2024 BMW i5 M60 xDrive: What's It Like to Live With?
We'll be putting our Top Rated Electric Car through a 20,000-mile test

Miles Driven: | Average Electricity Consumption (kWh/100 miles): |
7,213 | 43.2 |
Latest Highlights
- The BMW i5 was the Edmunds Top Rated Electric Car for 2024
- We're eager to see how our award winner holds up over a 20,000-mile test
- We got the hotter i5 M60 variant, with 593 hp and 586 lb-ft of torque
- Our tester isn't cheap, coming in at $95,745 including destination
What do you want to know about?
What We Got and Why?
• Our test vehicle: 2024 BMW i5 M60 xDrive
• Base MSRP: $85,095
• MSRP as tested: $95,745
The BMW i5 is a relative newcomer in the EV space. Yet it made such a great impression that it earned the Edmunds Top Rated Electric Car award in its first year on sale. It's an all-around excellent luxury EV; the decision to add one to our long-term test fleet was a no-brainer.
What Did We Get?
BMW currently offers the i5 in single-motor eDrive40 and dual-motor M60 guise, though a new xDrive40 variant will join the lineup in mid-2024. We like the base eDrive40 plenty — in fact, it exceeded its EPA-estimated driving range by 51 miles in our Edmunds EV Range Test. But for our long-termer, we opted to get the hotter i5 M60.
The i5 M60 has a lithium-ion battery pack with 81.2 kWh of usable capacity, which powers a pair of electric motors — one at each axle. Output is quoted at a whopping 593 horsepower and 586 lb-ft of torque, making this sedan a serious powerhouse.
Why Did We Get It?
Because this specific i5 M60 came from BMW, we didn't get to spec it ourselves, but you know, we're really jazzed about the one we got. Cape York Green looks awesome on the new i5, especially with the two-tone 21-inch wheels. Our test vehicle also has the brown Veganza faux-leather upholstery. Would we have ordered the carbon-fiber trim? Probably not. Do we hate it? Nah, it's fine.
The i5 M60 already comes pretty loaded, but our test car has a few optional extras. The $2,000 Driving Assistance Pro package adds BMW's Highway Assistant that takes over steering, throttle and braking controls on premapped sections of highway, and the $3,350 Executive pack gives us niceties like a heated steering wheel, panoramic roof and the extremely cool glass controls.
To that, our car adds the $1,500 M Carbon Exterior kit, $1,050 M Sport Professional package, $1,800 21-inch bicolor wheels and the aforementioned $300 carbon-fiber trim. That brings our total as-tested price to $95,745, which includes a $995 destination charge. That's pretty much as expensive as a new i5 gets.
What's happened so far?
We put our long-term i5 M60 through our usual instrumented testing regimen, and the results are solid. We recorded a 0-to-60-mph time of 3.6 seconds, which bests BMW's estimate by one-tenth of a second. Our i5 ran the quarter mile in 11.5 seconds with a trap speed of 122.1 mph. And as for stopping distance, the M60's larger brakes definitely help matters; the i5 comes to a halt from 60 mph in just 104 feet.
On our skidpad, we recorded lateral g-forces of 0.95, which puts the i5 M60 in good company with other sporty midsize sedans, though it trails its key rival, the Mercedes-AMG EQE sedan, which ripped off a full 1.0 g. The AMG EQE is slightly quieter than the i5 M60 on the highway, too, with the Merc measuring an ambient decibel level of 62.4 at 70 mph, compared to the i5's 65.5 decibels at the same speed.
According to the EPA, the 2024 i5 M60 has a driving range of anywhere between 240 and 256 miles, depending on wheel size. Our test car has the largest 21-inch wheel option, so we should expect 240 miles of range. But again, the i5 eDrive40 we tested previously far exceeded its EPA rating, so we're excited to see how our long-termer does on our formalized range test.
BMW loaned Edmunds this vehicle for the purpose of evaluation.
Average lifetime consumption (kWh/100 miles): 43.2
EPA rating (kWh/100 miles): 40 combined ( 40 City / 39 Highway )
Best consumption (kWh/100 miles): 40.1
Best range (miles): 139.8
Current odometer: 7,213
Our i5 M60 went 264 miles in the official Edmunds Range Test
"The EPA estimates an i5 M60 with the 21-inch wheels can go 239 miles on a full charge. (Our test car has the 21s.) Pleasingly, we exceeded that when we subjected our i5 to our independent Edmunds EV Range Test, going 264 miles on a full charge. Opting for the smaller 19- or 20-inch wheels boosts the EPA's estimate by 11-14 miles, and it's fair to assume that we'd get a commensurate increase in our Edmunds range test." — Brent Romans, senior manager, written content
OK, so it went 264 miles. Is that good?
"Ehh, sort of. For starters, know that the 264 miles is with the battery fully charged. To help reduce battery degradation, we here at Edmunds usually charge our test EVs to 80% for daily driving. So that's a daily range for our i5 M60 in the low 200s. However, you have to take into account that this is a 593-hp sport sedan that prioritizes performance. The M60's range is also similar to what you get from the Mercedes-AMG EQE sedan. Overall, I've found that our M60's range is good enough for daily commuting and the occasional road trip. But if you do a lot of longer trips, I think you'll be happier with the longer-range i5 eDrive40." — Brent Romans, senior manager, written content
How is the BMW i5's acceleration?
"Power delivery in this car is just so perfectly judged; BMW is doing such a great job with their EVs. No matter what the traffic or road conditions, it felt entirely intuitive to get exactly the acceleration I wanted, and transitions are entirely smooth. It's exactly what I want from a luxury car with some performance cred." — Will Kaufman, manager, video
How is the BMW i5's handling?
"Weight transfer is kind of uncanny in this car. At no point in normal driving does the weight feel less than 100% controlled, and weight transfer in corners (especially noticeable if you have an S curve or need to swerve to avoid something in the road) is masterfully smoothed out. It's another case where performance and luxury meet in this car, you get a lot of confidence and there's just zero head toss." — Will Kaufman, manager, video
New nickname: The silent assassin
"This sedan rips when you mat its accelerator pedal. During track testing, our car accelerated from 0 to 60 mph in just 3.6 seconds and cleared the quarter mile in 11.5 seconds. We've tested quicker luxury EVs (a Tesla Model S Plaid, for instance) but this is still ridiculously quick. Especially so for people used to gas-powered cars. I had my teenage daughter in the car with me recently and I did a short demo. I whipped around a turn, planted the pedal once the front wheels were pointed straight, and kept it going to a speed I won't mention here. After I left off, she remarked, 'Wow! It's so quiet, and it just whooshes.' She paused, and added, 'It's like an assassin. It's just there and gone before you know it.'" — Brent Romans, senior manager, written content
How comfortable is the ride on the BMW i5?
"The suspension on the M60 is a teensy bit firm, and it means over certain bumps there's a hint of more residual body motion than in something like the iX we had. You just get that suggestion of bounce if you hit certain bumps right. You also feel bumps a bit more strongly than I'd like in a luxury car, but small bumps and road imperfections are ironed out way better than you expect from something with performance aspirations." — Will Kaufman, manager, video
"I really like the seats. They're comfortable even after sitting in them for a long time, and putting the seat adjusters by the door handles is really intuitive. A minor complaint about BMWs in the past is how tough it's been to find a comfortable seating position; I just don't have that problem in the iX." — Jake Sundstrom, editor
How comfortable is the BMW i5's driver's seat?
"The driver's seat isn't my favorite BMW seat. I recall the seats in our old 2018 long-term BMW 540i with tremendous fondness, but the seats in our i5 don't feel as nicely padded or as supportive, and the headrest feels both a little more intrusive and a touch less cushioned. It's kind of a bummer that for all the ways this car represents a promising future for Bimmer, the front seats feel like a half-step backwards." — Will Kaufman, manager, video
How quiet is the i5?
"Put your favorite cliche here. Quiet as a mouse? Quiet as a tomb? Quiet as a mouse in a tomb for mute librarians? Whatever, it's quiet. I looked up our sound decibel test numbers on our i5. It was a little quieter at standstill than a gas-powered Mercedes E-Class, which makes sense because it's electric. The two luxury sedans had similar measurements when driving at 70 mph (65.5 db for the i5 compared to 62.6 db for the E-Class). Point is, it's very quiet, and that makes it easy to hold a conversation with your passenger or enjoy the details of your music." — Brent Romans, senior manager, written content
Highway Assistant could use a pair of sunglasses
"I finally found something not to like about this car (it took a long time). Our i5 uses BMW's latest suite of safety technology, including a novel hands-free driving system.
"BMW calls this 'Highway Assistant,' and it combines a number of systems into one allowing the car to stay in the lane and maintain its speed without input from the driver. I've used it on a number of occasions and found that it works very well — for the most part.
"During a recent outing with the car, I activated the Highway Assistant on the freeway while driving into direct sunlight. With some pretty severe glare coming through the windshield, the car was tricked. The system turned off multiple times and did a poor job of staying in the lane when it was operating. It was the first time that I didn't feel confident using the technology. Hopefully BMW will improve this over time with over-the-air updates." — Clint Simone, senior editor
How does iDrive work?
"There's an annoying quirk with iDrive 8.5, though not one that's exclusive to our i5. When you use the My Modes button on the center console to switch between the Efficient, Normal (sorry, 'Personal') and Sport modes, once you've activated the new mode you want, the infotainment screen doesn't go back to where you were. It just displays the wallpaper of whatever that mode is, so if you were using navigation or Apple CarPlay, you have to press the button on the home screen to get back there.
"A small annoyance, sure, but in a car as otherwise effortless to use as the i5, it really stands out." — Steven Ewing, director, editorial content
"iDrive isn't great. I might even go so far as to say it isn't good. It's a hassle to find stuff unless you use the search function, and the rotary knob is a tad too sensitive to pushes for my taste. But really, it's just the fact that simple things are more difficult than they need to be that bugs me. If the voice commands were 100% on point with natural language prompts, I guess it would be fine." — Will Kaufman, manager, video
"The infotainment display had some ups and some downs. The screen is large, and what I have always loved about the infotainment systems in BMWs is that when you navigate through SiriusXM channels, you can see what song is playing in the display before you click on the channel. Yes. It is the little things.
"But, I must agree with my fellow comrade Will Kaufman's assessment of the BMW infotainment interface. The i5's menu structure is not intuitive and looks like someone just added a bunch of apps but did not organize or categorize them in any kind of meaningful way. The result for me was spending lots of time trying to navigate throughout the applications to try to find a certain setting I was looking for." — Jodi Tourkow, executive director, written content
We're trying to decide how we feel about one of BMW's tech features
"The BMW throws up an "uneven road surface" warning in the HUD when there's a speed bump or a drainage ditch (a constant threat to the suspension and noses of cars in LA) ahead, along with the distance to the bump or dip. I'm kind of impressed that it knows where there are some severe obstacles around where I live...BUT, it's not perfect. On one road with three speed humps, it apparently doesn't know about the middle hump and only warns about the first and third. And it didn't have EVERY drainage ditch on my commute. I'm trying to decide if I like the feature or don't really care about it. If it got to about 90-95% accuracy, so I felt like I could lean on it more, I'd probably be able to muster a feeling." — Will Kaufman, manager, video
We recommend leaving the i5 in its default setting
"The secret to loving this car is to never try to adjust any settings. For example, 'Individual' is set to the default 'theme' in the car. I wondered if I could change that to, say, Efficient or Sport. So if you go into the My Modes menu, select Individual and then select Options, there's a toggle for having that be the startup mode. But if you tap it, you get an error message that says you have to select another mode before you can deactivate this one as the individual mode. So I select Efficient, but there's no toggle to make that the startup mode in its settings (either because another mode is already the startup mode, or because you can't make any mode but Individual the startup mode? In which case, why does the toggle exist at all?). And the only way I can get to the settings for Individual is by selecting Individual, in which case I can't turn off the startup mode toggle.
"This car's menu and settings structure feels like the kind of UX solutions you'd get if you trained an AI on the interfaces of '90s cellphones and homebrew Linux desktops, then asked it to make a touchscreen system based on the concept of 'app-store functionality.' " — Will Kaufman, manager, video
The i5 boots up quite quickly
"Our i5's tech interface is impressively quick-acting. Hop in the car, press the start button and, boom, everything on the screens is ready to go. There's no drawn-out boot-up sequence or indecisive dithering, like when your dog can't decide whether to go outside or not when you open the door and it's super cold. That same snappiness also holds for the i5's wireless smartphone connection. I have an iPhone and my phone's functions, such as music and navigation, are available almost right away when I get in the car. Nice." — Brent Romans, senior manager, written content
What do we think of the accent pieces in the BMW i5?
"I don't really like the faux cut-glass accents on the dash and doors in full daylight, where they look a little plasticky. But I LOVE them at night. When they're backlit in the dark, they look about a thousand times nicer and provide really pleasant ambient light." — Will Kaufman, manager, video
"I agree with my co-worker Will that our i5's optional glass-trimmed infotainment controller knob looks neat at night. But he overlooked mentioning that the knob can turn into a very bright and annoying reflector of sunlight when the sun is at certain angles. The black plastic surrounding it also reflects sunlight and easily shows smudgy fingerprints and cabin dust. Ew." — Brent Romans, senior manager, written content
How about the interior design?
"Say what you'd like about BMW's exterior designs of the last few years (trust me, I get it). But as of late, this company has been producing some of the best interiors in the industry and our i5 is the perfect example of that.
"You can poke and press on any panel and they all feel rock solid. Cheaper black plastics have started creeping into luxury cars lately, but the i5 is free of this sin. The glossy carbon fiber across the dash looks fantastic, as does the ornate strip of ambient lighting that runs 180 degrees around the car. Little details like the crystal control wheel on the center console make things even better.
"BMW nailed the balance between form and function with the i5's interior, and it is one of most compelling reasons to consider buying one over less expensive rivals like the Tesla Model S." — Clint Simone, senior editor
"The ambient cabin light bar in the i5 is pretty cool. It stretches the length of the dash and also blends into the front doors. It gives the cabin a techy, upscale appearance without being overdone or distracting. It changes colors based on your driving mode or you can pick your own color for it too." — Brent Romans, senior manager, written content
The trunk isn't as spacious as you'd think
"BMW says the i5 has a 17.3-cubic-foot trunk. Based on that spec alone, you'd think the i5 has a pretty big trunk. A Honda Accord, for example, has a 16.7-cubic-foot trunk. In real-world use, however, I've found that our i5's trunk doesn't live up to that 17.3-cube promise. The height of the trunk is short and the overall shape doesn't allow you to fit bulkier items (such as suitcases) nearly as easy as it should be. The i5 doesn't have a truly useful rear trunk underfloor storage bin like you get in the Lucid Air or Tesla Model S either." — Brent Romans, senior manager, written content
Scheduling a charging time should be easier
"Plain and simple: Trying to schedule a charging time via the BMW i5 charging interface was a pain in the butt. Unless it’s me (and I am not saying it isn’t), when I would attempt to schedule a charging time of 11 p.m. using my at-home Level 2 charger, the BMW i5 would not allow me to do so unless I also put in a departure time. So, my two options were to select 'charge immediately' or add a 'departure time' when I wanted to charge. I tried to override this requirement multiple times.
"This is just adding an arbitrary extra step, IMO. Being required to schedule even an arbitrary departure time just so I can charge the vehicles seems irrelevant." — Jodi Tourkow, executive director, written content