Momenta's world model. Asked about Momenta's recent new model release, Xiang Jiao responded: whether in the past, today, or the future, from IM's perspective, cooperation with Momenta will always deliver the best products on the market to reflect the value of a lighthouse partner.

What is called an "agent" is fundamentally different from a common voice assistant. A voice assistant works in a "wake—command—execute" single-turn or short multi-turn interaction, mainly backed by speech recognition plus intent classification, with capability boundaries determined by preset skills. An agent, by contrast, relies on large language models and task planning capabilities. It first understands the user's vague intent, then breaks a goal into multiple subtasks, calling different modules such as navigation, air conditioning, music, and food ordering in sequence, and can even adjust the order based on feedback. Xiang Jiao's examples of "I'm a bit cold" and "what time should we get home" are two typical cases: the former requires inferring a temperature setting from a feeling, while the latter requires linking a time constraint, multiple destinations, itinerary planning, and en-route services into one execution chain.

From passive response to active assistance, another key change is contextual memory and proactive triggering. An agent can continuously perceive vehicle status, time, location, and user habits outside of dialogue, proactively offering suggestions or directly completing operations at the right moment rather than waiting for the user to speak. This path places far higher demands on computing power, model deployment, and ecosystem integration than traditional voice solutions, and it is also a main direction of current smart cockpit competition.

From Acclaim to Sales: Channels and Details Are the Other Half of the Answer

This year, the 200,000 to 300,000-yuan large five-seat SUV market is heating up extremely fast, with Li Auto and Tesla both having strong products in this segment. The broader context: more than 500 vehicles were launched within half a year, while the overall market declined 20% in the first half.

Regarding competitors, Xu Yin did not avoid the topic: "Several competitors have SUVs that sell well, such as Li Auto and Tesla, which each have two pure electric models performing well in this segment, and their product strength is decent." Back to how the LS6 breaks through, his answer is three hardcore technologies plus a sincere price. His judgment is that consumers will think that if you do not launch, it means the brand is not continuously introducing updates and its technology is not leading enough, "so you must, in a very competitive market, use new products and new technology to gain consumer recognition."

"Next·2028 Strategy" is another entry point for understanding this car. At this year's Chengdu Auto Show, IM announced this strategy, with the first model being the all-new IM L6; the all-new LS6 is the first 200,000-yuan-class all-electric SUV under this strategy. Xu Yin's explanation of the strategy centers on one word—"early": bringing advanced technologies from the next three years directly to today's car ahead of schedule.

For the unavoidable question of "acclaimed but not selling well," Xu Yin's answer comes down to two keywords: technology implementation and emotional value. He often tells his team to stay close to consumers, and in concrete product terms this translates into a series of directly perceptible details: the driver's seat is the only standard 4D mechanical massage seat in its class across the entire lineup, with massage intensity seven times that of pneumatic massage; the front passenger seat has three modes—zero-gravity, chaise lounge, and forward folding; the rear seat backrest has a maximum 131-degree electric stepless adjustment; ventilation, heating, and massage are standard on all seats without extra payment or options; Danish B&O audio is the only standard system in its class across the entire lineup; and there is an 11L dual-door refrigerator. There is also a 105L front trunk under the hood—when loading luggage, just press and tap, and the hood opens automatically.

Channels are the other half of the answer. As of last month, IM had 436 stores nationwide, with an average transaction price of 230,000 yuan. Xu Yin revealed that display cars for the new model have fully arrived in stores, test drives have started simultaneously, and business-district stores, pop-up stores, and slow-flash stores are all equipped with display and test-drive cars. For network expansion, his approach is "survival of the fittest," based mainly on the region's market share.

Looking back at the product iteration pace, the LS6 has undergone four iterations since its launch in 2023: the first generation had standard lidar across the lineup, an industry first; the second generation introduced the Lizard digital chassis and standard four-wheel steering; the third generation led with large-battery super extended range; and the fourth generation is today's full steer-by-wire chassis. According to IM's plan, from the LS9 to the L6 and then to the LS6, all SAIC IM models will soon come standard with steer-by-wire technology.

As for whether this car can ultimately succeed, Xu Yin's standard is very down-to-earth: "Just listening to me may not feel deep enough. As long as you get in the car and touch the steering wheel, you can feel it. Driving it once is more efficient than a hundred words from us."

The all-new IM LS6 will officially launch on September 23. This is the first time the "Next·2028 Strategy" faces market testing in the form of a 200,000-yuan-class all-electric SUV, and it is also an opportunity for IM to truly convert "good technology" into sales.

"Acclaimed but not selling well" is a common automotive industry evaluation for models with strong technical reputation but weak sales. There are usually several reasons: first, technical selling points are hard for ordinary consumers to perceive in a short test drive, such as chassis tuning, energy consumption optimization, and redundant safety; second, technological leadership often comes with higher costs and uncompetitive pricing; third, insufficient channel coverage means consumers who want to see or test the car cannot find a store, or the sales network is concentrated in only a few cities. IM was previously considered to fall into this category, with products repeatedly achieving industry firsts in chassis, powertrain, and smart driving, but sales volume never matched its technical reputation.

To break this cycle, three things usually need to happen at the same time: translate technology into experiences users can directly perceive, lower the decision threshold with a sincere price, and place stores and test-drive cars near target users. This is also why IM this time emphasized the "safety pentathlon" real-world test, visualized the steer-by-wire chassis capability, announced a pre-sale starting price of 209,900 yuan, and brought display and test-drive cars into stores simultaneously.