2025 BMW M5: M boss admits one big mistake

The boss of BMW M has admitted revealing the weight of its new-generation M5 super sedan before anyone could drive it was the big mistake that won’t be made again.

Speaking to Australian media at the new M5’s national launch last week, BMW M CEO Frank van Meel said the brand “underestimated” the effect social media would have on the car’s image in the lead-up to its release.

For the first time in 40 years, the 2025 BMW M5 has a worse power-to-weight ratio than the model it replaces and is slower from 0-100km/h, owing primarily to its twin-turbocharged V8 plug-in hybrid powertrain that pumps out a might 535kW/1000Nm and launches the $260k sedan from 0-100km/h in 3.5 seconds on the way to a 305km/h top speed.

But the electrification hardware – and bigger body – has yielding a kerb weight of more than 2500kg, some 450kg more than the previous-gen M5 Competition, and in turn, torpedoed the new model’s public image before it even came to market.

“What I personally have learned [launching M5] is the way social media works,” van Meel said.

“Because we launched the car with no driving experience – well, we had a pre-drive of the car on a racetrack back in Austria – but actually we didn’t want to have any drive comments at that time; we just showed what we were doing.

“And actually, we told some numbers, including the weight, and then that was the only number people started talking about.

“That is a little bit difficult if you talk about a car. It’s like if you talk about an athlete; you should know if it’s a sprinter or a heavy-weight lifter, or a guy or girl that does 10 disciplines at the same time.”

van Meel said the discussion online focused purely on the M5’s weight, but “not about the way the car is designed and drives”.

“Of course, we knew that [how it drives], so for us it was logical to just say everything, but we underestimated a little bit the social media experience,” he said.

“The good thing, however, is that we had a lot awareness of the car, a lot of discussion, and a lot of that has been swept away as soon as people could drive the car and the first drive tests came out saying ‘this car drives insane, it’s better than the outgoing one and you don’t feel the weight’.”

The M boss added that he’d learned from the mistake and wouldn’t go public with the weight of an electrified vehicle until much closer to the release.

“Next time; and you see it with other competitors they’ve learned a lot; every competitor that’s currently launching hybridised sports cars does not reveal the weight until the test drive, so that’s the key learning,” he said, before confirming demand for the new M5 was “skyrocketing”.

“We already have increased our production capacities a couple of times and still the demands are increasing, and some very big markets are already sold out for the first half-year so actually, now we are quite happy, but I was a little bit surprised at the social media discussions without even having driven the car.”

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