The BMW M5 was one of the first high performance sedans on the market. It was once the fastest sedan in the world. It once had a performance oriented V10 engine under the hood. And now, the BMW M5 is going green. 

Yes, the all-new BMW M5 can be considered a green, environmentally friendly vehicle. It’s a plug-in hybrid with up to 43 km of electric-only driving range. This means that you can take the kids to school and drive yourself to work without using a single drop of fuel. 

The 14.8 kWh usable battery pack can be recharged in about 2 hours from a level 2 charger. So on your way back home from work, you can still drive the M5 just on electricity. And you would be getting home quick because the electric motor produces 194 hp and it enables the M5 to reach 140 km/h in the electric-only drive mode. 

But what if you decide to take the long way home? The road that few travel?  

On this type of road, the BMW M5 is a completely different animal. In its sportiest setting, the new BMW M5 delivers 717 hp from a TwinPower Turbo V8 engine. Coupled with the electric motor, an 8-speed automatic transmission and M xDrive, the BMW M5 can accelerate from a stop to 100 km/h in 3.5 seconds and on to a top speed of up to 305 km/h.  

Those numbers are impressive, especially since this is the heaviest M5 to date. The battery pack does add some of that weight, but it needed to be a plug-in hybrid in order to meet & exceed strict government emission regulations.  

Furthermore, the battery pack is in the floor which helps keep the center of gravity closer to the ground. This in turn makes the car feel stable through corners. Add to that the surefootedness of M xDrive and the BMW M5 feels like it’s on rails. This car hides its hefty weight very well. 

But if you want, you can make the car feel a bit more like a wild animal. Like the M5 before it, the M xDrive system allows you to send 100% of the power to the rear wheels. Of course, drive responsibly when you switch it to the 2WD mode. 

The new M5 is physically a big car but it doesn’t quite feel that big from behind the steering wheel. Helping with maneuverability is the rear wheel steering system. This enables the back wheels to turn in the opposite direction of the front ones, by up to 1.5 degrees, to reduce the turning circle of the car. On highways, they turn in the same direction as the front wheels to provide a feeling of surefootedness and stability. 

The interior of the new M5 is up to date and thoroughly modern. It has a head-up display with augmented reality navigation, a single piece of glass housing two displays (one for the driver instrumentation and one for the infotainment system), and it has one of the most advanced ambient lighting systems of any new car on sale. 

But the technology doesn’t end there. The new BMW M5 has a wide array of driver aids such as the hands-free Driving Assistant Professional which will keep the car centered in your lane, change lanes in need be, and adapt the car’s speed to the flow of traffic.  

The car can also park itself with the Parking Assistant Professional. Once the system detects a parking spot and performs the maneuver once, it will remember the maneuver and perform it subsequent times without any driver intervention.  

Thanks to its larger size, the new M5 has more cargo capacity than the previous generation. There’s 467 L of space in the trunk with more available if you fold down the rear seats.  

But should you want more, the BMW M5 Touring is coming to Canada. The M5 Touring provides 500 L of cargo space behind the back seats and up to 1,630 L with the 40/20/40 rear seats folded down. This car is arguably a bit more stylish than the M5 sedan. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We’re just happy that the M5 wagon is finally available in Canada. 

What will the new BMW M5 cost you? It’ll start from $135,000 with quite a few customization options available. But what we want to know is, which one would you choose? The sedan or the wagon? Let us know in the comments. 

And should you need help in customizing your very own BMW M5, our knowledgeable product specialists at The BMW Store Vancouver or BMW Langley are more than happy to help out.

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