Car Review: 2025 BMW M5 PHEV | Reviews

The more things change, the more the M5 badge on the trunk lid stays the same. It’s arguable that BMW’s hottest executive sedan has always been more about the destination than the journey itself: X-marks-the-sport for shock and awe among the moneyed class capable of footing its sizable purchase price, but uninterested in the visual drama of a more ostentatious sports car.

As a result, the methods employed by BMW’s M division to achieve the the title of “fastest 5 Series” have rarely stayed static. Once upon a time, the BMW M5 was a hand-built heirloom with a stonking big six-cylinder under the hood, only to give way to increasing cylinder counts of eight or even 10 across its following generations. Then came the turbocharged era, and finally all-wheel drive in an effort to further civilize a machine whose output had doubled in the space of two decades.

Is there any surprise, then, that the all-new 2025 BMW M5 bridges the gap between its internal combustion past and a battery-powered future? As the vogue for all things electric sweeps across the luxury segment, the M5 becomes a plug-in hybrid for the first time in its history, following the XM SUV into the e-M world.

To be sure, there’s much to be gained by such a gambit, and if you’re a battery-friendly enthusiast you’re probably already salivating at the thought of all the torque lingering in the big block of lithium ion cells underpinning the sedan. On the other hand, there are likely those lamenting the extra weight and seeming pacification of the M5’s personality that come with a silent electrified drive.

Whichever camp you happen fall into, it turns out you’re right.

Skynet signed off on this drivetrain

Whereas once the M5’s beating heart was meticulously handcrafted in the same manner as a high-end time piece or mission-critical NASA component, its new powertrain steps into the post-human era, combining Terminator-esque precision assembly with complex energy management software that eschews carbon-based control for the safety and security of silicon wafers.

The big number attached to the 2025 BMW M5’s new drivetrain is 717, which represents its total output when all systems are go. It’s followed up by 738, an even loftier figure that describes the lb-ft of torque on tap under the driver’s right foot.

All of this is made possible by a familiar twin-turbo V8 (whose 4.4-liters alone are good for nearly 600 horses), matched with an electric motor that harnesses 14.8-kWh of battery capacity in the form of 194 ponies and 207 lb-ft of its own. But wait—there’s more. The electric mill (which holds court in between the vehicle’s eight-speed automatic transmission and the gas engine), can marshal up 332 lb-ft of total twist when summoned for launch control duties, thanks to wizardry BMW labels “pre-gearing.”

The future is here, and it’s heavy

That prodigious power is tempered somewhat by one of the M5’s most enduring links to its heritage: a curb weight that would qualify it to step into the ring with any number of full-size pickups in a battle of the titans.

BMW’s super sedan has always been a bit of a porker, hovering around the 4,000-pound mark for most of the ’90s and 2000s, and with the advent of its electrical anchor it has ballooned to an exceptional 5,400 pounds. To put that into perspective, the 2025 BMW M5 is more than a thousand pounds heavier than the model it replaces, and manages to weigh more than even the i5 full-electric version of the same platform.

You probably won’t be shocked to discover that that all that mass acts as a brake to the gaudiness of the M5’s spec sheet. Don’t get me wrong—this is still an automobile whose casual attitude towards inertia matches that of a Saturn V rocket. Pull the left steering wheel paddle to engage BOOST mode (which is confirmed by the gauge cluster’s arcade-like takeover graphic), hammer the throttle, and you’ll slip past 100 km/h in roughly three seconds, which is likely shorter than it took you to read the above paragraph.

That being said, the 2025 model is in a dead heat with the 617 horsepower, 2023 edition when looking at pure numbers. Two paths diverged in BMW’s wood, so to speak, but it appears that they both looped back to the same hash marks on the stopwatch. Highway acceleration also remains absurdly potent—this is a vehicle that can quickly put you on as many “most wanted” lists as there are local constabularies—but again no more so than its ancestor.

“It’s just as good” isn’t the marketing line BMW probably wants attached to the latest M5, but it’s perhaps the most accurate. Even the vehicle’s EV mode—surely a side effect, rather than the goal of its electrification—reflects the balance between battery size and ballast. I saw 44 kilometres of electric-only driving advertised on the dash during both cold and warm spells towards the end of December, a distance that verges on useful in an urban setting.

Suspension Sudoku

Its fortunate for the M5 that mass has always played a part in nearly every aspect of its driving experience, because its chassis engineers have developed a full repertoire of tricks to make the fulcrum of the M5’s personality a tipping point between day-to-day comfort and apex aspiration.

This remains true for 2025. Switching off the electronic overwatch, I headed out into the depths of a blizzard to sample the sedan’s tricks on twisty gravel roads made smooth and slippery by accumulated white stuff. At no point did the car feel anything other than predictable and responsive to inputs from either the throttle or the steering wheel, an impression that remained intact when experimenting with the M5’s handling on clearer pavement the next day. Bulked up or not, BMW has buttoned down a very approachable profile for a car whose on-paper ferocity suggests kid gloves.

Of course, going all in on plug-in hybrid technology has not made the M5 any simpler. Tossing a battery into the mix further complicates a car whose various drive modes, performance options, and powertrain peccadilloes demand an advanced degree in systems engineering to stay on top of the ideal settings for any given situation. BMW lets you program your preferences into one of two M buttons accessible just ahead of the car’s paddle shifters, but you’ll be initially flummoxed as to which level of stability control, throttle response, chassis stiffness, battery boost, or charge rate will elicit the biggest grin.

Trial and error is the order of the day, and you’ll want to set aside a weekend or two on your favourite road to truly audition the hundreds of potential combinations available. If you are the kind of driver who plays puzzle games on your phone while waiting for your 3D printer to produce its latest masterpiece, then this car will be like Christmas morning every time you access the settings menu.

Split personality

Most of the M5’s past high tech explorations — the clunky jig of its SMG automated manual gearbox, the Formula One roots of its V10, the hoontastic character of its electronically-decoupling all-wheel drive system — were aimed almost exclusively in a performance direction. That changes for 2025, as the additional brawn isn’t the only aspect of the BMW’s character that’s been altered by electrification.

In fact, the M5’s plug-in hybrid hardware appeases just as much as it accelerates. This is the very first version of the car that can set sail at speeds of nearly 130 km/h without any roar emanating from its (quad) tailpipes. BMW offers a simulated soundtrack befitting of the mighty machine’s aural eminence, but the overall impression under electric motivation is one of domestic docility, an entirely fresh frontier for an automobile that seemingly had no new worlds to conquer. Not bad for an EV mode that is surely a side effect, rather than the intended goal of the car’s battery boost (and which gave me a usable 44 km of driving range per charge, even during winter weather).

Electrification has given the 2025 M5 two distinct personalities: one where you’re whispering around town, and another where you’re torturing the tires as you rocket towards the horizon with the entire symphony at full tune. Switching between these two psyches isn’t always smooth, as especially in colder weather you feel the hand-off between the battery and the gas engine. But perhaps that’s the point—maybe it’s better to avoid a seamless transition so as to awaken your lizard brain to the fact that you’re about to enter a dramatically different performance universe.

Does it matter how we get there?

All of that begs the question as to whether buyers who are looking for an M5 really care enough about the quiet place to suffer the under the heft of its hegemony. Surely the i5 M60 xDrive has sopped up the EV-seeking demographic, leaving internal combustion diehards primed and ready for an M5 that doesn’t make a lateral performance move in the name of plugging in.

That being said, the M5 as an executive car has always been one to embrace evolution, and no doubt the market pressures provided by Mercedes-AMG and its increasingly electrified fleet have had an effect on BMW’s own product planning. Whether the decision to trade-off kilograms for kilowatts is something buyers will appreciate or is instead an identity swap they might not notice at all is the more important question, but one that’s unlikely to stem the sales of what remains a compelling landmark on the performance car map.

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