The BMW 545e might just be the best pick of the range for a lot of people. It’s a very fast and powerful car, sitting right behind the BMW M550i in the range, in terms of performance. It’s all due to the internal combustion engine/electric motor combo that works wonders with the straight six architecture. With almost 400 HP on tap and instant torque, it’s hard to call it slow, by any possible scale. Sure, it won’t be for anyone. And that’s mostly because this is a plug-in hybrid vehicle and it was designed as such. Therefore, if you’re not going to recharge it daily and use it in electric mode as often as possible, you might end up burning more fuel than you would with a ‘regular’ BMW 540i. The added weight of the batteries and electric motor will have their say at the end of the day. Nevertheless, that dead weight will come to life if you juice the car up on the regular.
The guys from AutoTopNL took one of these hybrid 5 Series models out for a sprint on an unrestricted piece of the Autobahn system. This way, they were able to compare BMW’s claims to their own findings. According to the car maker, the BMW 545e should deliver 394 HP and 600 Nm of torque in total. It will also reach 100 km/h from standstill in 4.7 seconds, thanks to its all-wheel drive setup and impressive specs.
However, the video shows even better numbers. 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) took just 4.46 seconds, even though the road temperature was very low. Furthermore, the 1/4 mile was done with in 12.52 seconds, while 0-200 km/h took 17 seconds (100-200 km/h took 12.54 seconds). Those are very good numbers overall and it’s interesting to watch as the car reaches its top speed and feels as if it hit an invisible wall.
