RE: 2021 BMW 545e | PH Review

[stumpage]

Ocho said:

Having had a PHEV, which I quite liked, I still can't quite understand why all manufacturers seem to limit the battery-only range to just 30 miles max (think 22 real world). Am I alone thinking that it wouldn't be that much to ask to double the battery size and the extra zero emissions range for daily useage would surely be a win? Or at least make a bigger battery an option?

Volvo's PHEV Electric range is now 50 miles so they have that sorted.

As for the review saying it not having the full power with a depleted battery, that is not how they work. It may say no range but a PHEV keeps enough charge to give the full power when required. I notice no difference at all in performance from fully charged to no charge. Unless it's different between manufacturers.

[Itsallicanafford]

Muzzer79 said:

Itsallicanafford said:

why would you not buy an i4, trouser the £15K odd difference and enjoy next to nothing BIK if a company driver?

Its a segment down, but hardly small

Because, much like a PHEV doesn't suit everyone, a full EV doesn't suit everyone either?

This car is probably aimed at a company car driver doing a lot of miles, with limited access to charging.

For them, a PHEV is perfect.

then the Tesla supercharger network is their friend...

[RicksAlfas]

stumpage said:

As for the review saying it not having the full power with a depleted battery, that is not how they work. It may say no range but a PHEV keeps enough charge to give the full power when required. I notice no difference at all in performance from fully charged to no charge. Unless it's different between manufacturers.

Same with my Merc. I think many people view them as two separate modes of power. i.e. You use all the electric then have to use the engine. It doesn't work like that in practice as it's one integrated system which uses whatever is appropriate at the time.

[roy928tt]

Serendipity? The original E28 M5 also had 286 hp but had 600 kg less to drag around!

[Gad-Westy]

RicksAlfas said:

stumpage said:

As for the review saying it not having the full power with a depleted battery, that is not how they work. It may say no range but a PHEV keeps enough charge to give the full power when required. I notice no difference at all in performance from fully charged to no charge. Unless it's different between manufacturers.

Same with my Merc. I think many people view them as two separate modes of power. i.e. You use all the electric then have to use the engine. It doesn't work like that in practice as it's one integrated system which uses whatever is appropriate at the time.

That probably explains the reason why they appear to have poor range per kwh battery vs full BEV. As they presumably never get anywhere near actually draining it. That and the fact that they're having to transport a normal ICE drivetrain as well.

[Schermerhorn]

Let's say I run this 545e on electric power around town and inner city driving and then turn on the petrol engine on the motorway to get to work.

What sort of MPG will I be getting on the motorway?

My journey to work is: Huddersfield town (4 miles)> M62 > Manchester city center (8 miles) and back again.

Am I better off with full EV or a hybrid?

[rallye666]

Venisonpie said:

PHEV's are dead baby.

All the drawbacks of an EV but very little of the benefit. They end up being driven about like petrol cars with dead motion batteries.

Lol, someone spends far to much reading the Daily Mail!

I had a 225xe plug in hybrid for 3 years and it was great small family car. I appreciate it entirely depends on the individual, but we could take our child to school, do the weekly shop (or run any errand) all without troublingthe ICE. That car had a 20 mile range, so 30 miles is fine.

A driveway with a charging point is a must to make the most of it, but I'd hazard a guess that any middle managers getting a 5 series as a company car (the target audience) will probably have the driveway.

The main downside of PHEV's that nobody talks about is that they all seem to come with a smaller petrol tank, so touring range is limited on a longer run.

[RicksAlfas]

Itsallicanafford said:

then the Tesla supercharger network is their friend...

We live near Halifax and had a week on the east coast near Robin Hood's Bay. Not an unusual activity over the last couple of years! Round figures 100 miles there, 100 miles back, 100 miles pootling about whilst we were there. Filled up with petrol before I went and didn't give it a second thought. If we'd been in a Tesla we would have had to make a (considerable) special trip to find a charger, or fanny about with an extension lead through the cottage window and out on to the pavement to top it up.

This from the Tesla site:



Red blobs are Superchargers, black blobs are chargers for customers at hotels/restaurants etc.

[TypeRTim]

annodomini2 said:

gl20 said:

Gad-Westy said:

For our use a PHEV would be perfect. Most days it's 28 miles of school run (7 miles each way) with the odd trip to the shop. Frequent longer journeys for work and to see family of up around 250 miles. There are EV's that would do this but none that do it easily in all weathers at my normal motorway speed. We currently do it with a much older 3.0 petrol 5-series. 20mpg on the school run. So while it would never be cost effective to spend all that money on a new car just to save on fuel, when we do decide to replace it with something newer, a PHEV would make a lot of sense from the current offerings.

Therefore a PHEV appeals massively to us at the moment. I've had several 5-series and do like the current one. I'd want a touring and ideally x-drive if that is coming to this model. I'd guess that would come out at nearer £75k with some options I'd want. Ouch! Mind you I also had a look at the V90 T6 which is very close in terms of power but doesn't have a straight 6. An optioned up one of those is similar money.

This is exactly us - family 250 miles away, but a good chunk of our driving through the year would be within electric range (even more so if we go for the X5 e45 as it has closer to 50 mile range). As there are none available to test I was wondering only this morning when walking the dog if BMW had the same engine in a different car so I could try it out.

Biggest problem for me is the grill (on the X5) so looking at XC60 / 90 too.

If PHEV works out for us for next two years and charge infrastructure gets much better in that period (I expect it will) then may well go full EV next time.

Yes because you are going to drive 4-5hrs non stop.

What most people coming from ICE to EV fail to understand is that with an EV you graze rather than fill up.

Also you plug in and walk away, do something else while it's charging. You don't have to stand next to the car while fuelling as you do with a conventional ICE vehicle. You get the choice to do something else with the 5-10mins you would spend filling up.

So you stop for toilet or food break, plug in, go do your thing and when you're finished come back and unless you specifically need to fill right up, charge a bit and drive on to your next stop and charge a bit more.

The 72k for this thing would get you into a base Porsche Taycan or a top spec Tesla model 3 with £12k change.

Why not?

I've done several 4 hour non-stop journeys. A bigger deal for me is wasting time at motorway services. You'd maybe have to stop 2 or 3 times for a grazing top up on a 250 mile+ journey adding up to an extra hour on to your total journey time (assuming a 20 minute break to get a decent top-up)

[rallye666]

Schermerhorn said:

Let's say I run this 545e on electric power around town and inner city driving and then turn on the petrol engine on the motorway to get to work.

What sort of MPG will I be getting on the motorway?

My journey to work is: Huddersfield town (4 miles)> M62 > Manchester city center (8 miles) and back again.

Am I better off with full EV or a hybrid?

Why would you turn the engine on when you hit the motorway? You should be able to do that on EV power if you are gentle on the throttle.
The PHEV I ran for 3 years would run on EV power up to 80mph (or kick the engine in if I used a lot of accelerator travel)

You might struggle for range in the winter, but preheating on frosty morning more than makes up for it!

[Inverness]

This is probably the worst BMW ever, it was supposed to come out 2 years ago shortly after the X5 45e, but never appeared until now. It really only makes sense in the touring, but BMW aren’t going to sell it in touring format for the UK.
The exact same layout has been available in the 7 series, which I drove over the summer for a week and in that it was a really nice car, probably due to the car having air suspension, and being partly of carbon fibre construction.
We have an X5 45e as our family car and due to its bigger battery, (I think it has the biggest battery of any PHEV) we do get over 45 electric miles after a full charge. So this would be the car I would recommend.

[Andy665]

I'm always surprised that many people think that the only way to replenish the battery on a PHEV is to plug it in. With a slight adjustment to driving style you can easily be replenishing the battery during normal driving, admittedly probably not to full capacity but certainly enough for it to be of use / benefit

[Gad-Westy]

Schermerhorn said:

Let's say I run this 545e on electric power around town and inner city driving and then turn on the petrol engine on the motorway to get to work.

What sort of MPG will I be getting on the motorway?

My journey to work is: Huddersfield town (4 miles)> M62 > Manchester city center (8 miles) and back again.

Am I better off with full EV or a hybrid?

Probably too early to say on this exact car but I've read that the X5 with similar drivetrain would offer up 30-35 mpg on longer motorway journeys. You'd assume the 5 might improve on that a little. For your journey, I guess it would work well if you could charge at work as you'd do the lot on battery. If not a BEV and charging at home would likely be better. But there are so many personal variables on this. In our case for example, the cheapest option is just to keep our gas guzzling old straight 6 BMW because the cost to replace massively outweighs the on-going fuel cost. Company car buyers have the tax position to consider. And then there is your usage outside of the normal commute. And probably a million other things to consider.

Edited by Gad-Westy on Thursday 25th November 10:40

[Gad-Westy]

Inverness said:

This is probably the worst BMW ever.....

The 114d wants to have a word with you!

[CedricN]

How is phev range working out for you guys? Our Ford can easily do 40-60% longer ev range than the specified wltp when its not winter. Heating it up and winter tyres/wet roads eat up alot of the range of course. Not sure its the same for all phevs, have only lived with one so far.

[TypeRTim]

Gad-Westy said:

Schermerhorn said:

Let's say I run this 545e on electric power around town and inner city driving and then turn on the petrol engine on the motorway to get to work.

What sort of MPG will I be getting on the motorway?

My journey to work is: Huddersfield town (4 miles)> M62 > Manchester city center (8 miles) and back again.

Am I better off with full EV or a hybrid?

Probably too early to say on this exact car but I've read that the X5 with similar drivetrain would offer up 30-35 mpg on longer motorway journeys. You'd assume the 5 might improve on that a little. For your journey, I guess it would work well if you could charge at work. If not a BEV and charging at home would likely be better. But there are so many personal variables on this. In our case for example, the cheapest option is just to keep our gas guzzling old straight 6 BMW because the cost to replace massively outweighs the on-going fuel cost. Company car buyers have the tax position to consider. And then there is your usage outside of the normal commute. And probably a million other things to consider.

This might be of interest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k

If you're thinking purely environmentally - if you average over 45mpg, unless you plan to keep the BEV for over 5-7years - you may be better off keeping your existing car due to the time that it takes for the 'emissions offset' from production to fully materialise.

Sure did make me think about it. Currently getting low 50s in my Mondeo on average, so would take a while for the EV to pay itself off environmentally.

[Gad-Westy]

TypeRTim said:

Gad-Westy said:

Schermerhorn said:

Let's say I run this 545e on electric power around town and inner city driving and then turn on the petrol engine on the motorway to get to work.

What sort of MPG will I be getting on the motorway?

My journey to work is: Huddersfield town (4 miles)> M62 > Manchester city center (8 miles) and back again.

Am I better off with full EV or a hybrid?

Probably too early to say on this exact car but I've read that the X5 with similar drivetrain would offer up 30-35 mpg on longer motorway journeys. You'd assume the 5 might improve on that a little. For your journey, I guess it would work well if you could charge at work. If not a BEV and charging at home would likely be better. But there are so many personal variables on this. In our case for example, the cheapest option is just to keep our gas guzzling old straight 6 BMW because the cost to replace massively outweighs the on-going fuel cost. Company car buyers have the tax position to consider. And then there is your usage outside of the normal commute. And probably a million other things to consider.

This might be of interest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2IKCdnzl5k

If you're thinking purely environmentally - if you average over 45mpg, unless you plan to keep the BEV for over 5-7years - you may be better off keeping your existing car due to the time that it takes for the 'emissions offset' from production to fully materialise.

Sure did make me think about it. Currently getting low 50s in my Mondeo on average, so would take a while for the EV to pay itself off environmentally.

Cheers for that. There is certainly a lot for anyone to consider and almost never a 'one size fits all' solution.

[georgeyboy12345]

Schermerhorn said:

Let's say I run this 545e on electric power around town and inner city driving and then turn on the petrol engine on the motorway to get to work.

What sort of MPG will I be getting on the motorway?

My journey to work is: Huddersfield town (4 miles)> M62 > Manchester city center (8 miles) and back again.

Am I better off with full EV or a hybrid?

On the motorway, you’ll probably get between 45-65 mpg, but over the whole journey you might average nearly 100 mpg with a full battery provided you don’t drive like an idiot.

[RicksAlfas]

CedricN said:

How is phev range working out for you guys? Our Ford can easily do 40-60% longer ev range than the specified wltp when its not winter. Heating it up and winter tyres/wet roads eat up alot of the range of course. Not sure its the same for all phevs, have only lived with one so far.

It's the cold weather which hurts the batteries. Same on full EVs too.

[Bayerischer]

Venisonpie said:

PHEV's are dead baby.

All the drawbacks of an EV but very little of the benefit. They end up being driven about like petrol cars with dead motion batteries.

I have a 530e PHEV - drive day to day electric, and petrol for motorways, so works perfectly for me