The first BMW M5 was the E28, introduced in 1984, which makes the badge 41 years old this year. Photo: James Coleman.
Now that Labor has swept to power again with the same ease as you might brush an errant crumb from your desk, the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) is now all but locked in and will start in Australia from 1 July.
BMW, for one, is ready.
The NVES essentially aims to tip the balance of Australia’s car fleet in favour of those powered by either batteries or lawn-mower engines by requiring a car maker (trickle-down economics means this is actually you) to pay the government ‘credits’ if its products average more than a certain level of C02.
But what BMW has done with the new M5 sedan is fit a battery and electric motor to a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 to make a plug-in hybrid, with a pure electric range of up to 68 km. That’ll fool them.
In seriousness, I consulted the federal government’s Green Vehicle Guide to see if there’s any improvement to C02 emissions, and while the old V8 M5 recorded combined tailpipe emissions of 243 g/km in its lab tests, the new one is a much leaner 68 – about 13 CO2s better than a Toyota Corolla.
Of course, in the real world, we know this is pointless. There are not enough M5 owners in the world that 175 more g/km will make one dot of difference to anything. It’s brownie points. (Or should that be greenie?)
So, is it at least faster? Um, well, it turns out slogging the M5 with all this electrickery came at a cost – kerb weight has blown out to a small-house-sized 2510 kg (nearly half a tonne more than the old M5).
It does make more power and torque – a truly staggering 535 kW and 1000 Nm – but it’s slower to get from 0 to 100 km/h than its predecessor because of its added heft (3.5 seconds, compared to the old M5’s 3.3).
At some point, this weight will also be a problem for handling. But after spending a week with one – admittedly on public roads – I’m not sure anyone will ever find where that point is. Because – enough with figures – in the same vein as the Audi RS6, the M5 is essentially a supercar with three extra seats and a boot.
A beautiful place to sit, even in the back seats. Photo: James Coleman.
It definitely has the face for it – full of holes, and all mean and squat. Some say it looks hideous, and a Transformer-esque turd on the graves of former, sleeker M5s. But maybe it’s the metallic purply-green paint doing its hypnotic work, I actually quite like the looks.
It is also phenomenally quick. There is probably a Nepalese monk out there who has lived long enough to delve through the digital menus for ‘M-Hybrid’ and ‘M-Mode’ and ‘Vehicle Setup’ and try out all the various combinations. But I simply maxed out everything I could find – drivetrain, chassis, steering, brake and something called Drivelogic – and put my foot down. The tyres scramble for a moment before hurling you savagely towards the horizon and – in gut-punchingly short order – life in prison (and that’s without pulling the left paddle on the steering wheel for extra ‘boost’).
You can’t even tell the electric motor is working to fill in the gaps – you still get the rise and fall of the revs, the savage gear changes, and the vibrations through the throttle. All that glorious, heart-thumping internal-combustion stuff.
Together with the tight handling, it really is impossible to know how heavy it is.
And when you’re finished having your fun in ‘Dynamic Plus’, it is at least novel that if you want to get from Sydney to Canberra on a quarter of a tank of fuel, or get to work without waking the neighbours, you can – simply by flicking to ‘Hybrid’ or ‘Electric’. (If you can find the menu for it.)
Much like the RS6, a $259,990 M5 feels like a bit of a bargain in this way – you’re basically getting three personalities in one.
But – and this is where M purists will shake their heads- the trade-off is a car that feels more like a computer game. And I’m not talking about the screen graphics, or the wave of red and blue light across the dash when you get in, both of which are excellent.
The steering is super sharp, but there’s not a lot of feeling. And while the V8 rumbles like a bona fide thunderstorm, I could never work out whether that was real, or something piped into the cabin artificially as ‘M Sound’.
As deeply impressive as this new seventh generation is, part of my heart wants the simple old M5 back. It’s not like the polar bear is going to suffer for it either.
You can pretty much have your M5 in any colour you can think of. Photo: James Coleman.
2025 BMW M5 G90
- $259,900 (plus on-road costs)
- 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, electric motor, 535 kW / 1000 Nm (total system output)
- 8-speed automatic, all-wheel drive (AWD)
- 0-100 km/h in 3.5 seconds, 305 km/h top speed
- 3.0 litres per 100 km combined fuel consumption
- 2510 kg.
Thanks to BMW Australia for providing this car for testing. Region has no commercial arrangement with BMW Australia.
