[RichardInCA]

     Featured on BIMMERPOST.com

My car: ‘24 i5 M60

My commute - SF Bay, 25-26mile each way, mostly freeway

I’ve spent 3 weeks living with the M60 and absolutely love this car - basically it’s the perfect blend of a well balanced, mild mannered executive sedan, but with the weird ability to unleash brutal acceleration if the moment takes you and has a chassis/ride to handle it all. I was initially wondering whether there would be times when I would prefer to drive the eDrive40, but this car handles those multiple personalities with ease. There are times when I want just a really comfortable ride and a car that can happily purr around - the i5 M60 does all of that. It has a reassuring heft - the cabin feels really well put together, no rattles or squeaks for me and the car handles poor quality pavement really well - far better than my beloved old 328i wagon with sport suspension. With the curb weight on this thing, it’s probably flattening out the bumps in the road at the same time….A lot of my driving is freeway, but the local back roads out here in the East Bay provide a great opportunity for the chassis to shine - it’s surprisingly chuckable. It’s equally at home slipping into sport mode and enjoying the twisties, as it is eating up the miles on the freeway. It’s definitely much bigger/heavier than my 3 series, but the chassis and suspension really do mask that to a remarkable degree.

In general, I commute in Personal driving mode - not especially heavy throttle, not super light on the way in, but on my way home when traffic is worse I’ve played with Efficient mode. It’s pretty interesting - the throttle response is definitely more blunted and the odd graphics in the HUD provide an interesting “training” view combined with the graphics on the dash to find a sweet spot in terms of throttle use, use of regenerative braking/anticipation of traffic. I’m a bit of a sucker for the gamification of these things. I appreciate that I’m no longer burning gas in stop/start traffic. It’d be nice to have a one touch way to engage sport mode - but maybe there is and I haven’t worked it out yet. I also almost instantly adopted B driving mode, one pedal driving is very intuitive when managing the ebb and flow of traffic on freeways.

Charging - not bad. This is my first EV, so I’ve been learning real time. We’re definitely well served in the Bay Area for chargers, so my experience is likely easier than others. I’ve a few EA chargers nearby, picking the right time to try to hit the fast charger is definitely a thing but is manageable. My office has a bank of ChargePoint level 2’s outside so the ability to use those during days I’m in the office and leave my car plugged in for several hours has been great. I’ve also created an EVgo account to unlock some additional fast chargers if I need them. I’m getting my home level 2 charger installed via Qmerit next week, so that should make life a lot easier, although dammit - I’m gonna use my free 2yr charging when I can.

Real-world range. I’m a bit of a geek so have been trying to track how the estimated range on the dash correlates with the actual battery life. My best guess right now is that the real world range I’m seeing is around the high 260 to 270ish mark, although the dash has shown me 300 after a charge to 100% a couple of times, I know that as the miles tick by that tends to recalibrate fairly regularly - I’ve also seen the range drop a chunk when I pre-condition, even though the battery charge % doesn’t change. Interesting algorithm I guess. I also sense that battery discharge is not fully linear - but I’m still trying to get a feel for that. Currently when I’m below 40% it seems like the charge drops off a little more quickly for the number of miles driven, but it’s still early days as I get accustomed to planning my recharging. Would it be nice to have >300miles range? Sure, but I can’t say it’s a concern for how I plan to use the car. It’d be fun to take a few road trips down the line and see if I can string together the chargers, but that’s really not my regular routine.

Anyway, all in, I couldn’t be happier with this car.

[Sisyrx]

Originally Posted by RichardInCA

It’d be nice to have a one touch way to engage sport mode - but maybe there is and I haven’t worked it out yet.

Thanks for your writeup! Closing thing to "one-touch Sport Mode" would be to program one of the two available gestures to engage it...two-finger-point or the 5-0-5.

[RichardInCA]

Originally Posted by Sisyrx

Thanks for your writeup! Closing thing to "one-touch Sport Mode" would be to program one of the two available gestures to engage it...two-finger-point or the 5-0-5.

Great idea.

[Scrapula]

There is a Modes button on the center console. You have to press through them, but you will learn the number of button presses to go from personal to sport. It will become second nature.

[MrDit]

Excellent write up, I feel the same, range does not bother me at all and I have seen it drop as it gets colder here in Canada. I have a chargepoint installed at home so no issues with the charging or searching for a station. Might even have one installed at the office in the New Year. It is a great combination of an executive/luxury and sport sedan in my opinion.

What color did you get??

[mkem5]

Another quick way to sport mode is to set the 5 - 0 - 5 hand gesture to switch to it. Only useful gesture control I have found. You have to use the buttons to get back to personal but at least avoids a screen getting to sport mode.

[Mac545]

Hey, please excuse my ignorance, but what is the 5 0 5 hand gesture…?

[IAmSpeed]

Originally Posted by Mac545

Hey, please excuse my ignorance, but what is the 5 0 5 hand gesture…?

This:

[OHV_44]

Please.

[cfm56d7b]

Great review. Thanks for sharing.

How do you like the seats in your vehicle?

[RichardInCA]

Originally Posted by MrDit

Excellent write up, I feel the same, range does not bother me at all and I have seen it drop as it gets colder here in Canada. I have a chargepoint installed at home so no issues with the charging or searching for a station. Might even have one installed at the office in the New Year. It is a great combination of an executive/luxury and sport sedan in my opinion.

What color did you get??

Looks like the mods kindly signal boosted and included my semi mediocre pics. It’s mineral white with 20” rims. Espresso veganza seats.

[RichardInCA]

Originally Posted by cfm56d7b

Great review. Thanks for sharing.

How do you like the seats in your vehicle?

They’ve been pretty good. When I engage sport mode I like the way the seat back bolsters tighten up. I find them quite supportive, and comfortable for up to a couple of hours at a time (longest trip so far).

[buddenfan]

Originally Posted by RichardInCA

My car: ‘24 i5 M60

My commute - SF Bay, 25-26mile each way, mostly freeway

I’ve spent 3 weeks living with the M60 and absolutely love this car - basically it’s the perfect blend of a well balanced, mild mannered executive sedan, but with the weird ability to unleash brutal acceleration if the moment takes you and has a chassis/ride to handle it all. I was initially wondering whether there would be times when I would prefer to drive the eDrive40, but this car handles those multiple personalities with ease. There are times when I want just a really comfortable ride and a car that can happily purr around - the i5 M60 does all of that. It has a reassuring heft - the cabin feels really well put together, no rattles or squeaks for me and the car handles poor quality pavement really well - far better than my beloved old 328i wagon with sport suspension. With the curb weight on this thing, it’s probably flattening out the bumps in the road at the same time….A lot of my driving is freeway, but the local back roads out here in the East Bay provide a great opportunity for the chassis to shine - it’s surprisingly chuckable. It’s equally at home slipping into sport mode and enjoying the twisties, as it is eating up the miles on the freeway. It’s definitely much bigger/heavier than my 3 series, but the chassis and suspension really do mask that to a remarkable degree.

In general, I commute in Personal driving mode - not especially heavy throttle, not super light on the way in, but on my way home when traffic is worse I’ve played with Efficient mode. It’s pretty [...]

Awesome car, awesome color! Enjoy!
What are your monthly payments?

[cpt]

I echo every point you made based on my 2 weeks of ownership.

My only real problem was the gloss interior trim which are fingerprint magnets. It became a LOT easier to manage after I ceramic-coated the interior.

[[/:\] GP9000]

When shopping for her first EV (now an iX1) we tested Merc‘s EQA. It comes with paddle shifters, which control the drive modes / recuperation level.
That was sooo intuitive! Why BMW didn‘t think of that, especially on ICE/EV platforms

One always has to look for the personal modes button, since you cannot feel the physical button when focusing on the road.

At least you can voice command it!

[[/:\] GP9000]

Congrats OP for the nice upgrade from 328i !
Looking fwd to the release of G61 touring.

[440i6MT]

San Francisco Bay? My sincerest condolences.

[Sampark]

Originally Posted by RichardInCA

My car: ‘24 i5 M60

My commute - SF Bay, 25-26mile each way, mostly freeway

I’ve spent 3 weeks living with the M60 and absolutely love this car - basically it’s the perfect blend of a well balanced, mild mannered executive sedan, but with the weird ability to unleash brutal acceleration if the moment takes you and has a chassis/ride to handle it all. I was initially wondering whether there would be times when I would prefer to drive the eDrive40, but this car handles those multiple personalities with ease. There are times when I want just a really comfortable ride and a car that can happily purr around - the i5 M60 does all of that. It has a reassuring heft - the cabin feels really well put together, no rattles or squeaks for me and the car handles poor quality pavement really well - far better than my beloved old 328i wagon with sport suspension. With the curb weight on this thing, it’s probably flattening out the bumps in the road at the same time….A lot of my driving is freeway, but the local back roads out here in the East Bay provide a great opportunity for the chassis to shine - it’s surprisingly chuckable. It’s equally at home slipping into sport mode and enjoying the twisties, as it is eating up the miles on the freeway. It’s definitely much bigger/heavier than my 3 series, but the chassis and suspension really do mask that to a remarkable degree.

In general, I commute in Personal driving mode - not especially heavy throttle, not super light on the way in, but on my way home when traffic is worse I’ve played with Efficient mode. It’s pretty [...]

I would like see inside! Looks awesome

[Sisyrx]

Originally Posted by cpt

I echo every point you made based on my 2 weeks of ownership.

My only real problem was the gloss interior trim which are fingerprint magnets. It became a LOT easier to manage after I ceramic-coated the interior.

Interested in this interior ceramic coating you did as I am exploring ways to deal with the piano black (once I get my eventual vehicle). Clear wrap sounds like way too much work but if a ceramic coating is doing the trick that's a task I'm up to.

[TruthOne]

Originally Posted by 440i6MT

San Francisco Bay? My sincerest condolences.

lol but you’re in LA

[Scrapula]

Originally Posted by TruthOne

lol but you’re in LA

The Bay Bridge was the worst driving experience of my life. I grew up driving LA freeways.

[RichardInCA]

Originally Posted by Sampark

I would like see inside! Looks awesome

Here are a few shots of the interior - looks like I need to get the vac out a little, too busy driving it ;-)