BMW i5 Touring eDrive40 long-term test | Quality and comfort

Two of the major requirements for an executive estate car – such as our BMW i5 Touring – is to provide a premium experience and, of course, plenty of practicality.

It’s early days on our long-term fleet for our i5, but it’s clear it provides both of these – and then some.

The cabin oozes quality, both in terms of design and material use, and when you settle into the driver’s seat you do feel like you’re in something special.

From the 12.3-inch digital driver display and 14.9-inch infotainment touchscreen to the customisable wraparound ambient lighting, there is a real feeling of advanced technology and comfort.

The interior design has a cohesive feel to it as well – the way the touchscreen is incorporated into one curved unit along with the driver display and not just jutting out as if someone has stuck a tablet on to the centre console is just one example of how well integrated it all is.

The seats are firm but supportive, with plenty of space for all passengers, especially those in the rear.

I’ve transported four adults and a child in it several times, and the comments have always been how nice – and spacious – the interior is.

Rear seat passengers also also get to benefit from the USB-C charging ports located on the back of the front seats. one of the many nice touches within the cabin.

As expected for an executive car, it has a large footprint – it measures just over 5m long and 1.9m wide - and this helps give it 570 litres of boot space, increasing to 1,700 when the rear seats are folded.

Unfortunately the rear seats don’t fold far enough to create a perfectly flat load area, but the boot lip is low and the sheer size of the area means it offers plenty of practicality.

The boot is wide enough to accommodate a golf bag – including driver – sideways, for example, while when the seats are down it can accommodate loads of up to around 1.9m in length (obviously this changes depending on where the front seats are positioned).

This practicality is enhanced through a number of compartments, eyelets and hooks located in the bootspace. Our i5 Touring is also fitted a towbar (£1,200), enabling it to tow a maximum of 1,500kg.

BMW i5 Touring eDrive40 M Sport joins our fleet

Over the past few years, we’ve been lucky to have two variants of BMW’s i4 electric premium car on our long-term test fleet, and have been enormously impressed by both of them.

This has been reflected in the range being named Best Premium Car in 2022, 2023 and 2024 in the Fleet News Awards.

Now, its bigger brother – the i5 - has joined our long-term fleet so we can see how that matches up.

First signs are really positive. We’ve taken on the eDrive40 M Sport Tourer and in the optional Individual Frozen Pure Grey (£3,000), it has plenty of kerb appeal – it looks striking and the estate bodystyle adds to its presence.

Our test model is the rear-wheel drive eDrive40 M Sport Pro Touring, which uses an 81kWh battery to power a 340PS motor, giving a WLTP range of 285 miles. I5 models produced from next month (March 2025) will benefit from some technical improvements, which boost range by up to 29 miles.

Our test car will charge at speeds of up to 11kW from an AC charger, taking around eight hours to fully replenish the battery from empty., while speeds from an appropriate DC charger will hit 205kW, enabling it to go from 10% charge to 80% in 30 minutes.

Standard equipment on the i5 M Sport Pro includes adaptive LED headlights, M Sport suspension, M Sport brakes with red callipers and a range of M Sport-specific interior features such as leather steering wheel and seat belts.

At first glance, the standard equipment list is pretty sparse, particularly for a car with a P11D price of £78,450.

Fortunately for us, our test model is fitted with a generous amount of optional extras. These include a towbar (£1,200), panoramic glass roof (£1,600), sun protection glass (£470), Bowers & Wilkins surround sound system (£1,250), M Carbon exterior styling (£920).

It is also fitted with the £3,300 Technology Plus pack, which includes an interior camera, driving assistant, professional parking and live cockpit pro with head-up display.

Finally, the £4,600 Comfort Plus pack has also been added and this includes heated steering wheel, ventilated front seats, front comfort seats, front and rear heated seats and four-zone automatic air conditioning.

In total, the cost of the extras is around £17,000, making the P11D price of our test car just over £96,000.

What this has done is make our fully-loaded test model an absolute technological tour de force – over the next six months we will be seeing if the real-world experience of running it can live up to our very high expectations.