We drive the BMW ActiveHybrid 5 to see if it is sporty and efficient - ConsumerReports.org
You may not have heard, but BMW now offers its luxurious 5 Series sedan as hybrid. We recently spent a few days with a BMW ActiveHybrid 5 to see if it lives up to the promise and share our first impressions. This car, starting at $61,100, stickers for $8,000 more than a regular 535i. The hybrid brings all the virtues and vices of the regular 5 Series: a comfortable ride, quiet cabin, and impeccable interior along with complex controls and somewhat... We've been observing an average of 25. 5 mpg in mixed driving, compared with the 23 mpg overall from our tested 535i. That 2. 5-mpg gain is much less than we measured with our tested Toyota Camry sedans: The Camry hybrid got 11 mpg more than the... Jumping to the upscale category, a Mercedes-Benz E-Class diesel registered 26 mpg overall in our tests and doesn't cost appreciably more than a conventional V6-powered E-Class, which got 21 mpg. Thrift is not the first thing that comes to mind regarding BMW, but it's worth noting that the relatively frugal $47,500 528i , with its turbocharged, 2. 0-liter four-cylinder engine, gets better fuel economy than BMW's Hybrid—24 mpg city/34 mpg... If fuel economy were the name of the game, then maybe that's the car BMW should have hybridized. Source: www.consumerreports.org
