BMW i5

[PSRG]

Anyone taken delivery of one of these? I ordered one via our salary sacrifice scheme at work last month, and it was delivered yesterday. A slightly spur of the moment order; we’ve had a PHEV before but not a full EV. It’s a rather dodgy colour - Brooklyn Grey - but as a pipeline car there was limited choice (white, black, blue, various greys). I wanted the panoramic roof, which reduced the choice to 1. Other than that it’s a standard M Sport (not Pro) model, with no other options. Arrived on the back of trailer, fully charged but dirty. Clearly gone straight from Thorne to the dealer by transporter and got covered in spray, then from the dealer to me without being cleaned. Pretty poor effort from the dealer I think. But, relatively speaking, it’s not costing a huge amount.

I’ve driven an i4 briefly, but didn’t test drive the i5. I’ve also driven a few Teslas, both S and 3 over the years. The i4 felt like a BMW to drive, as does the i5. Only done 70 miles in it so not much more to add…it’s comfortable, has enough equipment for me and is quite large. The last 5 series I had was an F10. This definitely feels bigger. Other first thoughts…didn’t expect to be able to lock/unlock drive it using my phone as a key - I assumed that’d be an extra in a pack I didn’t have. The HK sound system is OK, but no more. The standard system in my old 212 merc has a nice sound, though I have only spent a few seconds playing with the settings in the BMW.

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paradigital said:

Have you got a ballpark for how much this is on your scheme? I’ve looked on our scheme and these are all ridiculous!

For 15k a year / 3 years the gross cost is something like £1.200 a month…but am in the nasty £100-£125k 62% tax/NI bracket after maxing pensions, so I am pretending that the 62% tax relief applies to the car not the pension, so in my head it’s costing just over £520 a month.

Otherise at 45% plus 2% NI saving itt was around £680. Foolishly when I set up the scheme I did it so that the employer got their NI benefit - otherwise it’d have been another £140 a month less. But I didn’t think it appropriate to change it just for me after the event…

Those costs are on a par with the equivalent Mercedes EQE and, while I love the interior of that car I just could not live with the exterior!

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Haha no, I wouldn’t spend that much on one either, though on a no deposit fully maintained and insured basis it would still probably be a relatively cost effective way of running a near £80k car for 3 years /45k miles. On a net cost to me basis it’s broadly equivalent to the post tax car allowance I receive, if I use man-maths and assume the marginal tax rate on the car allowance is 47% but for the salary sacrifice it’s 62%

Todays entertainment has been the Hans Zimmer created sounds played when accelerating in ‘expressive’ and ‘sport’ modes

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It’s not a hatch, but does have standard split fold rear seats. There’s a touring version going on sale next year, but even the saloon is a big car - it’s over 5m long

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kryten22uk said:

Been looking at the business lease deals on the i5 and they're pretty stonking good value presently.

6+23 deal, so £2644 upfront and £440pcm. All figures +VAT
So a total cost over 24mth term of £12780+VAT.

Its cheaper (slightly) than the base i4.

The thing is, I've always had hatchbacks and/or SUVs, so I'm reticent to go for a saloon with the restricted boot. Anyone else thought similar. Just seems a bit crazy to pay more for an i4 over an i5 to get the hatchback, when the i5 is a £20k more expensive bit of kit.

Not a bad price at all - that works out at £638 a month including VAT, amortised over 24 months I think? I still reckon the salary sacrifice deal is a reasonable deal as it’s an all-in price for 15k miles a year.

The i5 is noticeably bigger than an i4 or Model 3, but does still feel like a 5 series to drive. And, if it helps, it has standard split / fold rear seats

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I'm not sure I would go for the tech pack just for the surround camera - the car won't let you drive into anything anyway. Which is annoying when you are used to 'brushing' a hedge for ease of access / exit from a parking space. The car just slams the brakes on The tech plus pack, while £3,300 vs £2,000, at least gives you more useful driver assistance stuff and so I think if I was ordering again I would go with either nothing or tech plus pack. I also wouldn't bother with the panoramic roof that mine has. The comfort/comfort plus packs are also very expensive for what you get in my opinion.

Worth noting that the basic low powered MB EQE is currently very cheap on a 2 year deal with Tusker, if you are lookin for a big executive-ish slaoon car

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The AMG Line version is £745 gross / £451 net on a 24 month / 10k term, so your deals do seem poor

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plfrench said:

SWoll said:

Love Harry but his EV reviews are never any good as he's obsessively focussed on range and efficiency, which for anyone on an EV tariff not doing 200+ miles on a regular basis aren't all that relevant in all honesty?

The fact he's only just had a epiphany around charging losses should tell you all you need to know about how much research he does..

Having Sustain fuels as a sponsor might lead him to be a bit biased against EV, the fact he was pining for a 520d says a lot too... but I do wonder if BMW have scored a bit of an own goal by not going for an EV only platform with this generation of 5 series? They will probably be getting quite concerned about the upcoming Audi A6 Etron Avant. The two will naturally be compared and having greater freedom around body design with the A6 will probably lead to a far better car from an aerodynamic (and therefore efficiency) and packaging perspective.

Packaging should definitely be better on a dedicated platform, but I’m not sure aerodynamically it’d make any difference. After all, the Mercedes EQE and the BMW i5 both have a Cd of 0.22 in base form, and the new E class one of 0.23. I’m guessing BMW didn’t think it was economic to have two platforms for the same segment in this transitional period, but MB decided it was. Be interesting to see how that pans out.

Harry didn’t really review much of the car as far as I could see…but he’s right, it’s far too expensive and the premium over petrol or hybrid is eye watering. He didn’t really seem to understand how significant the tax benefits were though…as a company / salary sacrifice car it makes far more sense than either hybrid or petrol.

I can’t comment on the i5 M60 range, but my entry level eDrive 40 is giving a real world range of 260 - 280 miles at the moment, in the cold/wet/wind and driven ‘normally’. I’m happy enough with that…it’s a very relaxing car to drive and a comfortable place to spend time. I’ve had mine a month and done 1,600 miles. I still think MB interiors look nicer, but the BMW is well put together and relatively easy to use. Voice control has moved on a lot since the version in the F10 5 series!

The (standard) adaptive LEDs are a bit flakey though; the resolution seems worse than the implementation in my 2019 E class, and they are easily confused by heavy rain and then just revert to dipped. I never had that in the Merc. The, also standard, Harman Kardon sound system is the best ‘standard’ system I’ve had in a BMW. The panoramic roof is a bit of a waste of money as it doesn’t open, and the specification of the entry level one is somewhat miserly. No adaptive cruise for example, and yet the adaptive regen uses the nav data and the camera to read the road ahead and slow the car…so all the hardware must be there anyway. Maybe I’ll get a chance to add it from the BMW store. I have 2 free trials at the moment - one for the speed camera alerts, which work very well, and one for ‘Welcome Light Projection’ which lets you set different lighting effects when you unlock the car. That’s a complete waste of money at £49 for a year!

But, to me, it feels like a proper BMW to drive, and the smoothness is reminiscent of the old straight 6 petrol BMWs. I’ve driven E34s (my Dad’s company cars back in the day), had an E39 and 2 E61s as company cars myself, and an F10 before this i5. And I think it’s as a good a 5 series as there’s been, as an all round comfortable, enjoyable to drive, relaxing car. The other thing I agree with Harry on is that it’s a bit too big. The weight comes with a BEV anyway, and it’s only when you’re really pushing on that you notice it…well, that and speed bumps / potholes, which it obliterates

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JustGetATesla said:

Thanks for posting another opinion! You say it compares favourably vs an F10. On handling? OK so I only had a 520d SE F10, but it was a saggy barge compared to the E91 320d it replaced. Ultimate Driving Machine my arse.

Do you regularly do distances in it? If so how are you getting on with charging? I welcome the rapid expansion of non-Tesla chargers but my eyes water at the prices they ask you all to pay...

My F10 was a 520d ‘efficient dynamics’ special also in SE trim on, from memory, 17” wheels. Maybe 18…it was over 10 years ago. I think the whole things feels a class above that car, and the handling is, is, to me at least, very good. It’s easy to place on the road, remains composed and pretty flat when cornering , even at speed (the low CoG must help?) and is satisfying to drive briskly. Especially when you realise that it’s grown so much that it’s now pretty much the size of a 7 series from the last generation. It does that BMW thing of not feeling as big as it actually is, once you get going. Mine is in standard M Sport trim (there no SE in the UK), on standard (19”) wheels and suspension. It’s no 3 series though - it’s got to be a foot and a half longer!

Harry was also disparaging about all the assistance stuff. The speed limit warning is mandatory on all new cars, so not a BMW specific issue. And the voice control turns it off easily enough. It’s annoying that it comes on every time you start the car, but there’s no way round that legislatively I don’t think. He didn’t like the lane assist on country roads - he’s Oxfordshire I think? I have to say I haven’t noticed an issue in Sussex/Worcestershire/Herefordshire, which have plenty of country roads. Mine set to ‘medium’ interference, and it’s fine. It recognises what traffic is around you, and when you deliberately cross / straddle white lines, so it’s only when you drift over them that it warns you. Drive smoothly but briskly cross country and it never goes off. What is slightly annoying the the suggestion to take a break, when the sat nav shows it’s less that 2 miles to your destination

Mine is mainly used for long(ish) journeys - I live on the south coast and have a place in Herefordshire. It’s around 160 miles between them, and I’ll do the return journey weekly, and then do 100/120 miles running around during the week or at the weekend at either end. I don’t have off street parking in either location, but there are multiple public chargers where I’d usually park, and there is destination parking at the places I’m currently working. The chargers that are close (and they are close - less than 50m from where I’d ordinarily park) are only 11KwH ones, which cost 30p / KwH and 40p / KwH. So I haven’t had a single problem charging…it charges overnight, and is preconditioned in the morning before I get in it. I’ve only used 2 fast chargers - one on the A34 (Tott Hill Shell) and one on the A27 (BP Emsworth), both of which charged the car at > 150 KwH, so I only stopped for 10/11 minutes each time. The Shell one was 0.79p a KwH though, and BP I am not sure as there’s a special rate with the BMW charging card and I haven’t seen the bill yet. The standard rate was the same as shell

But I look at the expensive fast chargers as a convenience thing - a quick but expensive top up to the cheap charging elsewhere. Even without any off street parking and really cheap overnight charging I am averaging about 15p a mile in actual electricity cost. If I do the journey in my old diesel e class estate, which does 42 mpg, then even now diesel has come down it’d cost 16p a mile, and the petrol E350 that the i5 really replaces, which did 34 mpg, would have been at 19/20p a mile.

So I’m a pleasantly surprised how well it does work for me to be honest. I expected it to be slightly more of a hassle, and was happy with that perceived compromise when I ordered it. It hasn’t really materialised. I expect most people who lease one of these things will be doing it because it’s a comfortable, well equipped, tax efficient car that is also fun to drive on the odd occasion you get the opportunity. Most will, I am sure, spend much of their time doing what mine does - covering reasonable distances quickly, comfortably and efficiently.

Edited by PSRG on Monday 22 January 10:28

[PSRG]

SWoll said:

andy43 said:

He got 2.1 miles per kWh. It was cold, but that’s still pants. My 2018 P100D was doing 2.0 to 3.3, even with another 100-150kg and big wheels. This isn’t progress. Pace? Tesla was 60 in 2.5 and apart from fart noises was a lot more grown up on the infotainment side of things from what I could see there - inside it looked like Stringfellows in the 80’s. This vs the inventiveness, design flair and creativity of the i3 is like comparing the dull as ditchwater new Honda ENYOne thing to the Honda E. It won’t sell, but it might lease well until the residuals are worked out.

Pointless comparing to a ground up EV like the P100D in many ways as everything will always come off second best for efficiency. The P100D was also a £115k car back in 2016..

The efficiency numbers are also going to be very dependent on how and where the car is being driven of course and what options are fitted.

durbster said:

Aren't most of the people buying this class of car likely to be doing a lot of miles though?

I can't imagine many people are choosing a 5 series to do the school run.

200 miles per day, 5 days per week, 48 weeks a year is 48k miles. That's a lot of miles and all can be charged at home.

I’m not sure his consumption figures are particularly representative of normal use, even in cold weather - during the week of minus 5/6 starts up here I was getting around 2.5 miles /KwH on sub 10 mile journeys, and on 150+ miles it was not much worse than the 3.2 I saw over Christmas.. But mines not an M50…though I imagine driven normally there’s not that much between them on the consumption front. During everywhere flat our, sure that.s going to hammer consumption. But that’s not how these things are used 95% of the time,

Interiors / infotainment are clearly an individual matter, though the simplicity of the Model 3 I tested was very good, but I don’t like not having anything in front of the driver. The HU display helps, but it’s far from perfect or comprehensive. And now you have to use the screen to change from forwards to reverse in the M3, which just can’t be a good thing for manoeuvring, no matter how much it simplifies the look.

Harry’s right though, good though I think the interior of the i5 is in real-life it’s not the interior of a £100k plus car without spending even more on extras. But then neither was the Model S. Most of it you just set and forget on the iDrive front so I think he was exaggerating to make a point - anyone who driven a BMW made in the last 10 years will have no problem operating it. I can’t fault they way it’s put together either - definitely no trim creaks in mine, but I much prefer Mercedes interiors, which I know is not a popular opinion. absolutely loved the interior of my 2019 E class, even though it did creak in places!! It looked expensive, to me at least.

And surely all of these things will be leased because of the tax benefits. The M3 is ubiquitous because of that, not because of the way it’s put together or drives. It’s the modern day Mondeo.