BMW i5 Touring Review & Prices

The BMW i5 Touring is an electric estate car, which means it’s a very rare thing indeed. You get the same posh interior and silent running as the i5 saloon, but with a bit more practicality. It’s like a North Face duffle bag, because it’s big, practical and has designer appeal. It's also extremely good - so good, it picked up Highly Commended in the Comfortable Cruiser category of the 2025 Carwow Car of the Year Awards.

As it stands, the only other electric estates in this price range are the Volkswagen ID7 Tourer and the Audi A6 Avant e-tron, so you might also cross-shop the i5 Touring with electric SUVs such as the BMW iX, Audi Q8 e-tron and Polestar 3.

BMW’s modern styling is certainly an acquired taste, but with the i5 we’re either getting used to it or the styling department is finding its groove, because it’s a much more cohesive design than other recent models such as the iX. There are plenty of sharp angles and creases in the bodywork that give it a distinctive appearance, though base models get softer styling that looks a bit plain.

There can be no complaints about the interior though, because it’s a lovely place to eat up miles. The seats are soft and there are quality materials throughout, and all trim levels get the same high quality twin-screen infotainment displays. They look great with clear graphics, though the menus can be really confusing to navigate around.

BMW i5 Touring: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 279 - 343 miles
Efficiency: 3.0 - 3.7 miles/kWh
Battery size: 84kWh
Max charge speed: 205kW
Charge time AC: 12h 30mins, 0-100%, 7.4kW
Charge time DC: 30mins, 10-80%, 205kW
Charge port location: Right side rear
Power outputs: 340hp / 601hp

It’s spacious too, with plenty of adjustment to get yourself comfortable – you don’t get the same commanding view as an SUV, but the upside is that you feel more snug within the cockpit, rather than sat atop it.

Storage is good in the front and there’s loads of room in the back seats, too. The main advantage of the estate body shape is that the BMW i5 Touring has a big boot – at 570 litres it should be enough space for the vast majority of people, and more space than any of the electric SUVs mentioned above, though the VW ID7 Tourer estate has more space still if you really need it.

There are two motor options to choose between, with the eDrive40 being the more affordable car to buy and to run, with a top-of-the-range M60 also available with ludicrous performance at the expense of range.

As such, the eDrive40 can go up to 348 miles between charges, compared with 314 miles for the M60, which puts it behind what alternatives such as the Audi A6 Avant e-tron (437 miles) and Polestar 3 (403 miles) are capable of.

Regardless, the way the BMW i5 Touring chews through those miles is incredibly impressive, because it’s one of the most comfortable, quiet and refined cars on sale today. You feel utterly cocooned from the outside world.

That means it’s a great motorway cruiser, but also means pothole-riddled inner-city roads and bumpy B-roads do little to unsettle the car. It’s fairly composed going around corners, with little in the way of body roll, but you really do feel its weight, so it’s not a car that encourages you to drive it like a sports car.

However, if you’re looking for a comfortable and refined car to cruise around in, the BMW i5 Touring has very few weak points, most of which are worthy sacrifices for something so comfortable and practical.

If you’re interested, check out the latest BMW i5 Touring deals available on Carwow, or if you don’t need all that space we have i5 Saloon deals, too. You can also browse used BMW models from our network of trusted dealers, and when it’s time to sell your car, Carwow can help with that, too.

There’s no getting away from the fact that the BMW i5 Touring can get very expensive. The non-performance version is fairly reasonable, as it starts from about the same as the Audi A6 Avant e-tron, though you can get a VW ID7 Tourer for nearly £20,000 less. It’s nowhere near as posh, but that’s a hugely tempting saving.

That said, the i5 Touring is priced very similarly to a few excellent electric SUVs, including the Audi Q8 e-tron, Polestar 3, and BMW’s own iX.

Things start to get a bit out of hand if you go for the powerful M60 version, where you’ll only get loose change from £100,000 before you even tick any option boxes. Our test car was an M60 with a few packages added, and it came to more than £120,000…

The BMW i5 Touring is incredibly comfortable and relaxing to drive, but it’s not much fun in corners

In town

The BMW i5 Touring isn’t exactly a small car, but its punchy electric motor and incredibly comfortable suspension mean that it’s actually a lovely thing to pootle around town in. Whichever motor you go for there’s enough performance to nip into gaps in traffic, yet noises from outside are kept to a minimum, so even heavy city traffic becomes (relatively) stress free.

Furthermore the brakes are really well judged. Some electric cars have grabby brakes that make smooth progress tricky, but the i5 Touring has no such issues, and you can adjust the amount of regenerative braking so you barely have to touch the brakes at all.

On the motorway

At higher speeds there’s no let up in the impressive refinement. Whatever speed you’re doing, wind and road noise are kept to a minimum. You get the feeling you could max the car out on derestricted German Autobahn and still be able to whisper to your passenger.

Our test car came with the expensive M Adaptive Suspension Pro option, which lowers the car for a sportier stance, but if you put it into its comfort-focused setting you would never know it has a sportier edge, because it soaks up bumps in the road beautifully.

Perhaps the only downside is that the i5 Touring’s range isn’t quite up there with the best alternatives – the Polestar 3 and Audi A6 Avant e-tron have versions that can go 400-plus miles to the BMW’s 343-mile maximum – but the 10-80% fast charge time of 30 minutes is about typical.

On a twisty road

BMW has a reputation for building practical family cars that are as fun to drive as some more performance-focused machinery, and while the i5 Touring is certainly satisfying to drive, it’s not exactly fun. You can get into a rhythm with the car, but it feels very heavy and a touch cumbersome in turns. That’s true of most big electric cars, though.

If you have the budget to step up to the M60 model then it makes up for this somewhat with its ludicrous power output. With 601hp under your right foot and all-wheel drive grip, you can take it easy through a bend and absolutely catapult yourself out the other side.

The BMW i5 Touring has a practical cabin and a bigger boot than most alternatives, but storage in the back isn’t great

It’s easy to get comfortable in the BMW i5 Touring. The steering wheel and seat have plenty of adjustment (though you might wish you could go slightly lower if you like a sporty feel) and there’s a good amount of space around you.

Storage is decent too, with large door bins that can take a big bottle, while more space can be found beneath the armrest, which can be opened to either side so those in the back have easy access too. You also get a felt-lined glovebox of useful proportions.

Beneath the touchscreen and ahead of a couple of cup holders is a space to charge two phones wirelessly. You also get a pair of USB-C slots if you prefer to charge your phone the old-fashioned way.

Space in the back seats

There’s loads of legroom and headroom in the back of the BMW i5 Touring. In fact, it’s more spacious than the old 5 Series, because this latest model is a bit bigger. There are some negatives though, because the floor is a bit high to accommodate the batteries, so your thighs don’t get much support from the cushion.

If you’re sitting in the middle there’s a hump in the floor, because the i5 shares its construction with the petrol-powered 5 Series. Most bespoke electric cars have flat floors in the rear, making it easier to slide across or place your feet.

Storage isn’t great either, with door bins that will take a bottle and not much else. You don’t even get pockets on the backs of the seats in front.

Boot space

Being an estate, one of the BMW i5 Touring’s real selling points is its practical boot. You get 570 litres, which is considerably bigger than an Audi A6 Avant e-tron (502 litres), BMW iX (500 litres) and Polestar 3 (484 litres). It’s a single litre bigger than the Audi Q8 e-tron, with only the VW ID7 Tourer’s cavernous 605-litre boot beating it.

You get a nice square load area that makes it easy to make the most of the space, and the tall roof means loading large items is much easier than it would be in the saloon version. You’ll find small netted pockets on either side of the boot, and you can lift the rear half of the floor to get to some more storage space, which is useful for things like charging cables.

The rear seats are easily folded using chunky levers in easy reach on the sides of the boot to open up a hefty 1,700 litres of space. There’s no front boot under the bonnet, though, unlike in a Polestar 3.

Interior quality and comfort is excellent, but the infotainment can be pretty confusing to use

While BMW’s exterior styling might be Marmite, there can be no controversy about its interiors. The i5 Touring’s cabin is a lovely place to sit, with seats like comfortable armchairs and quality materials throughout – though it’s perhaps a bit more premium than luxury, if we’re being picky, given the price.

The two displays on the dashboard dominate your view – there’s a 12.3-inch display behind the steering wheel and a 14.9-inch touchscreen in the centre. Both look fantastic behind a single curved binnacle, with sharp graphics, snappy responses and iPad-fast loading times. You can even use a dial down on the centre console to navigate around, which is a bit easier on the move than just using the touchscreen. The only downside is that the menu layouts are really confusing, so it’s not particularly intuitive finding lesser-used menus and settings.

An ambient light bar goes from each door all the way across the dashboard, splitting the upper and lower sections. In truth it looks a bit tacky during the day, but works really well at night. Dashboard trims vary depending on the model you go for, from light grey to a carbon-fibre or wood effect, and there’s plenty of choice of upholstery colours, so you can have it as light or as dark as you like.

There’s only one battery available in the BMW i5 Touring, which has an 84kWh capacity. How far that gets you between charges depends on which motor and trim you go for (as well as how sensibly you drive, of course).

Unless you want supercar performance from your practical estate, you probably want the rear-wheel drive eDrive40, which still makes a healthy 340hp. Official figures suggest up to 343 miles is possible, though expect about 300-320 miles in normal driving.

If you go for the pricey M60 option you get all-wheel drive and 601hp – it really is astonishingly fast, and perhaps most impressive of all, has no trouble putting all of that power into the road for exhilarating launches. This power does drop the range to 310 miles in official tests, though plan for 250 miles in the real world (or less if you enjoy all that power a little too often).

Fast charging takes 30 minutes from 10-80%, with a maximum charge rate of 205kW. Although some alternatives have higher peaks, the 10-80% time is pretty much identical to what those cars manage.

As with any electric car, there’s no Vehicle Excise Duty to pay until 2025, and you don’t have to worry about the surcharge for expensive cars, either. It also means you get super-cheap company car tax rates, too.

Although the BMW i5 Touring has not been safety tested by Euro NCAP, the saloon model has, and scored the full five stars. Although there were no particularly stand out areas, its ratings of 86% for vulnerable road users and 78% for its safety assist systems are pretty good compared with most other cars.

Standard safety and assistance tech includes adaptive cruise control, a parking assistant and adaptive LED headlights, while M Sport models get better brakes.

The BMW i5 Touring is a new model, so it’s not possible to know how reliable it will be. However, BMW had a mid-table finish in the latest Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, performing much better than Mercedes and Audi.

BMW’s warranty is about the same as other premium brands at three years, though the fact that you get unlimited mileage is a nice addition. For ‘i’ models like the i5, this also includes roadside assistance and an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty for the main drive battery.