Whether a plug-in hybrid is the best or worst of both worlds depends entirely on use case. We can typically do all our daily driving on battery, charge overnight (so slow charging isn't a problem) and have an ICE for our infrequent longer trips where charging is unavailable, unreliable, or inconvenient. If you have a different use case, either a BEV or pure ICE powered car may be best for you. In the time from when we picked up our Volvo XC60 T8 in August, we're literally at 103 miles driven per gallon of gas burned because our driving pattern is mostly short, local trips (on battery) with many hours in between to recharge. This combined mileage is in a car that gets about 28 mpg on the ICE alone.
I think this car is perfect for family with kids. There's no way I can do EV on longer trips with the kids. But 95% of the driving is probably within 40 miles a day. This minimizes the time spent on either the gas station or charging station.
Great review, 18 minutes flew by fast. My wife has this car- very comfortable, luxurious, quiet ride around town especially when only using the electric motor. IMHO if you're going from combustion it's the best of both worlds, but if you're going into it from electric it's the worse of both worlds. She's selling it in a few months and going full electric again but xdrive45e is a super nice ride.
I'm looking at trading my truck in and getting one of these built how I want it. I live 12 miles from work and I think this is way to go for my needs. Slow charging is fine since it would be over night and the savings would top it all off with electric. Thanks for the review and helping make my decision.
Glad to see you doing PHEV range tests... Please do the same for the new Volvo (18-kWh) and Porsche (18-kWh) PHEVs. Volvo has several PHEVs that they're apparently upgrading the battery pack size for, and Porsche has the Panamera and Cayenne E-Hybrids -- all of which interest me greatly. I can tell you that the "urban" test for our RAV4 Prime is pretty close to 50 miles consistently with ambient air temps 50 degrees or warmer.
Great video, just what I was looking for. Would like to see a similar video on the 2024 x5 50e if possible. Been considering this model year or the refresh 2024, I prefer this interior over the newer model but the newer model has increased range, and a more powerful motor.
I just traded my 2021 X5 xDrive45e in for a polestar 2, the slow changing for that little battery, shameful! On a good day on the highway at 70MPH, i was able to get 40 mile on electric. But i loved it beside that, but once i got a taste of electric drive i was ready to get rid of it, i was just waiting for the right offer.
Great review I love the x5. Why doesn't BMW just put a bigger battery in this thing ? if it had around 100 miles range on electric many wouldnt ever fire up the turbo engine
Weight and packaging. Batteries are very heavy, this already has worse handling than its ICE brother. Plus the weight negative impacts efficiency of both propulsion systems. I personally think a target for PHEVs should be 50~60 miles with reasonable performance metrics, mid 8 second 0-60. The average commute in the USA is 16 miles, that gives some buffer and provides most a EV commute.
Then why would you put the engine in the car at all? The goal of a PHEV isn't to remove all gasoline use completely, just to drastically reduce it by maximizing electric range for the typical daily miles put on it. If the average driver commutes 32 miles 5 days a week, then drives 40 miles on day 6, and 45 miles on day 7, then adding a 50 mile battery would give them 21 extra miles of EV range for the week, but would reduce the efficiency over the other 181 miles driven, only saving 1 gallon of gas but increasing electricity usage. The only downside to BMW's solution is the 0-60 time in EV mode is incredibly slow. It's something like 12 - 16 seconds. Most of the time, when you're speeding up to highway speeds, you're probably only accelerating at a rate of about 10-12 seconds 0-60. I guess if you feel like getting up to speed faster, you just kick on the engine, get up to speed, then let off the pedal so that it reverts back to electric mode. This isn't exactly good for emissions and the engine though.
@@updlate4756 I think the reason I picked that number was it would convince more people to jump in, if you can say day to day usage is covered. While your points are very pragmatic, most consumers aren't. I don't actually know the best EV range for maximum fuel savings or best efficiency, maybe 32 miles is the sweet spot. I know Toyota made a statement that hybrids are better than EVs with the assumption batteries are a limited resource. For example it take 4 times the batteries to make a EV Rav4 vs Rav4 primes. 4 primes vs 1 EV and 3 ICE cars = reduced carbon emissions.
@@cavemankiwi 31 miles will cover most day to day driving. The average daily commute in the US is 32 miles. It's shorter in Europe, and even shorter in Asia. Adding more battery will simply add more weight and raise the price, while reducing efficiency across both powertrains and limiting space in the cabin. There doesn't need to be a perfect range. It's nice when electricity can be utilized for all daily commuting, whereas the gas engine is there for those times where you exceed the range. That's maximizing the battery's use on a daily basis; in that you'll rarely if ever drive less than that range in a given day, but on occasion you'll drive more. Adding battery for the occasional longer drives is wasting efficiency on those days where you won't. Still, even some of the shorter range PHEVs with 25-30 miles of range are fine even if you exceed the electrical range every day because they're still reducing your daily use of gas by 25-30 miles. In the case of the Prius Prime, you get the 25 miles, and then you're getting 55 mpg when using gas. It's super efficient.
Great car, I just don’t understand why they would put such a slow level two charger. Even a Pacifica hybrid charges at 6.6,Or something very close to that
My good friend micheal who works for BMW has said due to the electric infrastructure in Germany house holds could not take the drag on electric. 120v there. Here in the UK it’s all 240v so totally agree with you
As you say. Here in the UK mine does around 58 miles in ev mode mixed motoring 44 miles a day back and forward to work pure Electric. And that’s the 24 kWh battery as well so not sure what BMW are playing at
I think the range for the battery in PHEVs needs to be roughly the distance across an MSA like Los Angeles, Bay Area, Houston, etc. Or at least cover the median commute plus maybe 5-10 miles (detours, additional errands). This way, people can commute to work, hopefully charge there, and get home on EV only. Let the ICE kick in for longer distances. As for EVs, it's a shame the BMW iX M60 has those looks and not that of the standard X5M with some EV-denoting trim. Only the e-trons are beautifully designed IMO. Kyle, always enjoy these reviews! Cheers.
Great review with a great car. On the question about the pure electric range for the European model: at least here in Germany, from 2022 a PHEV must do at least 60 kilometers (37.5) miles in electric mode to get a tax advantage. Not sure about the regulations in the other European countries.
Slow charging issue and not enough range on battery alone was enough for me to go with the X5 xdrive40i instead. Besides my wife drives a Tesla and there's times when we want to take a long road trip without having to spend extra time charging.
My Rav4 Prime has an MPGe of 94 whereas the AWD Hyundai Ioniq 5 gets 98 MPGe. Then the combined MPG in hybrid mode is 38, so that’s pretty good too. When you have an electric car with long range you are hauling around a large battery that you don’t need most of the time. So if you don’t want to rely on public chargers on long trips and you are okay with using some gas, the Rav4 at least is an efficient option. I think the real argument against the vehicle would be that it has a complex system integrating the EV and ICE systems. But the complexity is only really an issue if if it is unreliable or requires expensive maintenance. So far after a little more than a year the car has been great. It has the EV range and the HV power that is advertised.
Did I understand that you charged the 2021 BMW X5 45E with your Tesla charging cable? What kind of adapter did you use? Could you charge the X5 45E at a Tesla charging station using this adapter? Thanks for your time.
My wife and I briefly owned a brand new 2021 2021 BMW X5 45e for thirty days. After one day of ownership the yellow check engine light came on - despite driving without any noticeable issues. After thirty days in the shop with online consultations with German engineers, they still hadn't identified the problem. One solution they tried involved ordering a part for a sensor. This process took two weeks because the part had to come from Germany, but it failed to fix the issuer. We loved driving the car, but it wasn't meant to be. We asked the dealership for some options. We chose to return the vehicle for a full refund, which was handled promptly. I was left with the impression that owning a PHEV means troubleshooting problems will take much, much longer to diagnose and fix; especially when an engineer is working on it remotely and the parts are overseas.
Not sure what data you were given, or if they did indeed reprogram the 45e for 2022, but just after I bought my 2022 330e (Arizona, US) this November we looked at the 2022 X5 45e to potentially buy next year and it showed 24kWh battery pack, which is on the US website. The UK website shows 22.29 kWh This is twice the size of my 2022 330e that has 24 mile range BMW also quotes up to 50 mile range and the show 83kW(113PS) power and 265 Nm torque from the X5 45e electric motor which seems to be the same motor as in my 2022 330e Difference I noticed from watching reviews compared to my 330e is I can only get 60% of the electric power (right side gauges) in full electric whereas the X5 will show 100% available EDIT - it seems they all do have 24kWh and indeed are coded for less usage in Europe and significantly less in the US. I would have it coded to EU 22.29 and not the full 24kWh as could be an issue
We bought the X5 45e in Jan ‘21 here in the UK and it does considerably more miles on electric than your US version. Depending on how you drive it and where, it does between 46-50 miles (on 22” wheels). In hybrid it will do up to 55 miles on a longer run. I don’t understand why you get a lower charge capacity in the US than we do here in the UK? Is there a reason for that?
I heard this is due to battery and hybrid warranty requirements in the US/Canada (8yrs/80k miles) which probably means BMW engineers are more conservative with the charge threshold. There are tunes to unlock more battery charge threshold, but they do void warranty if discovered.
Hi, did you say the battery would last only 55miles with the hybrid mode? That's crazy short. I thought it would last at least the whole time (400+ miles) with every full gas tank!!!??!!
@@huyle9988 it will prioritize use of electric even in hybrid mode so it will pretty much deplete the battery as soon as possible and then work as a normal hybrid. With battery depleted the car still has a buffer and it will always boast from electric when you push the throttle. Then it will generate some electricity back to the battery from the engine when driving normal. In city driving it will switch between using battery and driving on petrol and regenerating back electricity into the battery. The idea is that you charge as often as possible which could be 100 times on a full gas tank. Or 0 times you don't want to, but you will not get great milage.
@17:00 EV's like Tesla's also have a transmission with few gears. In some instances it is more efficient to have less gears and sometimes its more efficient to have more gears. It slow, bumper to bumper city driving, less gears is better. Fast city or any highway driving, more gears are better. So, it depends. Second, with an EV you have to carry all that extra battery weight that you don't need most of the time. It ends up being a wash. You totally made up your mind against PHEV's from the get go.
On a typical gasoline engine you usually warm up for a few seconds or so before you drive in the morning but on this hybrid how do you warm up the combustion engine when you start off only on EV mode?
As nice as the hybrid technology is, I'd prefer not having that complexity and simply having a gigantic battery instead. In my routine driving, I would almost never kick on the ICE powertrain. It would literally go months without firing up the engine. OTOH, if I routinely had to make the Fort Collins to Salt Lake City drive, this would make a fair amount of sense.
I enjoyed the review. I have one question. How much electricity does it take to charge the battery for a 33 mile range. Otherwise what is the electrical cost for those 33 miles? Thanks for the review.
It is a 17 KWh battery. It depends on your electricity price. Where I live it’s .08/KWh on peak and .065/KWh off peak. So 17 KWh x .08 = $1.36 if we charge during peak hours. So quite a bit cheaper for those 30 plus all electric miles when compared to the 3.75/gallon I’m currently paying for premium unleaded. We typically drive less than 30 miles a day in a warm weather climate so the hybrid might work well.
@@sculder7 my utility taxes are about 10%, but I charge as low as .065 cents per KWH off peak so .08 is probably even a little higher than what I pay. A lot cheaper than gas for my daily driving.
Can you do a city range test in something you have ranged tested on the highway? If love to see if you gain or lose miles. I know you regenerate when you slow down but you also use more energy when speeding up. Curious if it's as good as suggested.
the sound on your video is really off. It shifts from left channel to the right channel when you swing your camera. Very annoying and hard to listen to whatever you say there.
I seriously considered getting a PHEV, especially had my eye on the BMW X3 PHEV, but (luckily) it’s no longer available in the US, so got a Model Y instead. I consider myself much better off. I agree with Kyle: maybe it’s the best of both worlds but it could also be the worst of both worlds
@@doomsday9973 That’s great! I’m still curious about it. Do you plug it in every day? How often do you fill the gas tank? How many miles do you get on one tank of gas, including charging and driving electric-only? I’m happy where I am with the MY, but I was so close to getting the BMW PHEV.
@@slee4110 They are both great cars. In the end I just loved the look of the BMW over the Y and got a great deal on it that's what won me over in the end. Yep i plug in just about every day. I don't commute in it so the EV range covers 85% of my driving. I fill up once a month at most less in the warmer months. Biggest criticism is the EV range, in perfect weather you get around 17-20 miles. In the winter more like 12ish. Its not great but for my use case it works out.
17:10 you say the car is inefficient because you have to haul around an engine and transmission along with the battery / electric motors... except that if this was a full BEV, the battery would be ~100 kWh and would weigh ~1200+ lbs. For example, the iX, which has a ton of carbon fiber in the frame to cut down weight is sitting at 5,650 lbs, whereas this weighs 5,670 lbs. Often times the PHEV variant will be lower weight than the BEV variant. That may not be the case in the X5 because it's a sporty SUV and the engine needs to be large enough to move this extremely heavy vehicle at a brisk pace. If they had set out to build a 7 second 0-60 car instead of a 4.7 second, the engine could have been smaller. Setups like the RAV4 prime or Escape PHEV don't have as large of an engine so the weight is kept in check. What would impact a PHEV's efficiency versus a BEV is the need for more cooling vents in the front, impacting aero. The main reasons this car is so inefficient are: 1) It's a really really heavy vehicle at about 5670 lbs. It's a good 300-500 lbs heavier than a model X, but that's because the model X is made almost entirely out of aluminum. 2) It isn't aerodynamic with a large Cd of .36, versus a model X at .24 . That's a massive difference. 3) Those MASSIVE wheels and summer tires definitely didn't help your efficiency. 4) You're running at winter temperatures. Not as huge of an impact in city driving as it would be in highway, but it definitely has an impact; especially since you're running the HVAC. You get a lot for the money. Just configured one for $60,800 after federal credit with a few added options. The base iX before options is $77,300 after federal credit. The base model X is $105,000 (not eligible for credit).
I feel like something that needs to be mentioned more is the MSRP and the out the door price are two very different things when it comes to luxury vehicles. When I was shopping around I was finding around 8k worth of fees lopped onto the top of the MSRP at the dealerships I talked to.
They won't. Its because of the warranty, the battery warranty in the US is much longer than Europe so they build in a much larger buffer to make it last longer,
I don't know why shit German engineers bmw don't like reclining back seats huh, never. Expensive, luxury, high tech, ultimately drive but not for families with kids. We drove only 300miles my kids complainted too much and got mad at me why I took this shit home 😡🥵 mine is just 2020 x5 40i.
33 miles is for most people enough for every day driving, for longer trips you have the regular engine. Makes perfect sense, why drag along a huge battery that you don't need 95% of the trips.
It’s not an EV it’s a PHEV which btw 30+ miles is pretty darn good compared to most other PHEVs, and for most daily drives 30+ miles is plenty. You are paying 83k for a high spec luxury SUV, not EV range.
@@doomsday9973 As I stated in my first response to this comment, the price in the US starts at $56,200 after federal tax credit. Less when you add in some state tax credits. 30 miles is about average for PHEVs these days. BMW should have gone with a slightly larger battery and motor to help with acceleration in battery only mode. Other than that, it's a solid deal.
@@updlate4756 oh I agree with you I was responding to the original poster who was whining about the range. Agree a bigger EV motor would have been nice
Whether a plug-in hybrid is the best or worst of both worlds depends entirely on use case. We can typically do all our daily driving on battery, charge overnight (so slow charging isn't a problem) and have an ICE for our infrequent longer trips where charging is unavailable, unreliable, or inconvenient. If you have a different use case, either a BEV or pure ICE powered car may be best for you.
In the time from when we picked up our Volvo XC60 T8 in August, we're literally at 103 miles driven per gallon of gas burned because our driving pattern is mostly short, local trips (on battery) with many hours in between to recharge. This combined mileage is in a car that gets about 28 mpg on the ICE alone.
I have a RAV4 Prime, traded my Tesla for it. Love the PHEV, so many less compromises overall compared to BEV.
I think this car is perfect for family with kids. There's no way I can do EV on longer trips with the kids. But 95% of the driving is probably within 40 miles a day. This minimizes the time spent on either the gas station or charging station.
Great review, 18 minutes flew by fast. My wife has this car- very comfortable, luxurious, quiet ride around town especially when only using the electric motor. IMHO if you're going from combustion it's the best of both worlds, but if you're going into it from electric it's the worse of both worlds. She's selling it in a few months and going full electric again but xdrive45e is a super nice ride.
Your wife is a nice ride
I'm looking at trading my truck in and getting one of these built how I want it. I live 12 miles from work and I think this is way to go for my needs. Slow charging is fine since it would be over night and the savings would top it all off with electric. Thanks for the review and helping make my decision.
Glad to see you doing PHEV range tests... Please do the same for the new Volvo (18-kWh) and Porsche (18-kWh) PHEVs. Volvo has several PHEVs that they're apparently upgrading the battery pack size for, and Porsche has the Panamera and Cayenne E-Hybrids -- all of which interest me greatly. I can tell you that the "urban" test for our RAV4 Prime is pretty close to 50 miles consistently with ambient air temps 50 degrees or warmer.
Great video, just what I was looking for. Would like to see a similar video on the 2024 x5 50e if possible. Been considering this model year or the refresh 2024, I prefer this interior over the newer model but the newer model has increased range, and a more powerful motor.
I just traded my 2021 X5 xDrive45e in for a polestar 2, the slow changing for that little battery, shameful! On a good day on the highway at 70MPH, i was able to get 40 mile on electric. But i loved it beside that, but once i got a taste of electric drive i was ready to get rid of it, i was just waiting for the right offer.
Great review I love the x5. Why doesn't BMW just put a bigger battery in this thing ? if it had around 100 miles range on electric many wouldnt ever fire up the turbo engine
There is a crucial number of ev miles needed before there should be no ice engine. It seems like the industry is trying to figure that number out.
Weight and packaging. Batteries are very heavy, this already has worse handling than its ICE brother. Plus the weight negative impacts efficiency of both propulsion systems. I personally think a target for PHEVs should be 50~60 miles with reasonable performance metrics, mid 8 second 0-60. The average commute in the USA is 16 miles, that gives some buffer and provides most a EV commute.
Then why would you put the engine in the car at all?
The goal of a PHEV isn't to remove all gasoline use completely, just to drastically reduce it by maximizing electric range for the typical daily miles put on it.
If the average driver commutes 32 miles 5 days a week, then drives 40 miles on day 6, and 45 miles on day 7, then adding a 50 mile battery would give them 21 extra miles of EV range for the week, but would reduce the efficiency over the other 181 miles driven, only saving 1 gallon of gas but increasing electricity usage.
The only downside to BMW's solution is the 0-60 time in EV mode is incredibly slow. It's something like 12 - 16 seconds. Most of the time, when you're speeding up to highway speeds, you're probably only accelerating at a rate of about 10-12 seconds 0-60. I guess if you feel like getting up to speed faster, you just kick on the engine, get up to speed, then let off the pedal so that it reverts back to electric mode. This isn't exactly good for emissions and the engine though.
@@updlate4756 I think the reason I picked that number was it would convince more people to jump in, if you can say day to day usage is covered. While your points are very pragmatic, most consumers aren't.
I don't actually know the best EV range for maximum fuel savings or best efficiency, maybe 32 miles is the sweet spot.
I know Toyota made a statement that hybrids are better than EVs with the assumption batteries are a limited resource. For example it take 4 times the batteries to make a EV Rav4 vs Rav4 primes. 4 primes vs 1 EV and 3 ICE cars = reduced carbon emissions.
@@cavemankiwi 31 miles will cover most day to day driving. The average daily commute in the US is 32 miles. It's shorter in Europe, and even shorter in Asia. Adding more battery will simply add more weight and raise the price, while reducing efficiency across both powertrains and limiting space in the cabin.
There doesn't need to be a perfect range. It's nice when electricity can be utilized for all daily commuting, whereas the gas engine is there for those times where you exceed the range. That's maximizing the battery's use on a daily basis; in that you'll rarely if ever drive less than that range in a given day, but on occasion you'll drive more. Adding battery for the occasional longer drives is wasting efficiency on those days where you won't.
Still, even some of the shorter range PHEVs with 25-30 miles of range are fine even if you exceed the electrical range every day because they're still reducing your daily use of gas by 25-30 miles. In the case of the Prius Prime, you get the 25 miles, and then you're getting 55 mpg when using gas. It's super efficient.
Great car, I just don’t understand why they would put such a slow level two charger. Even a Pacifica hybrid charges at 6.6,Or something very close to that
Hphh
My good friend micheal who works for BMW has said due to the electric infrastructure in Germany house holds could not take the drag on electric. 120v there. Here in the UK it’s all 240v so totally agree with you
As you say. Here in the UK mine does around 58 miles in ev mode mixed motoring 44 miles a day back and forward to work pure Electric. And that’s the 24 kWh battery as well so not sure what BMW are playing at
I think the range for the battery in PHEVs needs to be roughly the distance across an MSA like Los Angeles, Bay Area, Houston, etc. Or at least cover the median commute plus maybe 5-10 miles (detours, additional errands). This way, people can commute to work, hopefully charge there, and get home on EV only. Let the ICE kick in for longer distances.
As for EVs, it's a shame the BMW iX M60 has those looks and not that of the standard X5M with some EV-denoting trim. Only the e-trons are beautifully designed IMO.
Kyle, always enjoy these reviews! Cheers.
Great review with a great car. On the question about the pure electric range for the European model: at least here in Germany, from 2022 a PHEV must do at least 60 kilometers (37.5) miles in electric mode to get a tax advantage. Not sure about the regulations in the other European countries.
Slow charging issue and not enough range on battery alone was enough for me to go with the X5 xdrive40i instead. Besides my wife drives a Tesla and there's times when we want to take a long road trip without having to spend extra time charging.
My Rav4 Prime has an MPGe of 94 whereas the AWD Hyundai Ioniq 5 gets 98 MPGe. Then the combined MPG in hybrid mode is 38, so that’s pretty good too. When you have an electric car with long range you are hauling around a large battery that you don’t need most of the time. So if you don’t want to rely on public chargers on long trips and you are okay with using some gas, the Rav4 at least is an efficient option. I think the real argument against the vehicle would be that it has a complex system integrating the EV and ICE systems. But the complexity is only really an issue if if it is unreliable or requires expensive maintenance. So far after a little more than a year the car has been great. It has the EV range and the HV power that is advertised.
Did I understand that you charged the 2021 BMW X5 45E with your Tesla charging cable? What kind of adapter did you use? Could you charge the X5 45E at a Tesla charging station using this adapter? Thanks for your time.
My wife and I briefly owned a brand new 2021 2021 BMW X5 45e for thirty days. After one day of ownership the yellow check engine light came on - despite driving without any noticeable issues. After thirty days in the shop with online consultations with German engineers, they still hadn't identified the problem. One solution they tried involved ordering a part for a sensor. This process took two weeks because the part had to come from Germany, but it failed to fix the issuer. We loved driving the car, but it wasn't meant to be. We asked the dealership for some options. We chose to return the vehicle for a full refund, which was handled promptly. I was left with the impression that owning a PHEV means troubleshooting problems will take much, much longer to diagnose and fix; especially when an engineer is working on it remotely and the parts are overseas.
Not sure what data you were given, or if they did indeed reprogram the 45e for 2022, but just after I bought my 2022 330e (Arizona, US) this November we looked at the 2022 X5 45e to potentially buy next year and it showed 24kWh battery pack, which is on the US website. The UK website shows 22.29 kWh
This is twice the size of my 2022 330e that has 24 mile range
BMW also quotes up to 50 mile range and the show 83kW(113PS) power and 265 Nm torque from the X5 45e electric motor which seems to be the same motor as in my 2022 330e
Difference I noticed from watching reviews compared to my 330e is I can only get 60% of the electric power (right side gauges) in full electric whereas the X5 will show 100% available
EDIT - it seems they all do have 24kWh and indeed are coded for less usage in Europe and significantly less in the US. I would have it coded to EU 22.29 and not the full 24kWh as could be an issue
Nice review mate 👏
See how i can can optimize fuel consumption up to 48mpg to get 1000 miles on a single refuel
We bought the X5 45e in Jan ‘21 here in the UK and it does considerably more miles on electric than your US version. Depending on how you drive it and where, it does between 46-50 miles (on 22” wheels). In hybrid it will do up to 55 miles on a longer run. I don’t understand why you get a lower charge capacity in the US than we do here in the UK?
Is there a reason for that?
I heard this is due to battery and hybrid warranty requirements in the US/Canada (8yrs/80k miles) which probably means BMW engineers are more conservative with the charge threshold. There are tunes to unlock more battery charge threshold, but they do void warranty if discovered.
Hi, did you say the battery would last only 55miles with the hybrid mode? That's crazy short. I thought it would last at least the whole time (400+ miles) with every full gas tank!!!??!!
@@huyle9988 it will prioritize use of electric even in hybrid mode so it will pretty much deplete the battery as soon as possible and then work as a normal hybrid. With battery depleted the car still has a buffer and it will always boast from electric when you push the throttle. Then it will generate some electricity back to the battery from the engine when driving normal. In city driving it will switch between using battery and driving on petrol and regenerating back electricity into the battery. The idea is that you charge as often as possible which could be 100 times on a full gas tank. Or 0 times you don't want to, but you will not get great milage.
Great job and impressive ev range! Can’t wait to see the freeway version.
How about driving on hybrid on the highway?
Or,
How to increase fuel efficiency on highway?
@17:00 EV's like Tesla's also have a transmission with few gears. In some instances it is more efficient to have less gears and sometimes its more efficient to have more gears. It slow, bumper to bumper city driving, less gears is better. Fast city or any highway driving, more gears are better. So, it depends. Second, with an EV you have to carry all that extra battery weight that you don't need most of the time. It ends up being a wash. You totally made up your mind against PHEV's from the get go.
Can you “turn off” the stop/start engine , so it doesnt shut engine off at lights?
Any tips for lowering fuel consumption on highway?
On a typical gasoline engine you usually warm up for a few seconds or so before you drive in the morning but on this hybrid how do you warm up the combustion engine when you start off only on EV mode?
I like that color so much. Do you mind I ask what is the color of this car?
As nice as the hybrid technology is, I'd prefer not having that complexity and simply having a gigantic battery instead. In my routine driving, I would almost never kick on the ICE powertrain. It would literally go months without firing up the engine. OTOH, if I routinely had to make the Fort Collins to Salt Lake City drive, this would make a fair amount of sense.
Leaking your own address… that’s brave. Hopefully people don’t show up to your house 🙃
@kyleconner how is the acceleration in EV only mode? Can you quickly accelerate into traffic or pass someone?
I enjoyed the review. I have one question. How much electricity does it take to charge the battery for a 33 mile range. Otherwise what is the electrical cost for those 33 miles? Thanks for the review.
It is a 17 KWh battery. It depends on your electricity price. Where I live it’s .08/KWh on peak and .065/KWh off peak. So 17 KWh x .08 = $1.36 if we charge during peak hours. So quite a bit cheaper for those 30 plus all electric miles when compared to the 3.75/gallon I’m currently paying for premium unleaded. We typically drive less than 30 miles a day in a warm weather climate so the hybrid might work well.
@@briank3754 is that your total cost per KWh? I.e., transmission fees, taxes, etc?
@@sculder7 my utility taxes are about 10%, but I charge as low as .065 cents per KWH off peak so .08 is probably even a little higher than what I pay. A lot cheaper than gas for my daily driving.
Can you do a city range test in something you have ranged tested on the highway? If love to see if you gain or lose miles. I know you regenerate when you slow down but you also use more energy when speeding up. Curious if it's as good as suggested.
Kyle, can you do a Kia Sorento PHEV review? I just ordered one.
How does it heat up cabin in cold weathers ? My need is it heat the cabin without turning on motor.
On my shortlist to replace my wife’s x50i when the ‘23 come out
so how long does it take to charge from empty to full with normal 120v outlet? thx
Where did you get this from?
Or where did you return it???
How reliable is it?
the sound on your video is really off. It shifts from left channel to the right channel when you swing your camera. Very annoying and hard to listen to whatever you say there.
I seriously considered getting a PHEV, especially had my eye on the BMW X3 PHEV, but (luckily) it’s no longer available in the US, so got a Model Y instead. I consider myself much better off. I agree with Kyle: maybe it’s the best of both worlds but it could also be the worst of both worlds
Well you’re not you spend the money that could get you a BMW and you ended up with a car with a interior and exterior worst than a Ford Focus.
This car get 7500 tax credit and 2500 state rebate. It's just like no brainer for me to choose this over model Y...
LOL its funny I did the opposite I had a model Y on order and cancelled it to get the X3e PHEV. Couldn't be happier!
@@doomsday9973 That’s great! I’m still curious about it. Do you plug it in every day? How often do you fill the gas tank? How many miles do you get on one tank of gas, including charging and driving electric-only? I’m happy where I am with the MY, but I was so close to getting the BMW PHEV.
@@slee4110 They are both great cars. In the end I just loved the look of the BMW over the Y and got a great deal on it that's what won me over in the end. Yep i plug in just about every day. I don't commute in it so the EV range covers 85% of my driving. I fill up once a month at most less in the warmer months. Biggest criticism is the EV range, in perfect weather you get around 17-20 miles. In the winter more like 12ish. Its not great but for my use case it works out.
Doesnt BMW need you to set the charging rate in the settings? Then it should charge quicker 😉
You can but it still only charges at 16amps max. The charger is slow.
17:10 you say the car is inefficient because you have to haul around an engine and transmission along with the battery / electric motors... except that if this was a full BEV, the battery would be ~100 kWh and would weigh ~1200+ lbs. For example, the iX, which has a ton of carbon fiber in the frame to cut down weight is sitting at 5,650 lbs, whereas this weighs 5,670 lbs.
Often times the PHEV variant will be lower weight than the BEV variant. That may not be the case in the X5 because it's a sporty SUV and the engine needs to be large enough to move this extremely heavy vehicle at a brisk pace. If they had set out to build a 7 second 0-60 car instead of a 4.7 second, the engine could have been smaller. Setups like the RAV4 prime or Escape PHEV don't have as large of an engine so the weight is kept in check.
What would impact a PHEV's efficiency versus a BEV is the need for more cooling vents in the front, impacting aero.
The main reasons this car is so inefficient are:
1) It's a really really heavy vehicle at about 5670 lbs. It's a good 300-500 lbs heavier than a model X, but that's because the model X is made almost entirely out of aluminum.
2) It isn't aerodynamic with a large Cd of .36, versus a model X at .24 . That's a massive difference.
3) Those MASSIVE wheels and summer tires definitely didn't help your efficiency.
4) You're running at winter temperatures. Not as huge of an impact in city driving as it would be in highway, but it definitely has an impact; especially since you're running the HVAC.
You get a lot for the money. Just configured one for $60,800 after federal credit with a few added options. The base iX before options is $77,300 after federal credit. The base model X is $105,000 (not eligible for credit).
I feel like something that needs to be mentioned more is the MSRP and the out the door price are two very different things when it comes to luxury vehicles. When I was shopping around I was finding around 8k worth of fees lopped onto the top of the MSRP at the dealerships I talked to.
Would NEVER
i heard the slow charging speed, is so the German power grid wont be maxed out ??
so to clarify - did you say 2022 XC90
will have more power? more range too?
ha you dudes are genius - tow charging a tesla
Hopefully one day they release the European capacity on the US vehicles
They won't. Its because of the warranty, the battery warranty in the US is much longer than Europe so they build in a much larger buffer to make it last longer,
I don't know why shit German engineers bmw don't like reclining back seats huh, never. Expensive, luxury, high tech, ultimately drive but not for families with kids. We drove only 300miles my kids complainted too much and got mad at me why I took this shit home 😡🥵 mine is just 2020 x5 40i.
wocao
Mate nice videos but stop touching your hair or glasses… you’re not a teenager anymore.
$82,000 for a whopping 33 miles electric? What a joke...
It starts at $63,700 in the US. ($56,200 after $7500 tax credit)
33 miles is for most people enough for every day driving, for longer trips you have the regular engine.
Makes perfect sense, why drag along a huge battery that you don't need 95% of the trips.
It’s not an EV it’s a PHEV which btw 30+ miles is pretty darn good compared to most other PHEVs, and for most daily drives 30+ miles is plenty. You are paying 83k for a high spec luxury SUV, not EV range.
@@doomsday9973 As I stated in my first response to this comment, the price in the US starts at $56,200 after federal tax credit. Less when you add in some state tax credits. 30 miles is about average for PHEVs these days. BMW should have gone with a slightly larger battery and motor to help with acceleration in battery only mode. Other than that, it's a solid deal.
@@updlate4756 oh I agree with you I was responding to the original poster who was whining about the range. Agree a bigger EV motor would have been nice
wocao