BMW i5 Touring - long-term review

Winter has set in, and any minute now those smug 4x4s drivers are going to be laughing in the face of rear-wheel drive BMW drivers. Hang on, I’ve just remembered my wife drives a 4x4. Whoops.

I’ll be honest: I’ve been slightly nervous about the thought of having all that instant e-power under my right foot when it comes to the season of snow and ice. How would I live down becoming the clichéd BMW driver seen scrabbling for grip in ‘weather chaos’ news report? Although, snow, power, low grip, rear drive… you know what I’m thinking.

Luckily, the cold snap didn’t flummox the i5 or have me on the front page on the local newspaper. Coming home one night with snow settling fast on the country lanes I feared the worst but to my surprise there was little drop in grip. And a surprising advantage of running an EV came to light in the use of ‘B mode’, increasing the brake re-gen when lifting off to coast.

It’s really useful for low grip conditions as it’s using regen energy to slow the car. I tried a firmer press of the brakes for comparison and the difference was frightening.

Other advantages running EVs in the winter? Well, there’s ‘pre-conditioning’ using the app or iDrive to tell the car to warm up slowly for a scheduled departure time. No more de-icing for me: that gives you back hours of your life in the morning. In your face combustion-engined 4x4 owner.

The preconditioning can be done via the My BMW app so if you forget to set it up in the car you can do it from the comfort of your cosy lie-in. It’s simple to set up and register - simply add your car by entering your VIN number and off you go.

In the app you can do all sorts of clever things. I’ve discovered it’ll remotely park your car (future report incoming!) and display your range, show the car’s parked location, allow you to unlock or lock it remotely where the key would never reach, where the chargers are, software updates… the list is endless and somewhat scary. I could never imagine my eighty-year-old mum and dad ever getting to grips with it all. But cool, nonetheless.

But there’s the obvious downside to winter EV motoring as I hinted at previously. Range has tumbled to a poor 180-200 miles.

It’s disappointing to be honest as the i5 was doing so well to assuage my EV-scepticism, but the winter range plummet leaves it much less useable for my regular driving needs. Maybe I should borrow the family 4x4 for winter.