If there is one thing that makes the BMW i5 such a great electric car is that it’s still a 5 Series.
It drives as smoothly as the internal combustion engine version, it’s brimming with forward-thinking technology, and it envelops the occupants in a luxurious interior. The issue is that the i5 really doesn’t offer a good middle ground between all-out luxury AWD sedan performance in the M60 xDrive and the base eDrive40 RWD. That’s about to change as BMW has announced a new xDrive40 variant that will give you AWD traction without the range penalty of the M60’s juice-thirsty powertrain.
The BMW i5 xDrive40 will retain the same 84.3-kWh battery pack that all i5s come with, but the new dual-motor powertrain will up the total power output to 389 hp and 435 lb-ft of torque. That is 54 hp and 140 lb-ft of torque more than the single motor eDrive40, but 201 hp and 151 lb-ft of torque less than the M60 xDrive. According to BMW, that’s good for a 0 to 60 mph run of 5.2 seconds and a top speed of 130 mph.
Source: Motor Trend