The car company that has brought us the technologically advanced i3 and i8 is ready to offer us a new plug in hybrid on the 5-Series sedan. This new powertrain will give us a great way to enjoy the drive of the 5-series and have at least thirty miles of uninterrupted driving in the EV mode. If you though the 5-series was already a sedan that gave you everything you wanted, BMW is ready to show you more from the hybrid model to ensure you know this is the car for you with the most fuel efficient powertrain to make it to this car yet.
This new hybrid powertrain is the exact same one offered on the X5 XDrive40e which has 308 horsepower and 332 lb.-ft. of torque. When you think of hybrids, in the past you didn’t think of power anywhere near that number, but the fact that some of the supercars on the market today use hybrids for some of their top models has led us to see that you can get a great deal of power from them. With this in mind, the expectation for the 5-Series is that the power will be similar to the SUV model, giving us enough to make the ride extremely fun on any road.
Even though the inline six-cylinder engine is what we expect to see, there are rumblings of two other possibilities. The four-cylinder engine might make an appearance with the assistance of the electric motor and there may even be a three-cylinder choice that would be borrowed from the i8. If I had told you that five years ago you would have thought the 5-Series was turning over a boring new leaf, but using the system that is present on one of the most technologically advanced sports cars on the market is an exciting though for the 5-Series, even if it only has three cylinders.
No matter what the actual powertrain ends up being for this car, you can be sure the new version will let us enjoy some of the best driving from an EV model that we have ever seen. The expectation is the new 5-Series will hit the market in 2017 or even a year later but the hybrid can be added sooner, or even later, depending upon what BMW finds to be the priority for this car. The question that has come up is whether or not BMW plans to use their hybrid powertrains for their diesel engines in the near future, which we may learn more about over the course of the year.
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