T here are two ways (well, at least two, but bear with me) to make an electric car. The first is to make it look very different indeed from anything else you (and preferably anyone else) manufacture. This is what BMW used to do with its first uniquely purpose-built battery electric cars – the odd little i3 and the (still) breathtaking i8 sports car (both out of production and near-instant classics, of course).
The second approach is the one BMW mostly uses now: to make its “i” electric vehicle versions of any given model in the range. Hence the i5 Touring , which is the all-battery powered version of the 5 Touring , is distinguished by appropriate badging and an almost fully filled-in version of the famous kidney grille, with only a slim LED light where the chrome usually sits. The M60 designation refers to the 600 or so horsepower at your disposal, and this top-of-the-range i5 will take you to 60mph from rest in 3.
9 seconds and on to 100mph by the time you’ve counted another five seconds (where legal). It does that courtesy of a hefty 81.2kWh battery pack and a motor on each axle (the lesser M40 version makes do with rear wheel drive).
You can even turn on a rather subtle “engine” soundtrack. For performance, a traditional M5 driver ought not feel short-changed (at least in that sense). So, no complaints.
Of course, the other distinctive thing about the i5 is less visible – the price, which is about double that of the mild hybrid version (with equivalent dispar.