Is the BMW M5 a Good Car?
- The redesigned 2025 BMW M5 is an amazing technological tour de force capable of incredible feats of speed, but it might be too complicated for its own good.
How Does the BMW M5 Compare With Other Sports Sedans?
- Having an all-electric mode in addition to a gas-electric hybrid mode is useful for foreign cities with congestion charges, but in the U.S., it’s an unnecessary weight and tech complication that some competitors don’t have; it makes the M5 heavy, which in turn makes BMW amp up the tech to hide all that mass.
The BMW M5 might just be one of the world’s great iconic cars. It’s a performance legend that’s been a rock star on strip and screen, a nameplate firmly etched into the minds of performance car enthusiasts everywhere as an object of desire for what the thing can do.
Its mission hasn’t changed much over the years. Redesigned for 2025, it’s still an object of desire that commands a following of loyal customers — albeit ones with very, very deep pockets. But the M5 has changed from what it used to be. No longer a common sedan with a big engine and tuned suspension, the 2025 M5 is an animal unto itself: It’s been electrified with a full plug-in hybrid system, including a decent-sized lithium-ion battery that allows it to drive an EPA-estimated 27 miles on electricity alone. But it still has its twin-turbo V-8 engine, and this dual-powertrain strategy means the M5 tips the scales at nearly 5,400 pounds (almost as much as a base Chevrolet Tahoe SUV!) despite significant use of structural aluminum and carbon fiber.
Related: New Milestone, New Benchmark: 2025 BMW M5 Surpasses 700 Horsepower
So, the 2025 M5 is the most advanced, sophisticated one BMW has ever created — but does that make it the best one ever made? Or has the extra powertrain and suspension tech overloaded the M5, turning it from a hot and nimble sports sedan into a Porky Pig space capsule? I spent a week with the latest model and came away feeling that it’s now both of those things.
How Much Does a 2025 BMW M5 Cost?
The 2025 (and 2026) M5 comes in only one trim level, and the price is unchanged from ’25 to ’26; the starting price of the Dingolfing, Germany-built M5 is $120,675 (all prices include a $1,175 destination fee) for both model years. The price for my test vehicle, however, came to $144,825 thanks to a number of option packages, including a Driving Assistance Professional Package ($1,700), a Carbon Package ($3,100), M Carbon Ceramic Brakes ($8,500), an M Driver’s Package ($2,500), an Executive Package ($1,850), a $3,500 matte-finish paint job, $300 for carbon-fiber-thread seat trim — and an eye-popping $2,600 gas-guzzler tax. That’s right, this is a plug-in hybrid with a gas-guzzler penalty. How exactly does that happen? Read on.
Still Incredibly Capable
Despite the switch to a PHEV powertrain, the latest M5 is still one hell of a sports machine. Slip into the grippy seats, push the start button and … maybe you’ll be greeted by the rumble of that German V-8 and maybe you won’t. If there’s plenty of charge in the 14.8-kilowatt-hour (usable) lithium-ion battery pack, it might not; the M5 will keep itself in electric mode until you ask it not to, either by putting it in one of the car’s myriad sport modes or by driving more aggressively than the electric motor itself can manage. The V-8 engine alone makes 577 horsepower and 553 pounds-feet of torque, which are huge numbers by themselves. But if you’re being careful, or have the M5 in Electric mode, you’ll instead operate on just the electric motor’s output, which is a healthy 194 hp and 207 pounds-feet of torque. That’s not a lot for a 5,400-pound sedan, but it’s enough to get you through urban stop-and-go traffic with no problem whatsoever. The odd thing is that even in Electric mode, there’s still piped-in internal-combustion engine sounds, which made me raise an eyebrow and squint at the tachometer to make sure the engine was off. Crazy.
When you are ready to fire up that engine, just point the M5 at your favorite bit of twisty backcountry road, change a few settings … wait, no, better pull over and stop the car first. There are so many settings you can customize to your tastes, and doing so will require your undivided “transmission-in-Park” attention. These include settings for steering feel, transmission behavior, accelerator response, suspension firmness, engine noise (or lack thereof) and stability control. It’s a dizzying array of options to read through and choose from if you don’t want to just go with BMW’s preset adjustments. Once you’ve found a combination you like, you can save the various settings to the “M” buttons on the steering wheel for quick changes between modes. I like to set the left M1 button to the most comfortable settings I can program and the right M2 button to an aggressive sport mode (but not a track mode; if I’m not on a track, I keep stability control on). That way, if I find myself in a situation where immediate aggressive driving is required, a quick stab of the right-side M2 button will transform the M5 from a sedate electric sedan into a backyard brawler in seconds.
But then, “brawler” might not actually be the right descriptor. So much technology has been packed into the M5 to keep it quick and agile despite its mass that it ends up feeling remarkably unengaging to drive quickly. You will never, ever approach this car’s limits on the street — or even reasonably sample its true capabilities; you’ll need a closed-course track to really get the M5 to its limits safely. Out on my favorite twisty roads, the M5’s quietness and isolation mask the speed it’s delivering. The ease of its handling, the levelness of its body control and the ridiculously strong grip delivered by the carbon-ceramic brakes means you’re relaxed and calm even when barreling through curves and sweepers. It doesn’t require much attention, effort or even input to do extraordinary things.
Acceleration is just point and shoot. When braking, the gentlest press of the pedal generates massive reductions in speed. There’s no body roll thanks to the M5’s electronically controlled adaptive suspension, and the all-wheel-drive system and rear-wheel steering help generate astonishing grip and uncanny agility in all kinds of conditions. A sports sedan is supposed to be exciting and engaging — challenging, even — but the M5 is so overly competent, so electronically controlled, that it’s hard to get your pulse going when driving it … which is something I’ve never before said about any car with north of 700 hp, but there it is. The M5 is incredibly competent but almost anticlimactic in how it goes about doing things. It feels overengineered to the point that the connection with the driver has been largely designed out.
The Plastic-Fantastic Cabin
At least the interior colors are exciting, especially my test car’s extended Merino leather in red and black. That red is red, but I love it. It’s bold, it’s flashy, it’s everything the outside of the M5, which I drove in a matte-finish Frozen Deep Gray paint, is not. It’s a seriously cool pop of color that greets you when you open the door, getting you ready for an experience you expect will be extraordinary. Then you plant yourself in the seat and realize the rest of the interior materials are a letdown. That’s due to BMW’s latest design aesthetic, which uses clear crystal-faceted plastic trim on the dash and doors over color-changing LED strips. When the lights aren’t active, they just look like cheap clear plastic. They’re a bit more impressive when the car is on and it’s dark outside, but overall, the M5’s interior materials quality feels cheap. There are also thin plastic panels everywhere that don’t feel indicative of the car’s sticker price.
The enormous rectangular screen in front of you doesn’t help, either. For better or worse, the latest trend of plunking a massive touchscreen display atop a dashboard is present in the latest 5 Series, along with most BMWs (and competitor vehicles, it should be noted). It doesn’t feel any better here than it does in any competitor, sadly, with an acre of black plastic in front of you that lights up with BMW’s difficult-to-quickly-decipher control systems. The climate controls are entirely touch-sensitive, and they’re not all that intuitive to use. Changing other vehicle settings or finding an app you want to use means you get to scroll through sizable menus of icons before getting to what you need.
Owners likely won’t have too much problem with this, as repetition breeds familiarity; just set things as you want them and you won’t need to touch much again. And there’s always the voice controls as a last resort if you can’t find what you want.
So while the interior may be an assault on the eyes with its colors (in a good way) and a distraction to use (in a bad way), it is at least comfortable — at least up front. The driver and front-passenger seats aren’t too heavily bolstered; they’re comfortable and supportive. Visibility is decent (once you look past the IMAX screen on the dash), and I think I could last all day in there on the autobahns between Stuttgart and Munich. It’s less exciting on Interstate 94 between Detroit and Ann Arbor, but just as comfortable.
The backseat is surprisingly tight, however; legroom is at a premium thanks to the 5 Series’ rear-wheel-drive configuration and the packaging needs of its nearly 15-kWh lithium-ion battery. For families with kids, however, it’ll do just fine — and if more cargo space and better backseat headroom are required, BMW is bringing a wagon version of the M5 to the U.S. called the M5 Touring. When’s the last time an automaker decided to bring a wagon back to the U.S.? Answer: a couple of years ago, when Audi released the RS 6 Avant and found everyone wanted one. The M5 Touring is pretty much a direct answer to the Audi’s arrival here, and that’s amazing.
Should You Get a 2025 BMW M5?
If you’ve owned a spate of M5s over the years, this latest one will not surprise you despite being the next step in the progression of the iconic model’s life. Bigger, porkier and more advanced than ever, it’s now uniquely attuned to the needs of European city dwellers who face urban congestion charges thanks to its significant electric-only range. It’s the “most” M5 BMW has ever offered, in so many ways: most power, most tech, most grip, most money. But in some ways, it’s also the “least” M5 that BMW has ever offered: least engaging, least visceral, least connected with the driver. As M5 owners age, many will enjoy that more isolated experience — but they’ll also experience the frustration of increasingly complicated onboard electronics. If you’re still of an age where you can learn new systems quickly and easily, and you can also afford something expensive, exclusive and exceptionally capable, a new M5 might be just what you need.
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