We are driving a 2024 BMW i5 Touring M60. What do you want to know?
With 600 horsepower and huge instantaneous torque, this is a truly fast load handler.
There are plenty of sporty electric sedans on the market, and they are some of the best electric cars you can buy, with a clever blend of style, comfort, efficiency, and fun. But there are few electric tourers that add extra utility to it, and that's what makes the BMW i5 Touring so special.
The G61 Touring Edition of the all-new 5 Series looks better than the G60 sedan, better hiding the extra height of the new model. It's so striking that countless people stopped to stare at it while I've been driving it in Bucharest, Romania for the past few days, and it was loaned to me from the BMW Romanian local news fleet.
I'm still driving for a few more days, so if you want to know anything special, let us know in the comments section. I can already tell you that the car is comfortable to drive, and like all new BMWs, its nimble handling belies its weight and makes you mistakenly think it's a small car.
You also won't notice that it's a station wagon with more weight on the rear wheels. For me, the car feels almost exactly like an i5 sedan when cornering and braking – from a dynamic point of view, it performs very well, like a car with a sedan body.
My i5 Touring M60 test car is in a dark grey color, which should make it look a bit understated, but somehow seems to make the car more visible. It's one of those cars that people seem to really notice when they drive by. If you're not familiar with Romania, especially Bucharest, we have a lot of BMW and other premium electric cars here, and there are already a lot of new 5 Series and i5 sedans on the road, so it could be the station wagon shape that makes this car stand out.
When driving in a straight line, the car's performance far exceeds its needs. If passengers aren't prepared to keep their heads firmly on the headrests, turning on boost mode while accelerating on the i5 can be a painful experience, described by one person who is no stranger to express trains as "the air in the lungs is drained". That's because my test car was the i5 Touring M60, which is the more powerful version with nearly 600 horsepower and a 0-60 acceleration time of about 3.7 seconds, which is a tenth slower than a sedan.
The trunk space is not as spacious as I thought it would be. Since this is an electric car built on a modified ICE car platform, the battery takes up space in what would otherwise be an underfloor storage compartment, so there's not even room to put the charging cable – you'll have to pay extra for an optional elastic mesh and use it to prevent the charging cable from moving in the trunk, as the car is able to withstand severe longitudinal and lateral forces.
I will also try to drain the battery and then charge it through a 300 kW DC fast charger, which should be enough to provide the maximum 205 kW that a BMW EV can afford (for now). BMW says it takes 30 minutes to charge 10% to 80%, but we'll see how my test car fared in this year's hot summer weather.
My i5 Touring M60 test car sells for just over €129,000, which is just under $140,000 at the current exchange rate. BMW has done away with luxury features like air suspension and soft-close doors for this generation of the 5 Series, but if you want a choice, then it will come at a very high price. The performance, driving dynamics, and looks justify it to some extent, but I haven't decided if it's overpriced. Tell us what else you'd like to know about the i5 station wagon, and we'll do our best to answer your questions.