Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Car and Drivers Into Cars, a
Speaker 1: podcast from iHeartMedia is Ruby Studio, brought to you by
Speaker 1: eBay Motors. I'm Tony ki Roger, the editor in chief
Speaker 1: of Car and Driver, and I'm joined by my co host,
Speaker 1: former editor in chief and current Chief Brand and Content Officer,
Speaker 1: Eddie Alterman, and together We're Into Cars.
Speaker 2: Each episode of this podcast covers a new car we
Speaker 2: think is worthy of your attention. The cars we select
Speaker 2: for this podcast may feature a novel design, cutting edge engineering,
Speaker 2: or offer something entirely new. We'll be covering the stories
Speaker 2: behind the cars too, answering the whys and exploring the whats.
Speaker 2: We'll drive the cars and let you listen in, and
Speaker 2: then we'll sit down with the people who made the
Speaker 2: cars to answer our questions about them. Come along for
Speaker 2: the ride and you'll hear it all the good, the bad,
Speaker 2: and the ugly in the way that only carent Driver delivers.
Speaker 2: So today we've got two BMW's to drive and talk about.
Speaker 2: Two BMW's, but they're the same car. It's the five series,
Speaker 2: but the gas version and the EV version.
Speaker 1: And it basically comes down to a customer's choice. Do
Speaker 1: you want battery or gas tank charging station or gas station.
Speaker 1: Do you want a turbot charge in line six or
Speaker 1: an electric motor? I mean, it's an interesting choice, and
Speaker 1: it's a choice that more and more people are going
Speaker 1: to be facing over the next five ten years.
Speaker 2: BMW has a really interesting approach here within the envelope
Speaker 2: of the five series. You can get a mild hybrid
Speaker 2: gas engine or a full EV. You can just pick
Speaker 2: which technology you want.
Speaker 1: Right, it comes down to what do you want, what
Speaker 1: fits your needes. They have both options and you get
Speaker 1: the exact same car essentially. And maybe it comes from
Speaker 1: being a little gun shy after building something like the
Speaker 1: BMWi three, which launched about a decade ago, carbon fiber structure.
Speaker 1: It was a purpose built EV. It was super practical,
Speaker 1: It had some quirkiness that people sort of expected of evs,
Speaker 1: but it just didn't sell. So this this might be
Speaker 1: a reaction against that. That must have been a pretty
Speaker 1: expensive mistake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the I three was super exotic. The interior was incredible.
Speaker 2: It had suicide doors, these tiny little sort of bicycle tires.
Speaker 2: They built a concept car that was actually pretty affordable,
Speaker 2: didn't have a ton of range, and it sort of
Speaker 2: looked like a science experiment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you ever look at the rear end of
Speaker 1: that thing? It looked like it was swallowing a nine
Speaker 1: to eleven. If you look at the rear bumper of
Speaker 1: that car, it looks like it's just a nine to
Speaker 1: eleven has driven into the I three and just you
Speaker 1: can just see the bottom of its tail.
Speaker 2: Like, I'll have to take a look. But they are
Speaker 2: sort of gunshy, I would say.
Speaker 1: And EV adoption, the timeline has kept changing. Having two powertrains,
Speaker 1: an electric and a gas one on the same platform
Speaker 1: allows them to have flexibility. So if the market is
Speaker 1: turning away from eves, if the market's turning towards gas
Speaker 1: or vice versa, they have some flexibility to move more
Speaker 1: evs or more gas cars. And I think that makes
Speaker 1: total sense. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: You can scale production of one model based on consumer
Speaker 2: demand instead of shoving this stuff down people's throats, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think that's been a lot of that EV backlash.
Speaker 2: It's been due to people saying, you know what, I
Speaker 2: still want an internal combustion car. The ultimate freedom is
Speaker 2: choice and BMW allows people to have that freedom. And
Speaker 2: the five series is really an icon of the sports
Speaker 2: Sinanan World and the E thirty four version, the E
Speaker 2: thirty nine version. These were sort of seen as the
Speaker 2: pinnacle of the mid size sports sedan, and so I
Speaker 2: think the question before us today is is the electric
Speaker 2: a better sports sedan than the gas version.
Speaker 1: So today we have the top of the five series ranges.
Speaker 1: We have the top gas engine car, which is the
Speaker 1: five forty I X drive, and then we've got the
Speaker 1: I five M sixty. So we've got the top ones
Speaker 1: until the M five shows up. The five forty in
Speaker 1: traditional BMWA has terbocharged in line six, and I want
Speaker 1: to see how that compares to the I five M sixty.
Speaker 1: I mean, the I five M sixty has a lot
Speaker 1: more power. It's got five hundred and ninety three horsepower.
Speaker 1: It's also got a lot more weight. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: a bit heavier, but it is. It's also more expensive.
Speaker 1: It's close to twenty thousand dollars more expensive than the
Speaker 1: more but it got a lot more power. You got
Speaker 1: more than two hundred more horsepower.
Speaker 2: And there's three levels to the I five. Right, there's
Speaker 2: the rear drive you know, base car, which is three
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty five horse power, which is plenty quick
Speaker 2: the three hundred and eighty nine horse power Extrive forty version,
Speaker 2: and then this top Dog, which, as you say, is
Speaker 2: almost six hundred horse power, which is you know, adequate.
Speaker 2: They really look very very similar. You'd be hard pressed
Speaker 2: to see which is the EV and which is the
Speaker 2: ice version. But let's go out into the parking lot
Speaker 2: do a little walk around and see what those differences
Speaker 2: really are.
Speaker 1: We're standing in front of the I five Eddie and
Speaker 1: the five forty. I can't see the badges. Which one's
Speaker 1: the gas one, which one's the electric. It is extraordinarily
Speaker 1: hard to tell. They're the same.
Speaker 2: They're the same. I mean they both have the same
Speaker 2: plastic grill. One has an M badge, so maybe that's
Speaker 2: the gas one. But then I look at the BMW
Speaker 2: rondel and it has a blue ring around.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's the Oh and it's got that on
Speaker 1: the wheels too.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's but the wheels are exactly the same. Yes,
Speaker 2: the height of the cars are exactly the same, the
Speaker 2: size is exactly the same, The body is the same.
Speaker 1: They've got the same body kit.
Speaker 2: If you look at the five forty, it has that
Speaker 2: sort of thick rocker section you go, oh, that's the evy. No,
Speaker 2: it's the exactly the same.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one just doesn't have a battery in it
Speaker 1: in that space. That's basically it. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look really close, the tires are different. It's the same
Speaker 1: kind of tire, but the I five has a little
Speaker 1: bit more tire. It's a wider tire. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: got the new HL rating for tires, which is for
Speaker 1: heavy load. Because this is a big boy at like
Speaker 1: over fifty two hundred pounds. Oh my god. And so
Speaker 1: what is the five. It's also a big boy. I
Speaker 1: think it's around forty three hundred pounds. Let's walk around
Speaker 1: the back. Okay, they don't even show off the exhaust pipe,
Speaker 1: so you get this like pseudo diffuser on both cars,
Speaker 1: but you can't even see the exhaust.
Speaker 2: Oh difference, different license plates and one is red and
Speaker 2: one is blue. But other than that, it's nothing. And
Speaker 2: I do have to say these are some of the
Speaker 2: least grotesque is coming out of the Doctor Font's laboratory.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they've been edited for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, looking at you, XM, these look like proper luxury cars,
Speaker 2: high reard.
Speaker 1: Deck, the proportions are right, it's got the long dash
Speaker 1: to axle, which is the distance from the middle of
Speaker 1: the front wheel to the windshield. That shows it's not
Speaker 1: a front wheel drive car basically exactly. They're pretty.
Speaker 2: They do have that kind of angularity and some of
Speaker 2: the graphics that is so popular these days.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's not the brick that the I seven
Speaker 1: and the seventh series are. It looks more like a
Speaker 1: five series has always looked. Here's another Easter egg. Oh
Speaker 1: on the B pillars A five middle post of the cars.
Speaker 1: A little five. That's cool in case you forget what
Speaker 1: you're driving.
Speaker 2: How do we feel about the electric wearing the M badge?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it has almost six hundred horse bar,
Speaker 1: so I feel okay with it. Okay, I can make
Speaker 1: I can make.
Speaker 2: Peace with it. Well that's the xterior. Let's talk about
Speaker 2: the interior.
Speaker 1: Let's up inside. Would you hear that? It's got startup music.
Speaker 1: We're looking at carbon fiber trim. It's got this huge
Speaker 1: center screen, which is a touch screen. I like this touch.
Speaker 1: When you turn the hazard lights on, illuminates.
Speaker 2: The the whole hype lights.
Speaker 1: The whole hYP lights up, so you can't just leave
Speaker 1: your hazard lights on. It's got the M sports seats,
Speaker 1: which are really comfortable. It's got the M steering wheel
Speaker 1: with a little red piece of leather in the middle,
Speaker 1: so you know what the top is, which is kind
Speaker 1: of hilarious.
Speaker 2: Decently upright windshield for cars these days.
Speaker 1: That's very true. Yeah, and this one's got a big.
Speaker 2: Hud head up display, which, yeah, exactly always turn off.
Speaker 1: I hate those. Oh you don't like those. I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan.
Speaker 2: I find it so distracting. I'm not a toimecap pilot.
Speaker 2: I'm not Maverick. I don't need it. I'm not even Goose.
Speaker 1: It has the latest version of I Drive. BMW still
Speaker 1: has eye drive. I think it's like I Drive thirty
Speaker 1: seven point two. But yeah, so you still get the
Speaker 1: big knob, you still get the big control now. But
Speaker 1: you know, mercifully, BMW puts a touchscreen into this thing too.
Speaker 2: And I like the width of this car. You know,
Speaker 2: it's so a little less closely coupled than the I four.
Speaker 2: It feels a little bit more luxurious. There's tons of
Speaker 2: leg and knee room. Yeah, it's super comfy. This would
Speaker 2: be an amazing cross country cruiser if it wasn't an EV.
Speaker 1: Although it can fast charge pretty quickly, not as quick
Speaker 1: as some of the fastest cars. It is a DC
Speaker 1: fast charger which can do up to two hundred and
Speaker 1: five kilowatts. It's a four hundred volt system, which isn't
Speaker 1: you know the eight hundred volt system of a pors
Speaker 1: Of ty Can or some of the Hyundai cars, So
Speaker 1: it can't fast charge quite as fast as those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really the state of the r right now,
Speaker 2: the eight hundred. And it's funny that, you know, portion
Speaker 2: Audi have it and so does Hyundaikia Genesis, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know. Well it's incredibly quiet at idle.
Speaker 1: Yes it has. It has a really nice idol. But
Speaker 1: you know, the in our testing, the five forty is
Speaker 1: only like two or three decibels louder than this at idle.
Speaker 1: So they've really masked the machinery.
Speaker 2: You know, it's going to be interesting to dry these
Speaker 2: things because motor is right in the middle of the
Speaker 2: name yep, and for the longest time that meant engine YEP.
Speaker 2: Now it means actual motor.
Speaker 1: And it meant in in line six for the longest time,
Speaker 1: which at least they still have it. They still make it.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can get a four cylinder turbot with
Speaker 1: the five thirty I, and then you can get the
Speaker 1: five forty I, which has you know, the traditional inline
Speaker 1: six at PMW has been making for els. God bless them.
Speaker 1: I caught half of the twelve it is. It basically is.
Speaker 1: It's so smooth, it's so quiet, it's so refined, but
Speaker 1: you still get sound. You don't get the sound in
Speaker 1: the electric Yeah you don't. Let's go step in the
Speaker 1: five forty and see if we can pick out any differences.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. So here we are in the five forty I.
Speaker 1: What do you not first? Yeah, it doesn't have the
Speaker 1: carbon fiber trim, but otherwise it's identical. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: a little red stripe on the steering wheel either, so
Speaker 1: that's I'm not buying this one. Start it up. Let's
Speaker 1: see what it sounds like. Okay, okay, it's very quiet.
Speaker 1: It's got a nice little hum to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but everything is exactly as it is in the
Speaker 2: electric version.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's exactly the same. It's it's really kind of freaky.
Speaker 1: Oh you get it's a cometer. Oh right, it's acometer
Speaker 1: instead of a power percentage gauge. How do you feel
Speaker 1: about those gauges? Remember the old BMW gauges. They used
Speaker 1: to take such pride in having large, clear, round analog gauges,
Speaker 1: and now this is what the companies doing. No, it's
Speaker 1: been a.
Speaker 2: Long descent from the days of video and Jaeger gauges,
Speaker 2: or as they say in the Watch World, ja ja.
Speaker 1: That's what they watchers say. This looks like you remember
Speaker 1: that that video game Tempest. These are the Tempest where
Speaker 1: you're it's Tempest. And the designers must have played Tempest
Speaker 1: at an early age and decided that this is what
Speaker 1: they want in their gauges. And it's not. They're not
Speaker 1: as clear, they don't work as well.
Speaker 2: Look, this is an Apple Watch versus a Rolex argument,
Speaker 2: right right right once you rather have the analog thing,
Speaker 2: you know, especially in an analog seeming car or a
Speaker 2: car that is old school internal combustion.
Speaker 1: I want real gauges. All right, let's try.
Speaker 2: I think what BMW is trying to do here is
Speaker 2: normalize the EV version as just another powertrain choice.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Yeah, it's kind of like it's no different
Speaker 1: than when they offered a diesel in a gas There's
Speaker 1: really no difference exterior or into or your wise. You
Speaker 1: just have a different decometer, and that's basically the difference here.
Speaker 2: You want the four, you want the six, or you
Speaker 2: want the uh you know the battery?
Speaker 1: Oh that engines so smooth in the inline six is
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if you're at one thousand rpm or
Speaker 1: six thousand rpm. It's just a slightly louder thing, but
Speaker 1: you feel no vibration coming through the car. It's just
Speaker 1: isn't an amazing It's so wonderful.
Speaker 2: I love that they've stuck with it, and I think
Speaker 2: our mission today try to figure out which is the
Speaker 2: best sports stand between.
Speaker 1: Two Yeah, which one has more E thirty nine ers
Speaker 1: full late nineties early two thousands five series, which I
Speaker 1: think is the high water mark. I do to think
Speaker 1: it's the high water mark. I do too.
Speaker 2: That car is great, But you know that car weighed.
Speaker 1: Six thirty seven. I mean we thought it was heavy
Speaker 1: at the time. I know it was heavy because it
Speaker 1: was heavier than it's pressor.
Speaker 2: But as when the engines so went everything else in
Speaker 2: that car. It was just so incredibly smooth and progressive
Speaker 2: and predictable, and you knew where you were at all times.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, BMW's pumping in some engine sound that's coming
Speaker 1: out of there speakers. Yeah sounds good. Though it does
Speaker 1: sound good, it sounds real.
Speaker 2: So much of the car's personality is in the engine.
Speaker 2: It's the heart of the car, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just lose it. You just lose it and
Speaker 1: you gain acceleration. They're fun. I mean, electrics are super fun.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean the personality of a BMW was
Speaker 1: a lot of it was built out of the inline
Speaker 1: six and how flu it was and how different it
Speaker 1: was from every competitor V sixes and even from competitor
Speaker 1: inline sixes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And my beef with evs when you drive a bunch
Speaker 2: of them back to back is they all start to
Speaker 2: feel the same. I don't care if it's like a
Speaker 2: Lucid Sapphire or an Ionic five from Hyundai. They all
Speaker 2: have the same power delivery and they all really have
Speaker 2: that same character.
Speaker 1: They try to fake it with the fake noises which
Speaker 1: sort of sound like, you know, anywhere from like the
Speaker 1: Jetson's car to an angry robot, but it just doesn't
Speaker 1: do it for me, and it doesn't really. Since there's
Speaker 1: only one gear, you're not going through the gears, there's
Speaker 1: no change in the experience you've taken such an important
Speaker 1: part of driving a car out of it an important
Speaker 1: part of a brand's personality too.
Speaker 2: Yes, So what's the differentiator at that point between evs.
Speaker 2: It's brand whatever that means, it's styling its interior. I
Speaker 2: will say, However, there are some edge cases to this, Okay,
Speaker 2: like the Porsche Ti Kon. Somehow that thing still feels
Speaker 2: like a Porsche.
Speaker 1: It does, and for me, you sit in it and
Speaker 1: it feels you're sitting so low. They really played that up.
Speaker 1: You can see the front fenders. They really did it
Speaker 1: right so that you feel, even though you're in a sedan,
Speaker 1: it feels like you're in a sports car. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do a quick launch. Okay, Oh, it's pretty hard. My
Speaker 1: lobships watch is super hard. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Nauseating, great, nauseating.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic.
Speaker 2: You know, humans weren't engineered to go to accelerate that quickly.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you travel faster than a horse, will
Speaker 1: you die? Maybe? Yeah. Now we're on the highway. I
Speaker 1: mean it's really quiet as uh, you know, as you
Speaker 1: expect from a mid sized BMW.
Speaker 2: At the five series Tony, there is a v sun
Speaker 2: Rogue ahead of us with a neurbur ring track sticker
Speaker 2: on the back of it.
Speaker 1: Will you catch up to him? Check this out? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's so good. It's so wonderful. And there's no change
Speaker 1: in like, you don't feel any bad vibes coming through
Speaker 1: the car at all. It's just magic. It's just a wonderful,
Speaker 1: wonderful magic in Line six still has a ton of
Speaker 1: grip on the skid pad. It was about the same
Speaker 1: as the as the I five. And it's so balance.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not understeering, it's not oversteering. You know.
Speaker 1: The all four tires are working equally hard, it feels like,
Speaker 1: and this one doesn't have the fifty to fifty balance
Speaker 1: that BMW's used to be famous for. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit nose heavy, but you kind of stepped away from that. However,
Speaker 1: the electric is fifty to fifty weight distribution, and.
Speaker 2: You can still control the cornery attitude of these cars
Speaker 2: with the throttle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the steering is pretty asleep. You're not getting a
Speaker 1: ton of feel through the steering, and even in this
Speaker 1: sport mode, it's really really sort of overly light and
Speaker 1: that's a shame. Okay, want to hear my theory about
Speaker 1: BMW's I do.
Speaker 2: They're always moving on to the next thing. They're always
Speaker 2: putting their deepest talent in the next technology. You know,
Speaker 2: when Europe was making great sports cars, they focused on
Speaker 2: sports sedans. When everybody caught up and started making great
Speaker 2: sports edans, they had shifted to making great SUVs, and
Speaker 2: the sports dans suffered a little bit, and they weren't
Speaker 2: quite as good as they had been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because X five was sort of like the first
Speaker 1: great driving suv see right.
Speaker 2: Okay, and they made great SUVs and even the X one,
Speaker 2: the front drive one, the rear drive one was incredible,
Speaker 2: but even the front drive one was good, much better
Speaker 2: than the Mercedes equivalent.
Speaker 1: You think they put all the talent into what's next?
Speaker 1: I do? I think.
Speaker 2: You know, they've moved a lot of people from what
Speaker 2: I understand, off the M cars and in to the
Speaker 2: I cars, and they're really like front loading a lot
Speaker 2: of their talent into what's next.
Speaker 1: That's how I four feels. I four feels like the
Speaker 1: best people at BMW, the people who had all the
Speaker 1: institutional knowledge of how to make a car handle, how
Speaker 1: to make a car steer, or put on that car,
Speaker 1: and then they brought back some of that magic. It's
Speaker 1: really really great. Oh so good, I mean so smooth.
Speaker 1: If somebody said there's a V twelve under the hood,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh, yeah, totally, exactly, totally, it's so smooth.
Speaker 2: And all the piped in engine noise in the world,
Speaker 2: which there is some can't really replace that, or the
Speaker 2: feel under the ball of your foot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just being able to downshift a few gears
Speaker 1: and just bring the engine alive because it is sort
Speaker 1: of a living thing. I totally agree.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, this is the closest that man has
Speaker 2: come to creating an animal. The internal combustion motor car
Speaker 2: and the engine is the heart of it. The thing
Speaker 2: is growling. You have to kind of innate connection to
Speaker 2: it because of the sounds it's making. But there is
Speaker 2: an opacity to an ev you know, there is that
Speaker 2: like what's really going on here? You know there is
Speaker 2: a motor. There's a motor that's moving, but it feels remote.
Speaker 1: It does, it's not the same. Let's see if.
Speaker 2: You know BMW in the I five can give us
Speaker 2: some of that feel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take this five point forty back and go
Speaker 1: step into the I five and see what happens. Okay,
Speaker 1: now we're inside the I five M sixty.
Speaker 2: Let's start it up and see what it sounds like.
Speaker 2: Who foreboding? Does Industrial Light and Magic get a royalty
Speaker 2: for I was going to use a really dated reference.
Speaker 2: It's close encounters. I think I beat you with that. No, No,
Speaker 2: close Encounters is like eighty three or something.
Speaker 1: I think it's like seventy eight. Oh, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: let's get go on. Put it in drive. Sounds good,
Speaker 1: Oh it's silent. I know.
Speaker 2: BMW spends a lot of time and energy on the
Speaker 2: sounds that its cars make, from the turn signals to
Speaker 2: the door chimes to all that stuff. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: they got some tricks up their sleeve when it comes
Speaker 2: to ev sounds.
Speaker 1: But we'll see. Well, it has this iconic sounds which
Speaker 1: the other car also has. You can sort of turn
Speaker 1: that on and off to see how or to make
Speaker 1: it louder or quieter. What you want to do?
Speaker 2: Does it sound like a batmobile? So car Driver, whenever
Speaker 2: it tests a car, it produces a track sheet. And
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the one from the I five sixty
Speaker 2: X drive right now, and I'm looking at curbweight. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's five two hundred and twenty five pounds, almost perfectly
Speaker 2: distributed front rear.
Speaker 1: Yep. But you can do that with the electric car,
Speaker 1: and I used to be such an important part of BMW's.
Speaker 2: That was a huge part of their brand, but you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of it was marketing. Oh oh man, that's
Speaker 2: brutal acceleration. Okay, So crazier acceleration from this car, just
Speaker 2: in that little little run from a much heavier car. Okay,
Speaker 2: the five point forty I'm looking at the trackshet that
Speaker 2: weighed forty three hundred and sixty five, not a lightweight,
Speaker 2: fifty four point two percent of its masses on the front,
Speaker 2: forty five point eight percent on the rear. So this
Speaker 2: is a much heavier car, but it's also much much quicker.
Speaker 1: But I bet the center of gravity of this car
Speaker 1: is lower because you've got the battery pack in the floor,
Speaker 1: so you've got that mass all in the floor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see how it handles compared
Speaker 1: to the other one. The extra weight in a good
Speaker 1: place isn't necessarily a bad thing. They put a little
Speaker 1: more tire underneath to compensate for the extra weight, but
Speaker 1: both are about point nine g. I do miss the
Speaker 1: little vibrations of the engine. I miss the intake noise.
Speaker 2: This feels very clinical and anti dine in comparison. The
Speaker 2: noise is such a huge part of that car, the
Speaker 2: five forty, I mean, such a great sound it it
Speaker 2: engine makes.
Speaker 1: And then having I mean this is a one gear.
Speaker 1: I have one gear here. I'm always in the right gear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I've got a ton of torque. It's got amazing
Speaker 1: accelerator response. Notice I'm not saying throttle response.
Speaker 2: Let's do an acceleration run and see how it stacks
Speaker 2: up to the five forty.
Speaker 1: You guys ready instantaneous torque.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a lot of mass moving real quick.
Speaker 1: Oh man, yeah, sixty and three three I think it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, let's look at the numbers. Sixty in three
Speaker 2: three versus the five forties sixty in four seconds.
Speaker 1: Which is still remarkably quick. The quarter mile they really
Speaker 1: start to separate. That's where you really see the difference
Speaker 1: in horsepower in the quarter This one did eleven and
Speaker 1: a half at one twenty four and the other one
Speaker 1: I think it was twelve and a half at one eleven. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Gap. It just keeps growing. The gap just
Speaker 1: keeps growing as you accelerate harder and harder. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at one hundred and fifty or one hundred and forty,
Speaker 2: the gas car is at twenty two point one seconds.
Speaker 1: How quick is this one fifteen point four? It's crazy.
Speaker 1: You feel the torque, you feel the power, but it's
Speaker 1: just one linear blast. You don't get the change in
Speaker 1: the engine revolutions. You don't get the gear shifts. And
Speaker 1: there's drama in that. I mean there's drama in this
Speaker 1: because you're pressed so hard into the seat, but there's
Speaker 1: drama in those gear shifts. There's real character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does it a certain way that you have
Speaker 2: to appreciate. You know, it's a lot harder to make
Speaker 2: a gear change that smooth. It's a lot harder to
Speaker 2: make all those reciprocating parts move in concert that way.
Speaker 2: And I think you innately just appreciate that.
Speaker 1: So for me, when a machine works hard is when
Speaker 1: I find it most rewarding. Electric cars don't ever feel
Speaker 1: like they're working that hard. They just do it, and
Speaker 1: they do it like sort of blindly, like a with
Speaker 1: a flat face. It just gets it done, and it's
Speaker 1: brutal and it's quick, but a GASCAR really feels like
Speaker 1: it's working to do it.
Speaker 2: It's uncanny Valley, it really is. You know, this thing
Speaker 2: is robotic. Now, let's see if you can change the
Speaker 2: cornery attitude in this car the way you could with
Speaker 2: the five forty.
Speaker 1: I mean it feels similar. I feel like it feels
Speaker 1: a little bit heavier. The steering actually feels a little
Speaker 1: nicer than the gas car. Yeah, definitely, mean what the
Speaker 1: tires are doing. You can feel what the tires are doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit. The steering feels nicer, there's more feedback,
Speaker 1: there's more waiting. It just feels like a bit more
Speaker 1: connected in a way that the other steering didn't. It
Speaker 1: also speaks to your theory that maybe they've got the
Speaker 1: best people on the electric car.
Speaker 2: What about breaking, did you get a sense of you know,
Speaker 2: break field modulation. You know, because this has a both
Speaker 2: regenerative and friction braking system.
Speaker 1: It's blended beautifully. A break pedal feels just as good
Speaker 1: as it does in the five forty, And the five
Speaker 1: forty has a really nice break pedal, super predictable, really linear,
Speaker 1: it's not doing anything weird and grabbing as the handoff
Speaker 1: from the regenerative breaks to the friction breaks happens. I
Speaker 1: can't really discern a difference. I mean, it feels really great,
Speaker 1: well tuned. Huh. Yeah, we've used five percent of the
Speaker 1: battery just in the time that we've left the office.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. A couple of short acceleration blasts and that's
Speaker 1: what happens. But yeah, I mean the immediacy of the
Speaker 1: response of an electric car is intoxicating. I do have
Speaker 1: to say, like in passing in our five to sixty tests,
Speaker 1: basically what we try to do in the five to
Speaker 1: sixty test is recreate what happens on the street. In
Speaker 1: the street, you're not setting your car up for launch control,
Speaker 1: you're not doing all that nonsense. You're just matting the throttle.
Speaker 1: So we roll at five miles an hour, stomp on
Speaker 1: the accelerator, and the difference between the gas car and
Speaker 1: the electric car is remarkable. The gas car does it
Speaker 1: in five seconds, so it adds a second to its
Speaker 1: zero to sixty. In the electric car, I think you
Speaker 1: only add three tenses, yes, three, six, yeah, So I
Speaker 1: mean this thing you can line up to anyone at
Speaker 1: a dragstrip. You don't have to do very much to
Speaker 1: prepare the car. You really don't have to do very
Speaker 1: much more than just stomping on the accelerator and flooring
Speaker 1: it and making sure that you hold your foot down.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just that simple.
Speaker 2: I can say anecdotally that EV drivers, EV sedan drivers
Speaker 2: drive like complete maniacs. They're going for all the whole shots.
Speaker 2: I mean they're put in the accord and ultimate guys
Speaker 2: to shame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you can do it. I mean you just
Speaker 1: you just squeeze the you squeeze the accelerator. You're always
Speaker 1: in the right gear. You have this all this immediate torque,
Speaker 1: and the car just delivers the acceleration. Let's try it now.
Speaker 1: Let's let's try it if we shut the iconic sounds
Speaker 1: off and accelerate. Okay, oh yeah, that's even more robotic.
Speaker 1: It's just it doesn't even make any noise. It's soulless,
Speaker 1: but it's quick. I mean it snaps your head back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does, go back to iconic sounds. I'm not hating
Speaker 1: it that much. In this car, the iconic sounds. This
Speaker 1: actually sounds like an internal combustion engine. They've really faked it.
Speaker 2: I think it sounds more like, you know, a kind
Speaker 2: of ev sounds signature, which I appreciate, like it.
Speaker 1: Should sound like what it is.
Speaker 2: There's a little grit at the bottom end. But I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: sitting in the passenger seat, I like the experience of
Speaker 2: the five forty.
Speaker 1: Bet you were more involved too. I mean, anytime you're shifting,
Speaker 1: even if it's through the paddles of an automatic, you're
Speaker 1: still taking control of the car.
Speaker 2: And that's ultimately what a sports dance about. Feedback sensitivity.
Speaker 1: Joy. Although I gotta say I'll take the steering of
Speaker 1: this one every day of the week. It's really sweet. Fair.
Speaker 2: They gotta do something to keep you involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do these things cost? Oh? Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good question. I think this one starts around in the
Speaker 1: high eighties for the electric and there aren't too many options.
Speaker 1: And the five forty is I think it's in the
Speaker 1: sixty six thousand dollars range base price, but this one
Speaker 1: has at least ten thousand dollars worth of options on
Speaker 1: it to make it basically the same spec as the
Speaker 1: I'm sixty. Okay, what do you like better? Like the
Speaker 1: five forty. I think I'd buy the five forty. How
Speaker 1: about you? Eddie? You always want to buy one.
Speaker 2: I always want one to buy one. It's a five
Speaker 2: forty for me, Doug. I just love that straight six.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't really care that this is quicker. Four
Speaker 1: seconds of sixty is quick enough, and even in the
Speaker 1: rolling start the real world number five seconds is still
Speaker 1: plenty quick, still quick, and it's a really enjoyable five
Speaker 1: seconds because the car is straining, you're going through the gears,
Speaker 1: you're hearing it. It's special and it works for me.
Speaker 1: That's the one i'd buy. Yeah, I agree, Well, that
Speaker 1: was fun. I know which car we would choose. But
Speaker 1: who are these cars? Four? I mean, they're very different cars.
Speaker 1: Who's each one? Four? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And I think the EV world is sort of separated
Speaker 2: into the halfs and have knots, right, those people who
Speaker 2: have a garage or or regular place to charge it
Speaker 2: in those who don't. For car like this, a performance
Speaker 2: EV that's draining the battery at a pretty alarming rate,
Speaker 2: you need a place to plug in, if not every night,
Speaker 2: than every other night.
Speaker 1: It totally has to work for you, and that's such
Speaker 1: a big element of it. And it also depends on
Speaker 1: the tire size and the wheel size. The nineteens get
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty six miles of range in the
Speaker 1: EPA testing. If you go to twenty inches you get
Speaker 1: the best range of two hundred and seventy eight miles.
Speaker 1: But if you do what we did and have the
Speaker 1: twenty one inch wheels with the summer tires, your range
Speaker 1: goes all the way down to two hundred and forty miles. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's not just the size, it's also the compound, right, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: To answer the question of who would buy the EV
Speaker 2: over the Straight six, it's someone who welcomes our robot
Speaker 2: overlords because that thing is dead eyed. It's insanely quick,
Speaker 2: it's impressive as hell, but it's soulless.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the soul's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and BMWs should be about souls definitely.
Speaker 1: When we return, we're speaking with product planner John Kelly,
Speaker 1: who works in BMW's US Product and Strategy department.
Speaker 2: Stay Tuned, Welcome back to Car and Drivers into Cars.
Speaker 2: Product planner John Kelly works in BMW's US Product and
Speaker 2: Strategy department, and he's responsible for both the electric and
Speaker 2: gas versions of the BMW five series. Welcome to in
Speaker 2: the cars, John, We've driven both of these cars back
Speaker 2: to back and we have some thoughts and questions.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about the strategy of building an electric
Speaker 1: and GASCAR off the same platform. The cluster platform allows
Speaker 1: you to do that. What are some of the benefits
Speaker 1: and what are some of the compromises.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, as you mentioned, the current architecture that the
Speaker 3: five series is built on is referred to as our
Speaker 3: cluster architecture. It's actually a very very flexible architecture. It
Speaker 3: allows us to build many different drive trains on the
Speaker 3: same chassis. So in the US we have the combustion
Speaker 3: engine cars, and it's not just combustion engine PEV or
Speaker 3: full BEV, but even within those there's a lot of
Speaker 3: complexity and a lot of variation, and this is really
Speaker 3: important to us for us to be able to offer
Speaker 3: the customers exactly what they want. And in this case,
Speaker 3: we have one architecture where we have combustion engines. In
Speaker 3: the US, we have a four cylinder and a traditional
Speaker 3: BMWN nine six, which is really fantastic. We have the
Speaker 3: plug in hybrid, so this is a six cylinder plug
Speaker 3: in hybrid that comes out this summer. This car makes
Speaker 3: over four hundred and eighty horse power. But then we
Speaker 3: also have the fully electric variant, and even there we
Speaker 3: have we actually have three different models, but two of
Speaker 3: them are quite similar. So we have the forties in
Speaker 3: re real drive with one E machine. We have the
Speaker 3: X drive forty two E machines, one front, one rear,
Speaker 3: and then we have our performance variant with nearly six
Speaker 3: hundred horsepower. That's the one I drive every day and
Speaker 3: the car is awesome.
Speaker 2: That's what we drove too. So how do you achieve
Speaker 2: that platform flexibility? I mean, short wave of answer asking
Speaker 2: that question is where do all the batteries go?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's pretty straightforward, and actually it's something that
Speaker 3: I hope you recognize when you were driving the car
Speaker 3: is the batteries are below the floor, so they're between
Speaker 3: the wheelbase, between the track below the floor. Despite the
Speaker 3: battery being quite heavy, it gives you a nice low
Speaker 3: center of gravity and the carstial handles like you would
Speaker 3: expect to a mid size BMW sports sedan to handle.
Speaker 3: But you mentioned what does it take to be able
Speaker 3: to do this in one platform and the answer is
Speaker 3: it's not that simple. It's not as easy as just
Speaker 3: let's say, taking out the combustion engine. It's really quite
Speaker 3: complex because you need to start with a platform that's
Speaker 3: flexible enough to allow you to do this without significant downsides.
Speaker 3: So if you were to just, let's say, take out
Speaker 3: the combustion engine, you're going to have major inefficiencies in
Speaker 3: terms of packaging and weight and so forth. But by
Speaker 3: using our cluster architecture, which is very flexible, it allows
Speaker 3: us to package these components in a very intelligent way,
Speaker 3: such as having the battery below the floor. We have
Speaker 3: what we call a heat unit, so it's a highly
Speaker 3: integrated drive train unit, so has your electric motor, transmission
Speaker 3: and power electronics all in one housing. And fitting that
Speaker 3: in the front where you can fit a rather long
Speaker 3: inline six engine not terribly difficult. But in the rear
Speaker 3: it is where in the rear typically you have a
Speaker 3: differential and not much else. So by using an architecture
Speaker 3: that is adaptable and can fit these components quite easily,
Speaker 3: you end up being able to fit them without many
Speaker 3: downsides in terms of packaging.
Speaker 1: I have a question about the BMWi three and sort
Speaker 1: of how that relates to the cluster architecture in the
Speaker 1: current five series. The I three was a pretty radical
Speaker 1: ev carbon fiber structure. It was pretty exotic vehicle and
Speaker 1: now it seems like you've shifted over to a conventional sedan.
Speaker 1: Is that sort of a reaction to how the I
Speaker 1: three did in the marketplace or was it an expense thing?
Speaker 1: How does the I three fit into the strategy today?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good question, and to be honest,
Speaker 3: that's one that I love talking about because I've been
Speaker 3: with the company for twenty years, and prior to the
Speaker 3: ten years i'm in product management, I was in product engineering.
Speaker 3: I had the pleasure of, while I was in product
Speaker 3: engineering of working on the I three and I eight
Speaker 3: and launching those products, so I know them in a
Speaker 3: very detailed technical way, and the cars were very much
Speaker 3: ahead of their times in many ways. That carbon fiber
Speaker 3: passenger cell was spectacular, lightweight, very strong, and so forth.
Speaker 3: A little challenging to produce, of course, but that was
Speaker 3: I would say, a very unique example basically a two
Speaker 3: door hatch which has a relatively small or limited market
Speaker 3: in the US, and it used technology that was perfect
Speaker 3: for a low volume kind of niche product like the
Speaker 3: I three was, but it doesn't scale as well to
Speaker 3: big volume products like what we have today with I four,
Speaker 3: I five, I seven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I three was really an exotic car.
Speaker 3: It was, and you look at the construction, the fact
Speaker 3: that had the range extender, it had a heat pump,
Speaker 3: which at the time was not very common in electro vehicles.
Speaker 3: So it really had a lot of fantastic technology which
Speaker 3: we learned a lot from and we learned a lot
Speaker 3: about how customers use the cars and what they expect,
Speaker 3: and all that transfers into the future products that we're planning.
Speaker 3: But of course it didn't make sense to continue with
Speaker 3: that particular car when we want to scale up into
Speaker 3: larger volume vehicles and we have such a great tradition
Speaker 3: and fan base when it comes to our sports sedans
Speaker 3: that that's the perfect opportunity to expand the BEV offerings
Speaker 3: is with sports sedans, they have much more potential, and
Speaker 3: so to do that in a way that looks similar
Speaker 3: to the combustion engines was a great opportunity, but still
Speaker 3: utilizing some of those learnings from the I three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it strikes us as really a smart strategy.
Speaker 2: So you can throttle volume on the ice cars versus
Speaker 2: the evs with the same model line, the same sort
Speaker 2: of marketing behind it. Effectively, the EV becomes another powertrain
Speaker 2: option for the five series, and so what has the
Speaker 2: model mix been so far.
Speaker 3: It's fairly evenly split between ICE and BEV. I think
Speaker 3: the ICE actually is a little bit higher, but not
Speaker 3: too much, which is also, I have to say, a
Speaker 3: pretty big testament to how good the car is and
Speaker 3: how well it's being received, because if you look at
Speaker 3: our overall growth with electric vehicles last quarter, we were
Speaker 3: up sixty two percent from the same quart of the
Speaker 3: year before, so there's a lot of growth there. But
Speaker 3: even still, that was a twelve percent overall BEV mix
Speaker 3: in the portfolio twelve percent we're in the five series.
Speaker 3: It's far far higher than that, So it just shows
Speaker 3: I mean, granted, we don't have electric vehicles in every
Speaker 3: segment just yet, but it just shows that there is
Speaker 3: a lot of demand there if you have the right product.
Speaker 2: One of our favorite three Slash four series cars is
Speaker 2: the I four and that has a lot of the
Speaker 2: BMW hallmarks in that package. It just feels like a BMW.
Speaker 2: And BMW's known for that driving soul, that driving you know, engagement,
Speaker 2: and a huge part of that has been its internal
Speaker 2: combustion engines, specifically straight sixes. So how do you get
Speaker 2: that soul. I think you've done it with the I four.
Speaker 2: How do you get that soul into a big car
Speaker 2: like the five series.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, a number of good points, and the first one,
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, the inline six, it's iconic. It's got
Speaker 3: sol interesting to note the current five series generation, the
Speaker 3: five traditional six cylinder, is only for the US. When
Speaker 3: we talked about what we're planning and why we plan it,
Speaker 3: we look at what do we need in the market,
Speaker 3: and of course a five forty I with a traditional
Speaker 3: inline six traditional sports today and proportions traditional sports today
Speaker 3: and BMW lateral dynamics and so forth is super super important,
Speaker 3: and this was something we fought very hard for to
Speaker 3: ensure we got it in the US. There's no question
Speaker 3: from my side, fantastic car, the acoustics that come along
Speaker 3: with an inline six, the smooth running characteristics of an
Speaker 3: inline six, I mean, they're undoubted. When it comes to
Speaker 3: combustion engines, with an electric, of course, things are different,
Speaker 3: and our engineers have worked incredibly hard on developing the
Speaker 3: electric drive train as well as the chassis and the
Speaker 3: dynamics and the steering and the brakes and so forth
Speaker 3: to ensure that you still have the best overall package.
Speaker 3: It doesn't sound like an and as it shouldn't, but
Speaker 3: the engineers have done a great job of giving it
Speaker 3: its own character and its own sound, and so it
Speaker 3: does have what we call iconic sounds. And this you
Speaker 3: can switch on or off depending on what you prefer,
Speaker 3: and it does give you some acoustics that, let's say,
Speaker 3: are aligned with the power demand and the power output
Speaker 3: of the vehicle. I've been driving an I five M
Speaker 3: sixty every single day for the last six months or so,
Speaker 3: and one of the things that I realized when I'm
Speaker 3: driving this is I'm a gearhead. I always have been
Speaker 3: since I was a little kid. I've owned many M
Speaker 3: cars and I still have you know, ones on the
Speaker 3: side and so forth. And despite that, I absolutely love
Speaker 3: driving the I five M sixty. And what you mentioned
Speaker 3: about the soul and that character, one thing I noticed
Speaker 3: was that the other attributes tend to take over a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 1: And I actually drive.
Speaker 3: The car despite somebody that likes, you know, loud exhausts
Speaker 3: and so forth, I actually drive the car in silent mode,
Speaker 3: and I actually spend more time honing in and paying
Speaker 3: attention to the characteristics and the steering characteristics and maybe
Speaker 3: exploiting them a little more than I have in the
Speaker 3: past as well. So I think it's not that it's
Speaker 3: a downside. I would just say it's different, right, The
Speaker 3: soul is different, the characteristics are different, but you still
Speaker 3: have all of those dynamic characteristics.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: With that in mind, and because of the performance of
Speaker 2: the I five, especially the M sixty that we drove
Speaker 2: is so staggering, where does that leave the M five.
Speaker 3: So I am super excited about the M five. I
Speaker 3: hope my smile says it all. I can't wait for
Speaker 3: this car. Unfortunately I can't get into all the details.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit too early, but overall it leaves
Speaker 3: plenty of room because here we have we have a
Speaker 3: V eight. It's a plug in hybrid. The power is
Speaker 3: far beyond what we've seen on the previous M five.
Speaker 3: Performance is absolutely fantastic. And with an electric vehicle versus
Speaker 3: a combustion engine or plug in hybrid, it's not just
Speaker 3: about power output. It's about the overall package, the overall
Speaker 3: feeling and the emotion that it gives you. And as
Speaker 3: much as I love my I five sixty, it's not
Speaker 3: an M five. It's different. It's an M performance vehicle,
Speaker 3: not a full high performance vehicle like DM five is.
Speaker 3: So it's something that we're really excited about and it
Speaker 3: really is a fantastic package.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't wait for that as a former E
Speaker 1: thirty nine five forty six speed owner. And that's the
Speaker 1: car for people who don't know the internal product codes.
Speaker 1: That was built the five series built from nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: seven to two thousand and three. I'm curious if you've
Speaker 1: been influenced on some of those classic BMWs, if you've
Speaker 1: driven those classic five series and M fives.
Speaker 3: So it's funny you mentioned that I love talking about
Speaker 3: older BMW's and my experiences, and like I said, I'm
Speaker 3: a gearhead. Even from the time I was a little kid,
Speaker 3: I would always ask for automotive publications for Christmas, not
Speaker 3: a new baseball bat or whatever, and read them cover
Speaker 3: to cover. That was just that was my thing, and
Speaker 3: that's what led me through engineering and into the auto industry,
Speaker 3: and throughout all of that. I've always loved driving some
Speaker 3: of the old cars and being inspired by them in
Speaker 3: many senses. It's funny you mentioned the E thirty nine
Speaker 3: because I actually just sold my E thirty nine M
Speaker 3: five and this car was fantastic.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 3: And one thing we see is that every generation the
Speaker 3: cars change, and not just about being better or worse,
Speaker 3: it's that they're different. So the E thirty nine you
Speaker 3: had the V eight naturally aspirated. Then you had E
Speaker 3: sixty V ten a V ten with it. You could
Speaker 3: have it with a manual transmission and it revs to
Speaker 3: over eight thousand rpm and the sounds it makes at
Speaker 3: those speeds is absolutely spectacular. And then we went to
Speaker 3: a twin turbo V eight and so on and so on.
Speaker 3: So things have evolved quite a lot. And having been
Speaker 3: in the company for a while and in the industry
Speaker 3: for a while, you learn a lot from these in
Speaker 3: terms of what makes people, what gets them excited, what
Speaker 3: makes them want to buy these cars, and things evolve. Right,
Speaker 3: So the days of having the naturally aspirated V ten,
Speaker 3: that's behind us. But we have many other great things
Speaker 3: coming forward, such as now with the new M five
Speaker 3: with a V eight twin turbo with electricis cation to
Speaker 3: support it and just enhance the overall experience. So the
Speaker 3: short answer is yes. Absolutely. Being a fan of the
Speaker 3: older cars, we always use them as inspiration as.
Speaker 1: We move forward, what was your first car?
Speaker 3: My first BMW was an E thirty before I worked
Speaker 3: for BMW. This car was really a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: I ended up turning it into an autocross car and
Speaker 3: then took it to the track and so forth. So
Speaker 3: that was my first BMW. My first ever car was
Speaker 3: a Volkswagen Karado VR six.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, this car.
Speaker 3: This car was cool. I really enjoyed the car, but
Speaker 3: as much as I enjoyed it being a front wheel
Speaker 3: drive car, once I started driving real, real drive cars,
Speaker 3: I really started to not just appreciate them, but just
Speaker 3: enjoy driving re real drive cars more. And that's when
Speaker 3: I started driving BMW's. But yeah, Karado VR six, it
Speaker 3: was a cool car.
Speaker 1: Not the nerd out a little, but the M twenty
Speaker 1: in line six, the two point five liter is so
Speaker 1: characteristically similar to that BR six engine. It's amazing, and
Speaker 1: even the power everything is so similar to them. So
Speaker 1: it seems like a natural that you then went into
Speaker 1: a three twenty five. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually they did make around the same amount of power.
Speaker 3: They sounded different, but they both sounded excellent.
Speaker 1: They're super smooth, yeah.
Speaker 3: Super smooth, fun to drive.
Speaker 1: That's such a cool first car.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was really cool. It's one of those cars,
Speaker 3: you know. I think people say this very often about
Speaker 3: their first car, like you never should have sold it,
Speaker 3: just even if you don't drive it anymore, just put
Speaker 3: it away somewhere. And I feel that way about my
Speaker 3: first BMW as well. I probably shouldn't have sold it,
Speaker 3: but I did.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: This is great, John. Thank you so much for your
Speaker 2: insight and your passion. And keep cranking them out man, Yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you. That interview was brought to you by eBay Motors.
Speaker 2: Visit ebaymotors dot com for more.
Speaker 1: Car friends. Today, we examined and drove two cars that
Speaker 1: are very similar but also incredibly different. We asked ourselves
Speaker 1: the question electric or gas. Although the I five is
Speaker 1: quicker and more efficient, the sound of an engine straining
Speaker 1: and the serial nature of combustion still captivates and delights us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I'm old school. I'll take the five
Speaker 2: forty every day. And that's what we came here to
Speaker 2: find out. Which is the better sports seed in The
Speaker 2: five point forty is just more rewarding. It gives you
Speaker 2: more feedback, It's more visceral.
Speaker 1: For more on the BMW five forty, I X Drive
Speaker 1: and I five M sixty. Visit carent driver dot com
Speaker 1: and be sure to pick up the latest issue of
Speaker 1: carent Driver magazine.
Speaker 2: Tune in next week where we take you on an
Speaker 2: insider's tour of Cadillac House in Warren, Michigan. We'll sit
Speaker 2: down with the team behind the all new Cadillacs Celestic
Speaker 2: to learn more about its design and engineering.
Speaker 1: And then the center tunnel. We turned the pouches that
Speaker 1: are about half the width of the car. We turn
Speaker 1: them ninety degrees and there's two stacks of twelve down
Speaker 1: the meddown the mount under the center console. Here like
Speaker 1: a Fiera gas tank. I can't think of a more
Speaker 1: elegant reference, but yes, I like a Hiera guess. Thank guest.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on Car and Drivers into Cars.
Speaker 2: If you enjoyed the show, join us every week for
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Speaker 1: Car Drivers into Cars is produced by Ruby Studio from
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia in partnership with Car and Driver and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Tony Kiroga and Eddie Alterman. And visit Carndriver dot
Speaker 1: com for the latest car reviews and news.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer is Matt Romano. Our EP of Post
Speaker 2: production is Matt Stillo, along with supervising producer Sierra Kaiser.
Speaker 1: This show was edited by Sierra Spreen special thanks to
Speaker 1: our location sound recordist Matthew Sisco. Thanks for listening. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next time.