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Will Sabel Courtney
The BMW 5 Series has long had a difficult job to fill. Sandwiched between the attainable 3 Series and opulent 7 Series, it’s forced to represent the brand against such exceedingly good cars as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, the Audi A6, the Cadillac CT5 (née CTS) and the Genesis G80. That category is smaller than it used to be, as the rise of the SUV has led brands from Lexus to Infiniti to Lincoln to abandon the segment in favor of more popular, more profitable leather-lined crossovers. Still, it’s a highly competitive one — both among buyers and among carmakers, who constantly look to one-up each other in the segment with new designs, powertrains and of course, technology.
To help it stay relevant, the latest generation of 5 Series is going electric — albeit not at the expense of internal combustion. The 2024 models offer a choice of four- and six-cylinder gas-powered engines as well as one- or two-motor electric powerplants, in essence offering a 5er for whatever motivatory preferences you might have. And unlike with, say, Mercedes and its E-Class/EQE models, Bimmer doesn’t force you into an aesthetic choice when you pick your powertrain. Apart from powertrain, the gas- and electric-powered 5ers are largely identical; while writing this review, I had to look closely at my photos to recall which were of the internal-combustion version and which were the electron-motivated ones.
2024 BMW 5 Series / i5: What We Think
After driving a trio of different ’24 5 Series models — the gas-powered 530i and the electric i5 eDrive40i and i5 M60 — in a two-day span, I can say the new G60-generation model is a solid contender in the shrinking-yet-still-very-relevant midsize luxury sedan category, if perhaps not quite the sharp, well-balanced sporty sedan that it once was (and that I, among other gearheads, wish it still were).
The design isn’t as clean as the previous car or as elegant as, say, the E39-generation 5 Series — which remains the high-water mark for the 5er, in my opinion — but it’s still more conventionally attractive than the 7 Series and 4 Series. The interior suffers a bit from BMW’s current prediliction for touchscreens and glass-and-plastic controls over more tactile ones, but look past that, and you’ll find a modern, refined and very comfortable place for four to chill. While it may feel more at home on the highway than tearing up a back road, it’s still well-balanced and able to set a good pace when the pavement starts to bend — and the top-shelf i5 M60i’s performance makes me excited to see what the next BMW M5 is capable of in a year or so’s time.
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