BMW 530e iPerformance 2017 Review

Finding any sort of enjoyment from driving a plug-in hybrid is a little like taking up smoking; it has to become habitual first. Drive a few and you begin to feel some sort of satisfaction from using low-cost mains power rather than petrol. It's a bit like mentholated smokes though…

The BMW 530e is one of the nicer plug-in packages. There's a certain serenity in the way it wafts along at open-road speeds, and it lacks for little in terms of advanced safety equipment. Also, it boasts all the normal 5 Series traits we hold so dear – dynamic competence, roominess inside and plenty of cachet.

Having driven the car in Germany, I wasn't expecting too many surprises, but testing the 530e on local roads helps fill in the gaps.

For the commute home on the first night, the car showed around 40 per cent battery charge remaining after the pick-up from BMW's office in Mulgrave in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. To reach home from work required the petrol engine providing some of the motive power – and recharge the battery a little as well. After about 10km of mixed petrol/electric running (and some coasting downhill), the BMW arrived home with the trip computer posting a fuel consumption figure of 5.6L/100km.

I plugged in the 530e and left it to charge overnight. Battery charge was back up to 100 per cent the next morning. Traffic for the 18.3km run to work was benign, thanks to school holidays and the BMW arrived at work without the petrol engine cranking over once and showed 50 per cent battery charge remaining.

This gave me some confidence the 530e could complete my usual run (dropping off kids at school and sitting in heavier traffic) without the same level of light-foot pedalling and roll-through-the-yellow-light tactics I had to employ with Porsche's previous generation of Panamera S e-Hybrid to travel 20km without resorting to petrol power.

BMW claims that fully charged, the battery can sustain electric-only driving for a range of 43km. In practice the 530e tested could go no longer than 32km, more than enough for my purposes.

For various reasons the 530e's battery was only charged to 70 per cent on the Friday morning, which left me setting out in the rain and cold with a range of just 17km available – for that 18.3km journey to work. As expected, the engine did fire up about a kilometre from my destination, but just briefly. According to the trip computer, the car used just 0.3L/100km for that journey. Which would translate to less than 60ml for the trip. That amount of fuel would not even fill a medicine cup, but was enough to make the distance with wipers and lights operating, and the cabin kept at a comfortable 21 degrees.

I am in no doubt the BMW 530e with a fully charged battery would demist the windows and raise cabin temperature to a warm ambience on an icy morning, or run windscreen wipers and headlights for the entire journey, and drop off the kids at school – covering the entire 19km trip without starting the petrol engine.

After depleting the battery to an indicated 0% reading, I ran the battery control program for 100 per cent charge on the commute to work one morning. The engine ran constantly other than on the overrun or while stopped at traffic lights. It successfully returned the battery charge to 50 per cent by the time I reached work, with the trip computer raising fuel consumption from 4.4 to 7.1L/100km. If I had reset the trip computer before setting out, the average fuel use would have been markedly higher over the shorter distance.

Just a few points to note about the 530e judged as a conventional passenger car: Firstly, the driving position is standard BMW design, which is to say generally good, with deeply contoured front seats. I find them a little narrow in the base.

There are plenty of apps to play with and numerous graphics explaining how energy is flowing, and to where (battery or drive wheels) and whether the car is driving efficiently and saving money/fuel. There's even a menu item to tell you, the driver, whether you're an environmentally-anxious angel, or a heavy-footed maniac. You can – and arguably should – ignore these and keep eyes and mind trained on the road.

Boot space is 410 litres, which we're told is adequate for golf clubs. This is better than most small cars, but worse than most medium cars – so it's stingy in a large car, but good enough for most owners who aren't buying the 530e to move house.

I did take the 530e for a proper drive (ie: Sports mode, engine running up to redline, sequential shifting, and fuel economy be damned). Even flogged this way, the turbocharged four-cylinder is very refined, with a sufficiently sporty note to satisfy enthusiasts – albeit a soundtrack that's very subdued. Step-off is not exactly dramatic though. The engine is hauling a fair amount of weight, even with the electric motor assisting and the smooth-shifting ZF transmission doing its part.

Who would have thought a large, plug-in hybrid luxury sedan could be fun to drive? Dispense with the fuel-conserving mindset and the 530e provides terrific front-end grip for neutral handling, but the rear remains steadfast in the face of all but the most brutal attempts to provoke lift-off oversteer. Brakes are strong and tactile through the pedal, but pull the car up quite softly when not being slammed.

If there's one issue with the 530e as a car, it's the ride quality. Generally compliant and composed, it can be caught out by smaller, sharper irregularities in the road surface.

Driving the 530e for optimal energy efficiency calls for the driver to anticipate – like the traffic light changing to green as you coast up to it, or leaving a longer braking distance for cars to merge in front. If the car ahead is making a left turn, coasting instead of braking does place you in conflict with BMW’s forward collision warning system but thankfully, the 530e registers the potential for a nose-to-tail with a large, red warning which blinks slowly in the instrument display and is not accompanied by some piercing audible alarm. And the warning provided comes with enough time to react, but not so far in advance that you're unsure what prompted its alarm state in the first place.

What I've learned from the 530e is that it is possible at a stretch to run a 20km daily commute in a worst-case scenario, with some battery charge left in reserve. And the 530e is a more practical, more affordable car in the real world than the Porsche Panamera previously tested, but as technology and design improve, there'll be other plug-in hybrids to follow with even longer range and better driveability… until finally the car companies pull the plug on the internal-combustion engine altogether.

It'll be gone the way of mentholated ciggies.

2017 BMW 530e iPerformance pricing and specifications:
Price: $110,500 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Motor: Synchronous with lithium-ion battery
Output: 180kW/420Nm (combined)
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 2.3L/100km (NEDC Combined)
CO2: 53g/km (NEDC Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star (ANCAP 2014)

Related reading:
>> BMW 530e 2017 Review
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