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The BMW i5 Touring is a highly desirable, spacious all-electric estate that offers stylish looks, a high-tech interior, and a driving experience that’s both extremely comfortable and rewarding.
The BMW 5 Series Touring was first introduced in 1988 and over the years since then it has gained classic status amongst its followers for offering a rewarding driving experience as well as lots of space for five people and their luggage. Now you can buy the i5, an electric version of the 5 Series Touring, which becomes one of the first all-electric premium estates.
The BMW i5 eDrive40 M Sport Pro Touring, as tested, is the ‘entry-level’ i5 Touring electric powertrain, but with its sporty and purposeful styling, the car looks like it could be an M5 Touring. The i5 Touring is low, and long: 5,060 mm in length to be precise. The benefit of this is lots of rear legroom, and a huge 570-litre boot – or 1,700 litres if the rear seats are folded down. There’s a small storage compartment under the boot floor, which isn’t big enough to fit the charging cable (and there’s no front trunk (‘frunk’) under the bonnet).
The i5 Touring’s interior has the basic genes of a BMW 5 Series but it has been projected into the future with the latest design and technology. And while we’re on the subject of future design, note that the i5’s front grille surround is illuminated (BMW ‘Iconic Glow’).
The i5 eDrive40 Touring has an 83.9 kWh battery (81.2 kWh usable capacity), and a 335 hp electric motor delivering rear-wheel drive. It has a towing weight of 1,500 kg.
The i5 eDrive40 Touring feels as though it has the BMW ‘premium’ experience engineered throughout all aspects of the car. Everything you see and touch in the interior looks and feels very high quality, with well-judged weights for all controls.
You can get a good driving position and then as soon as you drive off you’re aware that the quality of engineering is more than skin deep. We frequently say that virtually all EVs are refined, but the i5 takes refinement to the next level. It feels so smooth, and ride quality is excellent – even on poor surfaces, and with the large 20-inch alloy wheels and low profile tyres on our test car. The i5 is an incredibly comfortable way to travel long distances on motorways.
Because the i5 eDrive40 Touring sits very low – the centre of gravity is lower than a regular 5 Series thanks to the battery in the floor – and thanks to the rear-wheel drive powertrain, you can enjoy rewarding BMW handling, combined with responsive steering. However agility is ultimately compromised by the 2,255 kg kerb weight.
Performance may not be as mind-blowing as the all-wheel drive i5 M60 xDrive model, but with a 0-62 mph acceleration time of 6.1 seconds, it’s certainly no slouch and a ‘Boost’ paddle on the left of the steering wheel gives a short burst of maximum torque. BMW doesn’t do steering wheel-mounted paddles to adjust the level of brake regeneration, however you can select B mode using the gear selector switch, and you can also select high, medium or low braking energy recovery in the iDrive menu.
Drivers of many BMWs over recent years will be used to three buttons conveniently positioned near the driver’s left hand on the centre console giving drive modes of Eco, Comfort and Sport. But no longer. You now have a ‘My Modes’ button, which doesn’t give you obvious driving modes, but instead brings up a number of different ‘experiences’ on the centre screen which you need to scroll through, consisting of Personal, Sport, Efficient, Expressive, Relax, Digital Art and Silent. Each comes with a different design on the i5’s wide (14.9-inch) central touchscreen (which replaces the satnav or whatever you had on screen previously) and driver’s display, as well as colour changes in the ‘BMW Interaction Bar’ running around the dashboard and the inside of the doors.
Although you can guess how the driving characteristics will be changed by Sport and Efficient modes, we’re pretty sure most people won’t have a clue about how the other modes will impact on the driving dynamics. Sport, apart from improved responses, delivers Hans Zimmer’s futuristic sporty soundtrack (‘BMW IconicSounds Electric’), and listen out for the simulated noise of Expressive mode, which sounds like two giant pieces of metal grinding together.
BMW’s iDrive has been the best infotainment system in cars for many years, due in part to the rotary controller and physical shortcut buttons between the seats being a better solution than having to reach to press buttons on the touchscreen all the time. This rotary controller and the shortcut buttons have been disappearing on some recent BMWs, but thankfully they’re still there on the i5. Our test car also featured a head-up display as well as the driver’s display and the central touchscreen; having information directly in front of the driver is a much better solution than new cars which only have a central touchscreen. And the i5 has simple, clear shortcut buttons at the bottom of the screen for the key controls of media, nav, climate, home, apps, phone and CarPlay – as well as the physical shortcut buttons for Nav, Media and Phone next to the rotary controller.
A small button in the centre console with the graphic of a car and three lines brings up a screen for driving settings, displaying three boxes, one of which is for driver assistance settings, and this provides an easy way to switch off the speed warning and the lane departure warning, although you need to do this every time you start the car.
Controls such as the gear selector and iDrive rotary controller are available with the ‘crystal glass’ appearance as seen in the BMW iX, and the i5 features in-car gaming with AirConsole, allowing you to play games while charging.
The BMW i5 eDrive40 M Sport Pro Touring has an official WLTP combined electric driving range of 328 miles. After a week on test with mixed driving the real-world range of our test car with 20-inch wheels averaged 297 miles.
The i5 eDrive40 M Touring has a maximum ultra-rapid charging rate of 205 kW. This enables a 10% to 80% DC charge in 30 minutes, meaning that 97 miles of range can be added in 10 minutes if starting with a charge level of 10%.
The i5 can AC charge at up to 11kW as standard and optionally up to 22kW, with 22kW being standard on the i5 M60 xDrive.
The BMW i5 has a heat pump as standard, which should minimise loss to the battery capacity when using the cabin heating in cold weather. Waste heat generated by the electric motors is used to control the temperature of the battery in the BMW i5 for the first time, and the charging has been optimised to reduce in a curve rather than in steps.
The BMW i5 eDrive40 M Sport Pro Touring is priced at £78,450. M Sport Pro comes with a long list of standard features including M Sport Suspension, M Sport Leather Steering Wheel, M Sport Brakes with Red Calipers and BMW Iconic Glow.
However our test car had a number of options including Cape York Green metallic paint (£900), 20-inch alloy wheels (£500), Towbar (£1,200), Panoramic Glass Sunroof (£1,600), Sun Protection Glass (£470), Crafted Clarity Controls (£600), Bowers & Wilkins Surround Sound System (£1,250), Technology Plus Pack (£3,300), and Comfort Plus Pack (£4,600). All packages and optional equipment totalled £14,820. The total price of our test car was £94,175 – so it can’t be described as an affordable electric car.
The BMW i5 eDrive40 Touring is available in M Sport or M Sport Pro trim. There’s also the BMW i5 M60 xDrive Touring.
Prices and specifications correct at time of review
The BMW i5 Touring is a highly desirable car. We think it’s very good looking; the cabin is a successful balance between modern design, the latest technology and functionality; it’s extremely comfortable, refined and rewarding to drive; and of course it offers lots of space. It certainly can’t be described as an affordable electric car, but apart from that, there’s really not much to fault it, and so the BMW i5 Touring is awarded a Green Car Guide rating of 10 out of 10.
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