BMW i5 M60 X-Drive review. Why this EV will go down as BMW’s biggest miss of 2024..
Well welcome to a new Harry’s Garage video and today’s car is the BMW I5 M60 X Drive big name electric BMW with 600 horsepower basically the new 5 series and it’s it’s a slightly unusual car for Harry’s Garage I wasn’t going to test any more electric cars for a while but I
Went to a BMW event Before Christmas where they showcased all their electric cars and I drove one of these there and I came away quite shocked by it and I’m going to go into detail in this video why I’m not going to give the game away
Now but this is a very surprising car from BMW from my point of view and I think it needs to disgusting so let’s have a look at this car 600 horsepowers to say x Drive means it’s four-wheel drive it’s got a motor at the back and
The front and it has a boost function on the wheel you put a paddle and you get 600 horsepower and more torque as well 820 newton meters of torque it is also an expensive car it lists just before anything 96840 this has 175,000 000 worth of
Options on it yes really and this car on the road with delivery £5,000 monster amount of money how do we get to a five series is £115,000 it’s not from M division it’s not like an M5 CS individual seats High reving amazing engine no it’s just a 81 KW hour
Electric BMW with quite a chunk of horsepower two Motors let’s go have a closer look yeah it’s quite distinctive on the road it’s growing the Five series we’re going into details it’s the eighth generation and this being the electric version has this sort of smoothed off Grill am I
Going to just open this car I think it will do things yeah it lights up there we are so the M60 version this top version gets this sort of lipstick around the grill just if you didn’t see it notice it in the first place uh trick
Lights here um you can see this is a sort of radar thing cameras here this is all the mod and Tech we get on the cars these days but keep coming round gets 21 in Wheels monster great tars on it 255 on the front 285 at the rear but it’s
Just the size of it the new 5 series is over 5 m Long Range Rover size I this was the mid-range Saloon once but it’s more seven series than five series for me this car one of the extras it has on on it is some Carbon on it yeah carbon
Exterior styling means you get carbon Wing mirrors like that so that they’re done in carbon and then at the back there’s a little carbon spoiler as well interesting design of wheel these BMW individual Wheels you still get the Five series the sort of distinctive staring around here with a five
There this car has the panoramic roof on it as standard as well there’s the mbad I think it’s the M performance it’s not from M but they like using the M I suppose that justifies the £5,000 price big boot as you’d imagine there we are powered ski hatch you can
Put your cables in there as well which is all very nice um a rear diffuser of sorts it’s not a diffuser I’m going to have to have a look uh what it actually yeah they have thought about airf flow on that um 143 M an hour top speed on this car but yeah
It’s a it’s an interesting car it’s quite a quite good space in the back quite happy down there you get individual they’re all on a screen everything’s on the screen these days and the we’ll have a look at the interior in more detail when we’re outside but you can see all this glows
This is all you can change color whatever you want on there see it all coming alive the screen across there as I say we’re looking more detail once we get outside but I just wanted to show you this you can actually lift this up and you might
Think you get a front boot in the front of this car no if I lift this up you got a great big slap of plastic with an m on it I can actually just wiggle this up if I give it a little wrestle and there you can see the well there’s a heat
Exchanger in there there’s the inverters there and there’s electric motor down below and what you can hear there is the heat exchanger cuz it’s I’ve opened the door and unlocked it it thinks we’re about to go so it’s precondition the interior and adding a little bit of heat
To the battery as well so yeah no front boot on this car anyway what I do now put that back properly take it outside and then we’ll take it for a drive yeah all very modern B W in here this is as well state of the art for
Them I suppose where where it is because the keys in here you can already hear the heating getting going it it automatically starts heating the cabin before I’ve even started or press Start stop on here and it’s very different in here there is so much to discuss really
And operating this car there we go sounds with this car everything has seems to have a sound with it these are my modes I think it’s easier to explain these when we get going but personal sport efficient expressive digital art relax oh what’s happened to BMW but
Anyway there’s all these modes I’m set in personal at the moment on here there’s this gives you a sort of shortcut to the craziness I could just press this button and you will see just no end of Ops options on here look at it I mean it’s just so distracting it’s
Untrue but there is a shortcut uh and if I press this one we go back to there and then I press this one I go to this this is driver assistance and I’m afraid the first thing I have to do on here is warning for speed limits I turn off it’s
Decided that my front drive is a 20 mph limit and it bleeps and bongs at me as soon as I set off from the house which is nonsense before we get anywhere near the road Lane departure is a two touch thing yeah I’m afraid at the the moment
Living in the country the lane assist just doesn’t work it can’t coat with potholes cyclist puddles horses it’s just constantly fighting in so it goes off utter nonsense unusable and the warning of speed limits every car I’ve tried has these false speed limits that aren’t there the one thing I
Do like about this you can adjust it won’t warn you until you’re three or four miles an hour out above the limit or approaching it yeah that’s the other thing it starts bleeping at you as you approach a 30 or 300 MERS from a 30 limit it will start bleeping you’re
Going into a 30 and you’re doing 38 this is just disaster so yeah I’m afraid it all stays off anyway slight rant over what else have we got in here yeah little cubby holes in there wireless charging on there this this changes color all this round here this isn’t a
Fixed trim this blue you can see these are your vents so you can adjust you touch that and decide how how much you want out of the vents oh there’s these as well this is Direction I think um where it’s actually blowing can’t quite tell where it’s blown which is quite a
Nice touch panoramic roof one other thing I will say on this for £16,000 I think this is really cheap how this all looks all there there’s something about it does absolutely does not feel £16,000 sat here uh they T to it up slightly with this sort of Crystal
Controller here but yeah don’t these modes and the way everything sort of creaks when you press it it it it’s just it’s just doesn’t feel right to me but there we go it’s in all BMWs one thing I do like and worth mention I do like the
Little M stripe on on the seat belts I think it’s a very nice touch but yeah on the wheels I’ve got cruise control this side and this side controls what I want to see on the dash right enough put it in to drive and off we go in silence as you’d
Imagine right let’s head off go find some better roads one thing to say about it is very easy it just drifts around a beautiful control of on the accelerator just adding power moving off is all very gentle it reacts to the throttle very quickly as well and I can set the regen
As I want it as well via this menu I’m not going to go in now cuz it’s too many touches it does have this over boost function which I ought to talk about because it adds more horsepower but the torque doesn’t actually go up it goes
From 795 new M to 820 newon M I’m going to press it now there we are instant I’ve only got yeah 10 seconds and off we go and I get a boost and then it finishes its boost it’s a little toy isn’t it but um it it doesn’t actually make as much
Difference as you think it it sort of Lights the cabin up I just press it again uh no I I’ll put it into sport I can feel the seat sort of squeeze on me you can just see everything now changing color inside the camera you’re all red and angry and um so
Yeah modes uh I’m going back to p again but yeah the Boost doesn’t make that much difference cuz it’s actually the torque that accelerates your way when you hit the accelerator quickly and you’re doing an overtake and the torque doesn’t actually gain that much with the
Boost it’s actually as the rev’s r well revs whatever the motor speed goes up then you get more horsepower so it makes more difference at higher speed than it does at lower speed I think is what I’m trying to say and it has quite a lot of
Work to do the the motors on these I’m going to I’ll flash it up the actual no I think it’s 260 at the front and 340 with the rear Motors there is slightly more power to the rear as you’d expect and they’ve got a lot of work to do cuz
This is quite a heavy car I did weigh it and it was 2,400 kilos for a five series yes I know it’s got a you know it’s electric and electric are heavier but it has all the toys it has rear steer it’s got 48v anti- roll bars front and rear um yeah
Pan roof everything that’s sort of heavy on this car um is because that is also can charge at a very high rate which I’ll mention in the sort of summary as well but I have lifeless steering I have typical electric steering and it’s precise I can turn in so what again I
Can feel a bit of slip R there but it does does feel overwhelmingly electric I don’t know how else to explain it it is so unlike a a regular hydraulic rack so unlike what we used to get from BMW now as you know I use this bit of road cuz it’s a rubbish
Bit of Road bumps Etc and in this setting yeah it does control the dampers are working very hard with that mass and the ride pretty good really the only time it gets caught out is is actually just controlling the mass it’s got so much mass to control if I go over this
There’s a funny bump here and it will just get a bit out of sorts there we are oh th and yeah and it you can feel it almost bottom out hasn’t got enough wheel travel to contain the mass of this car thing about this 5 series is you can
Get it with regular power units you can get it with a 2 L petrol or 2 L diesel engine mild hybrid you cannot get the diesel in the UK unfortunately and so that’s a very different car that’s on conventional Springs this is airspring and that those cars those conventionally powered cars are 680
Kilos lighter than this electric version I mean it’s a completely different car the poor gu setting up the Chassy it’s like start a game you got that less mass and also front engine and things it’s very odd that BMW have decided to make this you know premium electric car on a
Multiplatform that do all sorts of power units I think there’s so much to discuss with this car I’m going to start doing likes and dislikes now and I’ll start with the likes and as I say it’s the control of the electric and the Ambiance I like traveling this car I I do like
Electric cars in general just to to do boring miles in town commuting there is an ease and a sense of well-being you’re not through the gears you’re not sitting there ticking over and just you glide through the countryside all through town I like that and this is Exemplar at that
Oh here we go yeah and it’s slightly out of control on there um trying to think of some more likes I then sort of really go crazy with this car are CU of the mass and it’s salted roads and they’re a little bit slippery but yeah you can you could set a very
Good a Tob time in this car there’s no denying that but let’s move to the dislikes and my goodness there’s a list I it’s why I got this car in I think from BMW this is this car is a bit of a surprise first the price it is way
Overpriced at 115,000 yes it has a few options but you’re still 9798 I checked on AutoTrader and it looks like dealers thinks it’s overprice as well lots of them with 11 and 12,000 off list brand new on a brand new car that has only just arrived in the showroom tells you
This car is way overpriced then the weight I it’s it’s the same weight as a giant SUV why have they made this Five series so flipping big why is it over 5 m there’s nothing particularly clever about it I expect more from BMW they gave us the I3 and I I8 and then
They come out with this sort of8 nine years later that’s not progress don’t understand it from BMW I have to talk about range and I’m staring at 2.1 mil per kilowatt hour at the moment with an 81 Kow hour battery well that thetically gives you 240 mil you’ll be
Lucky in real world to get it close to that you’re 210 220 I would say in this car you see here I can’t really push it oh yeah it’s yeah it’s not happy but I it does get the power down out those Continental tires are excellent tires so yeah range
Compromise from from the weight and the four-wheel drive and the big fat tires it’s got quite a good CD Factor actually it’s 0.25 but I would expect from my 115,000 Mi to be able to travel more than 220 Mi and yes it is cold before all the
Electric boys come on to me I’m at 3 and 1/2 4° at the moment but even at higher temperatures I don’t think you’d get more than 240 M from it and I expect more from a car like this another dislike I again as I mentioned at the I
Just don’t feel as though I’m sitting in an £16,000 car just the fittings and fixes on it don’t feel real class I’m having to do too much on the menu I’ve lost all those beautiful buttons this the way BMW used to do their switch gear used to be
A highlight and now I’m more into this electronic here and I do I want to do these modes do I have to do these modes do I want art what’s the what’s one of them I sport I sort of understand but efficient expressive what’s expressive
What’s that mean a mean I have no idea what expressive is and then I I notice there’s digital art and I can play things on here here we are a connection with with BMW start with the creation of the 18 BMW art car okay with the digital art mode we have
The chance to cooperate again and integrate my AR into the software of the car between BMW sorry you you’ve lost me you’ve lost me I’m going to disappear yeah let’s go I’m by yeah bye and now I’ve gone back to personal can you shut up now please other things
You can do on this car well if I press modes go back to here iconic sounds if I just press that there we are as I accelerate now yes you can you can set different sounds for your different modes there we are yes in your fing I5
M60 ah so yeah that gives you a little flavor of of this car one other thing I must mention actually on charging and I’m going to mention this in other reports as well I now check how much electricity you put in to charge the battery cuz it’s beyond what
You think you add to the battery it the label on this battery sorry slightly complicated has a growth capacity and a usable capacity the usable capacity of this battery 81.2 KW hours I charged it with 1% of battery left one mile of range it took 88 kilowatt hours to
Charge that battery you lose approximately 10% of the electricity you are being charged at home charging your battery in the car so 10% is lost in heat and losses through the inverter cables and that sort of thing no one mentions it but I’m starting to to measure it because that really annoys me
That it it’s like spilling petrol as you’re filling up your tank and you you lose 10% of the fuel on the ground or in heat as it were very odd that it isn’t mentioned more in media I don’t understand why it’s not but conclusions on this car as you can probably gather
I’m not that chuff with it I just don’t think it makes any sense whatsoever I know companies Buy this because they can then save on their corporation tax and benefi in kinds and stuff but surely the amount of tax you’re going to save on this car 20% isn’t it corporation tax
You can already get 10% discount before you even start negotiating on a new one what’s this going to be worth in a year’s time doesn’t make sense the range doesn’t make sense the weights it’s just not BMW at its best and and for the
First time I think in a road test I will give this car a rating of do not buy the BMW I5 M60 if I was looking to buy a new 5 series I would look very closely well you can’t two liter diesel if they imported it but they don’t I’m going to
Do a separate story about that but I would probably go for the one of the plug-in hybrids if I really wanted the BMW 5 series but basically there are better cars out there more efficient cars and this is not a direction that points to the future of electric driving
As far as I concerned it’s a cooler sack these 2 and 1/2 ton inefficient low range cars coming out at the moment things will get better BMW say the range is going to improve dramatically in a couple of years 25% better more efficient less weight better batteries
That’s the future we want not this this feels like a bit of a dinosaur to me already and it’s only just been released so there you go there’s my conclusion on the BMW I5 M60 X Drive um there’s going to be a follow-up video on this cuz I’m
Going to discuss the wider pitch of electric cars I think there’s um it’s worthwhile doing because there’s so much to talk about at the moment but I hope you enjoyed this video if you did well keep watching keep subscribing more videos coming along very Soon
The BMW i5 M60 is a 600hp EV with monster performance and massive tech but I think it’s also BMW’s most disappointing car in years..
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