Our 2024 BMW i5 M60 Needs One Thing to Make It Great

• Our BMW i5 M60 is one of our team's favorite test cars.
• It's a BMW EV that's properly luxurious and sporty.
• However, the M60's range is a bummer.

Lots of positives for a luxury sedan

I went through our i5's logbook coverage and found quotes regarding the qualities listed above.

Superb comfort: "I really like the seats," writes editor Jake Sundstrom. "They're comfortable even after sitting in them for a long time, and putting the seat adjusters by the door handles is really intuitive."

Refined driving experience: "Power delivery in this car is just so perfectly judged; BMW is doing such a great job with its EVs," writes video manager Will Kaufman. "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."

Upscale materials and construction: "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," says senior reviews editor Clint Simone. "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."

Strong performance: "This sedan rips when you mat its accelerator pedal," notes director of written content Brent Romans (hey, that's me!). "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 for people used to gas-powered cars."

Range puts a limit on how much you can do with the i5 M60

Alas, our i5 would flub the requirement of "lots of range for road trips" if I added it to the list above. 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.

Still, 264 miles is not great. And it's not like I hop in every morning and have 264 miles at my disposal. To help minimize long-term battery degradation, we here at Edmunds usually charge our test EVs to 80% for daily driving. So that's a typical range for our i5 M60 in the low 200s.

This might not be a deal-breaker by itself. But combine it with having to stop multiple times for charging on a long trip, which is often a frustrating experience all its own, and you've got a luxury sedan with a limitation. Yes, our i5 M60 is the performance version, and yes, you can buy other i5 versions with more range. But I'm thinking more broadly for somebody who wants to buy a luxury sport sedan regardless of how it's powered.

A gas-powered BMW 540i has an EPA-estimated range of 445 miles on a full take of gas. And, of course, it's substantially quicker and easier to fill up its gas tank than charging an i5. Even high-performance versions of the Lucid Air and Tesla Model S Plaid are also capable of going a lot more than 300 miles on a full charge.

Our i5 M60 has so much good stuff to it. I love driving it daily or on shorter trips. It just needs another 100 miles of range to be a fully compelling luxury sport sedan.