BMW X5 officially revealed

Global launch of BMW's third generation X5 SUV pencilled in for July

The third generation of BMW’s X5 SUV will arrive later this year with more power, lower fuel consumption, more interior space and an optional third row of seats.

Led by the powerhouse tri-turbo diesel-powered (and somewhat clumsily named) M Performance Automobiles X5 xDrive M50d, the X5 family will launch in Europe in July with three engine variants.

The X5 family, already 1.3 million units strong, will receive four other models later in the year. One of those, the X5 sDrive 25d, will be the most economical large SUV BMW has ever built, with its rear-drive-only status helping it to deliver just 149 grams of CO2 emissions.

The new, US-built X5 will have an evolutionary design that employs a host of new aerodynamic tricks, including an Air Curtain to direct air around the front wheels, Air Breathers behind the front wheels to catch and redirect air from the Air Curtains and Aero Blades in the roof spoiler above the rear hatch. Together, these help pull the base, rear-drive sDrive 25d’s drag coefficient down to 0.31, which BMW claims to be the best in the class.

The sDrive’s arrival in Australia shouldn’t be taken for granted, but the flagship M Performance Automobiles X5 M50d xDrive should definitely lead the X5 charge.

With its three turbochargers force-feeding the 3.0-litre, in-line, six-cylinder engine, the X5 M50d xDrive delivers 280kW of power and a thumping 740Nm of torque. Not only does it push the 2190kg SUV to 100km/h in 5.3 seconds, but it does it while posting 6.7 litres/100km on the mixed NEDC cycle as well. In the 5-Series bodyshell, this engine has proven to be an enormous hit across Europe and has also found homes in the 7-Series and the X6 as well.

But don’t be taken in by BMW’s gumpf that this is an all-new machine. It isn’t. Instead, the new X5 rides on the same 2933mm wheelbase as the existing machine and has the exact same front and rear track widths as well, plus the same 85-litre fuel tank. Most of its upgrades come through interior redesigns, neat aero tweaks, big upgrades to the engines and the moderately evolved body design.

The heart of the X5 range is its diesels and the X5 30d xDrive, with a single-turbo variant of the M50d xDrive’s 3.0-litre, in-line six, hints at a good compromise of performance and economy. With 190kW, it has 90kW less than the flagship, though the power peak still arrives at 4000rpm.

Its 560Nm torque peak, arriving at 1500rpm and remaining on station until 3000rpm, offers 180Nm less than the flagship, too, but it’s still a significantly large number and the X5 30d xDrive reaches 100km/h in a respectable 6.9 seconds. The 230km/h top speed is 20km/h down on the point where the M50d xDrive’s speed limiter intervenes, but it counters by offering 6.2 litres/100km and 162 grams of emissions.

For anybody wanting to just upgrade their X5 30d xDrive the good news is that the new one is only 5kg lighter (2070kg), but 0.7 seconds faster to 100km/h, offers 30 litres more rear luggage space, has 20km/h more speed at the top end and uses 1.2 litres less fuel every 100km. It also has 10kW more power and 20Nm more torque.

The towing capacity remains unchanged, at 2700kg and BMW hasn’t given any word on the pricing, but you could expect it to remain close to the current car’s $92,600 list price, even if nobody in history has ever bought a “nude” X5.

The only petrol engine available at the launch will be the latest generation of the 4395cc V8. With twin turbos, the V8 thumps out 550kW of power at 5500rpm and 650Nm of torque from 2000rpm.

It’s a similar incremental improvement story for the V8 fans, because the new X50i’s 0-100km/h acceleration time of 5.5 seconds is half a second quicker than that of the current car and its standing kilometre sprint is 0.9 seconds faster. It has 30kW more power and 50Nm more torque than the existing V8 X5, yet uses 2.1 litres less fuel (at 10.4 litres/100km) on the NEDC cycle than the existing car and emits 50 grams less CO2 per kilometre as well.

It has a more pronounced weight advantage compared to the dueling X5 30ds, though snipping 15kg out of 2190kg (to get to 2175kg) surely isn’t something to bang the drums about.

One upgrade they are crowing over is aero efficiency, and the new model has a drag coefficient of 0.33Cd (compared to the 0.35Cd of the old X5 X50i) while its narrower tyres help the 30d xDrive to improve its aero rating from 0.34 to 0.31. Aerodynamics have been a BMW strength, even as its cars’ weights have climbed, and is widely perceived to be a weakness at cross-Bavaria rivals, Audi – once a leader in aero design.

The X5's aero figures remain constant regardless of which of the three interior and design packages buyers opt for. BMW is now offering a Design Pure Experience pack in all X5 models, which is supposed to emphasise the “utility” part of the SUV genre and comes complete with brushed stainless steel underbody protection, or the Design Pure Excellence pack, which has all of its added items in body colours and is supposed to represent the classier end of the X5 spectrum. Above both of these sits the M Sport pack, with its lower ride height and larger wheels standing out in its myriad of options pieces.

All X5s now come with the ZF eight-speed automatic transmission as standard, while all the xDrive models use constant all-wheel drive with a rear limited slip differential as standard.

From December, the European X5 family will be boosted by a X5 40d xDrive diesel with 230kW of power and 6.4 litres/100km, the petrol-powered 35i xDrive with 225kW and 8.5 litres/100km, the four-cylinder 25d xDrive with 160kW and 5.9 litres/100km and the rear-drive 25d sDrive with 5.6 litres/100km and 149 grams of CO2/km.

BMW has eked more internal real estate out of the same wheelbase, and the rear luggage capacity rises 30 litres to 650, while that jumps up to 1870 when the 40:20:40 split-fold rear seats are folded flat. That’s a 120-litre jump over the current X5.

Besides the option of a third row of seats to soak up some of that added rear room, the X5 will also have a standard button so the driver can open and close the luggage hatch from the seat.

The biggest news inside the X5 is that the march of BMW’s difficult-to-explain ConnectedDrive system continues, linking more and more diverse data in ever-more imaginative ways.

Besides delivering a head-up display with a full colour spectrum, it also hooks its night vision system up to a sophisticated algorithm that automatically detects both humans and animals and warns the driver accordingly. Not just that, but it can even automatically brake to avoid them, or any other type of collision, and also has a thing called Dynamic Light Spot to help drivers see the animal/pedestrian that the constantly-monitoring infra-red camera has already found.

It also introduces a parking assistant that can now take care of both the steering and the accelerator/braking on your behalf, while it uses much the same data stream to deliver a traffic jam assistant, which takes care of that fiddly, stop-start driving at low speed.

It shows all of this new stuff through its enormous 10.5-inch stand-alone multi-media screen, which also shows the status of the all-wheel drive for the first time. This might not be a good thing, because people may become belatedly aware of how little they use it...

According to Lenore Fletcher, General Manager for Corporate Communications at BMW Australia, the new X5 will arrive here during the fourth quarter of this year -- roughly six months after the vehicle's global launch.

Asked whether the new range was likely to include the 25d variants (both rear-driven 'sDrive' and 4WD 'xDrive' versions), the BMW spokesperson hinted that there was enough corroborative evidence from the local market to support the inclusion of the four-cylinder models in the local X5 range. And certainly archrival Mercedes-Benz has already released a four-cylinder M-Class.

"If you look across the SUV market at the moment, there has been quite an increase in growth in not just large SUVs, but also compact SUVs," Fletcher told motoring.com.au this morning. "I think a lot of that has been historically attributed to the availability of two-wheel drive variants in those segments. Given that, of course, [the sDrive 25d is] something we're very, very interested in, but it's a little early for us to discuss exactly what variants we're going to be getting here."

"We are actually still going through that process and ensuring that we have the right business plan to support whatever variants we have. But certainly, as a concept, it's very interesting."

The sDrive 25d would be one X5 variant without a direct competitor in the Benz range and presumably would not incur the Luxury Car Tax, since its fuel consumption figure of 5.6L/100km is well below the 7.0L/100km ceiling for green car dispensation from the tax. It's a similar case with the all-wheel drive xDrive variant with the same engine. That variant is also under consideration for Australia, says Lenore Fletcher, but nothing's decided yet.

If it and the rear-wheel drive model come to Australia, it's likely to be around the middle of 2014.

BMW X5 officially revealed

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