The X5e is now exactly 1 month old – and we have tried to find out how long it can actually drive on pure electric power.
Todays drive was from Godalming to Haslemere – a distance of 8.8 miles according to the navigation system.
The car was fully charged overnight – and we reached the parking spot in Haslemere with 21% battery power left. This should indicate that we could drive the car for a maximum of around 11 miles on a full charge.
The drive was a typical southern england drive, using the dynamic cruise control, so no speeding, and the car driven as smoothly as only the built-n computer can do.
There is a “but” her though – when the power level dips below 10% it seems impossible to drive on electric power on its own, as the car will warn you that there is not enough power in the battery to drive the demands of the car.
The BMW website states
“However, in purely electric mode, this
pioneering, unrivalled vehicle can drive approximately 19 miles completely emission free
and with zero fuel consumption.”
But this is of course not the reality we see with our car – it can drive approximately half of the advertised distance.
I will hasten to say that this may be a software problem, and it may be fixed by a software update, as all the data I can get is driven by what I see on the dashboard and from the BMW connected apps. So I hope this can be fixed without too many issues at the next service.
It has (as far as I can tell) changed from when the car was brand new – as we could only get 3-5 miles of range on pure electric.
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On the positive side the stats tells us :

The last journey today was very short, and most of it driven mostly on batteries.
The “All journeys” is since the car was new btw.