At 5,390 pounds, the new M5 weighs about 400 lbs more than two Mazda Miatas in their heaviest configuration. I did the math, believe me. The hybrid bits alone have added nearly 900 lbs over the previous-generation model. To make matters worse, the car is substantially bigger, so there’s even more bulk than before. The Internet seemingly hates the sports sedan because of this. BMW has read the negative comments on social media, and it’s a bit pissed.
In the same interview with Bimmer Today during which he announced a next-gen M3 with a gas engine, the M boss also talked about the new M5. When asked about the criticism surrounding the vehicle’s mighty weight, Frank van Meel said people shouldn’t jump to any conclusions before getting behind the wheel: “We designed the car in such a way that you don’t actually feel it [the weight].”
He mentioned people can’t determine whether the car indeed feels too heavy until they get drive it instead of “relying on data in an Excel table.” Fair point. Frank van Meel admitted the backlash regarding the M5’s heft “annoyed him a little bit.” The head honcho at M explains BMW put a “lot of passion in it and took a conscious decision” to go the hybrid route.
Why has the new M5 been electrified? It was basically the only way to keep the V-8 engine alive for one more generation while meeting increasingly stricter emissions regulations, especially in Europe. Frank van Meel used these valid arguments to defend the decision to give the M5 a charging port instead of downsizing to an inline-six.
As I explained in a previous article, the new M5 was always going to be a porker considering the 550e xDrive with a six-cylinder plug-in hybrid setup already weighed 4,751 pounds. BMW considered making the car purely electric but abandoned the idea because it would’ve failed to deliver the sustained performance a typical M5 buyer wants. The Bavarians already have the i5 M60 as an electric M Performance version of the latest 5 Series.
For now, Frank van Meel is confident that a twin-turbo, 4.4-liter V-8 engine and an electric motor adapted from the slow-selling XM represent the perfect combination for the M5. The M division “knew long beforehand” that the new performance sedan would be heavy but pledges you won’t feel it.
During the same interview, he drew parallels between the adoption of a PHEV setup for the “G90” and the xDrive system pioneered by the old “F90” generation. People initially loved to hate it, with van Meel recalling that some said the car could “only drive in a straight line, it’s no longer agile, it can’t drift anymore, that’s boring.” He urged enthusiasts to trust the process and have faith in the engineers, assuring them that they knew what they were doing. It’s the same story here with the electrified powertrain.
Looking past the worryingly high curb weight, you could say electrification is a necessary evil to comply with regulations. Seeing the glass half full, it could’ve been much worse had BMW M gone the AMG way. The new E63 hasn’t been revealed but Mercedes has already said the V-8 won’t return, much like it died in the smaller C63. There is hope the new CLE63 will have eight cylinders, so perhaps not everything is lost.
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