BMW X5 eDrive 2014 Review

The world of electrification is about to hit the premium Germans like a wave. Sure, Mercedes-Benz has dabbled in electric smarts, B-Classes and SLSs, but dabbling is all it was.

BMW has been a noted hold-out, though hindsight says it had clearly put any production electric mobility stuff on hold until it ran through its ‘i’ lessons, because it’s about to launch a plug-in hybrid version of the giant X5.

Weighing nearly 2300kg, the X5 eDrive (no, it won’t be called the X5 Plug-In Hybrid in production) will eke micro city-car numbers out of one of the largest SUVs on the market. Depending on the driving habits of its buyers, it might even do better than that.

Combining a 180kW version of BMW’s existing N20 four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine with a rear-mounted battery pack and electric motor squeezed into its eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, the X5 eDrive will officially use less than 4.0L/100km.

BMW’s official target number is 3.8L/100km and emissions of less than 89g/km, all out of a plug-in hybrid capable of 30km of pure electric driving.

While it was announced at last year’s Frankfurt motor show, the X5 eDrive is now close enough to reality (BMW is teasing when it says it will be ready this year, though) that it let us loose at its closed test facility in southern France this week.

The result is a car that is a technical tour-de-force and drives impressively, asks few compromises from its drivers and passengers, but isn’t quite ready yet.

There is plenty of space to be had inside the enormous X5 architecture and the only compromise the car ends up asking is about a 20mm lift in the height of the boot floor. Every other interior feature is intact, plus the eDrive adds some more courtesy of a Save Battery button in the dash to keep your green powder dry before hitting the city and more complex graphics on the multi-media screen to show where the power is going.

With more than 9kW/h of electricity storage on-board, the X5 eDrive can be charged relatively quickly via a high-voltage socket just between the left front wheel and the front door, and BMW insists it will be comfortably capable of 30km all-electric range.

“Eighty per cent of travel is less than 30km,” insisted Dr Marcus Bollig, the engineer entrusted with morphing the radical i brand technical concepts across to the X5.

“We spoke to our customers and probably did more research on it in the development of the i3 and i8 than anybody else has ever done.

“We can put more range in it to take it to 50km or 70km of electric running, but that adds weight with more batteries, takes away space in the luggage compartment and adds a lot of cost because the batteries are expensive. And people don’t need it.”

Inside, you’d barely know it was different to the standard X5 xDrive30d that it targets as a benchmark. The biggest-selling X5 model hits 100km/h in 6.9 seconds and so does the eDrive.

That’s where things divert, though, because where the xDrive30d has 190kW and 560Nm from its six-cylinder turbo-diesel, the eDrive is looking to slash its 6.2L/100km of NEDC fuel consumption down to 3.8, while retaining a top speed of around 225km/h.

It also retains the 85-litre fuel tank out of the xDrive30d, so it will be capable of fairly impressive fuel range, even though BMW insists that urban-dwelling eDrives might refuel their tanks less than once every two or three months.

It starts by simply pushing the normal start button, then pulling Drive and easing off. The car defaults into the EcoPro mode, but you can flick it over into pure electric running at the touch of a button.

Oddly, it doesn’t leap off the mark like so many electric cars, with their enormous and instant torque loads, do. Dr Bollig puts this down to a relatively early software code and insists it will change in production.

For now, though, it eases off, rather than bursts off, even if you push the throttle all the way down to the détente button. It does it silently, too, without any of the wobbulations you sometimes hear out of the powertrains of lesser electrics, and it does it strongly, especially over about 5km/h.

It will hold the electric running all the way up to 120km/h, if need be, and you can see why BMW insists that a lot of buyers will go months without firing up the petrol motor at all. It’s strong enough for most urban running just on its electric powerplant.

Part of the reason it’s so quiet and effective is that the electric motor sits inside the ZF eight-speed dual-clutch transmission, which is why this becomes the first of BMW’s new breed of plug-in hybrids to come with xDrive all-wheel drive. The electric motor is also built by ZF (though to a BMW design) and only spins to 7000rpm, which is the same maximum speed as the petrol engine.

Most electrics spin beyond 10,000rpm (the i3’s motor spins to 12,000) and need a step gear somewhere, but this one doesn’t. It lives inside a host of step gears and also benefits from torque multiplication when it regenerates on the run, too.

Running at the same speed as the petrol engine makes the electric one chime in, sound and disappear more seamlessly. Well, that’s the theory. In practice, this one isn’t yet super slick when it chimes in and neither is the petrol engine.

BMW insists they are on top of it and that a natural hazard of driving prototypes is discovering areas of improvement long since addressed by test teams. There’s little reason to disbelieve them because the rest of the machine is just so cohesive.

Drive it in its Sport mode and it’s a revelation. There is so much torque available in the low to mid ranges that it feels like a big diesel at the bottom end, yet still spins freely and cleanly like a petrol engine at the top end.

BMW isn’t talking about the combined system torque yet, but it’s significantly stronger than anything this heavy would be with the 2.0-litre engine’s 350Nm working solo. And it has an added benefit of helping the petrol engine gather revs faster.

Its responsiveness is admirable, too, and you can look at the graphics on the multi-media screen all you like to understand where the energy is coming from or going to, but it really doesn’t matter. The big SUV is just getting it done and getting it done almost invisibly.

The petrol, which sees service in the 328i, amongst others, is as smooth as it’s always been, delivering strong torque and it also helps the handling. It’s much shorter than this engine bay is designed for, so it sits a long, long way back, to the point where the car is technically a mid-engined machine.

While the balance is good, it’s not a spritely cornering demon. The battery, electric motor and all of the new bits add somewhere between 200 and 300kg (BMW is coy on that), and subtract an alternator and starter motor, but you can expect it to add at least 200kg to the X5 xDrive30d’s 2070kg.

But if that weight is the price you pay for months of urban electric running and no range compromises out in the country, there will be plenty of people willing to pay for it.

2015 BMW X5 eDrive pricing and specifications:
Price: $TBA
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 180kW/350Nm
Motor: Synchronous electric
Output: 70kW/250Nm
Combined Output: 225kW
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch
Fuel: 3.8L/100km (estimated, Combined)
CO2: 89g/km (estimated, Combined)
Safety Rating: TBA

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