Cars just keep getting bigger. It’s something we’ve come to quietly accept over the decades, with the understanding that along with this, comes improvements to performance, refinement, tech and safety.
Even hardliners will find it difficult to poke holes in what the modern sports car embodies today. Sub 3-second 0-60 mph times on the regular. Active suspension and aerodynamic elements becoming the standard fare. Advanced traction control systems linked with super-computer-like ECUs. Safety features that were once only imagined in 20th century sci-fi movies. Remarkable versatility for road and track use. It’s all very fast, it’s all very safe, and it’s all very good.
2025 BMW M5 Breaks The Consensus
But, with the announcement of the 2025 BMW M5, there’s a sense of ambivalence creeping back into the subject of what an acceptable weight for a performance car should be. There was no getting away from it with this one, and you would be quick to forgive the M5 and its brand new plug-in hybrid powertrain if not for it tipping the scales at a decidedly hefty 5,390 lbs. Ooof. That makes it heavier than a not-insignificant number of trucks and SUVs (including some of BMW’s own).
Performance EVs can now take a breather from being the proverbial punching bag for those who emphatically stigmatize weight-abundant automobiles, thanks to the 2025 BMW M5. Within the luxury performance sports sedan category—of which the M5 will be part of—fully-electric platforms such as the Porsche Taycan and Tesla Model S are a few hundred pounds lighter, in spite of their supposed penalty of having to lug around a 1,300 lb lithium-ion battery.
Even the BMW i5 M60 manages to be lighter, despite not having been labeled as a high performance sports car, like the M5—and despite being an EV, unlike the M5. Add to this, the fact that weight—less of it, in this case—has stood the test of time as one of the basic tenets of a high performance car ideology, relatively speaking. So, is this a one-off, or is BMW just the first amongst many to egregiously buck this trend? Time will tell.
It Has Better Performance Specs…
BMW will of course tell you, that none of this will prevent the new M5 from setting high performance benchmarks, almost to the point that it’s fashionable to be this heavy. In fairness, the new plug-in hybrid powertrain is getting rave reviews, but that’s mostly when it’s looked at in isolation. Boasting up to 717 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque will do that, and even on just the premise alone that they’ve managed to stuff a 14.8 kWh battery pack into a 4.4L V8—I’ll be first to admit that’s objectively impressive.
Of course, its new PHEV status brings a host of other advantages, too. Compared to the previous iteration of the M5, it’s up about 100 hp, and it’s going to offer pretty much what’s expected from a plug-in hybrid these days—improved fuel efficiency and the ability to run on electric-only power for roughly 25 miles. But, I think a commenter on the Car and Driver site summed it up really well…
“So what if it’s a 5,400 lb car? It can go 25 miles in electric mode”, said no BMW M5 owner ever. – RyanDarr1979
He has a good point. There’s so much more to a car than just that, and the demographic of your typical M5 customer is going to be more detail-oriented on matters of performance, than your typical window shopper. With a starting MSRP of $120,675 USD, people are going to do their homework before they buy, and it’s hard at the moment to see how BMW could find a positive PR spin for a decision that’s made the M5 over 1,000 lbs heavier than its predecessor—a Touring variant would add even more weight on top. Some could even argue that the extra 100 hp is just a small pittance for all that sacrifice.
Does Weight Ultimately Matter?
I guess the other topic up for debate is whether a heavy car really needs to be that unpalatable to car enthusiasts. Afterall, we did start this article off by pointing out that the added benefits that have come from tacking on more pounds to a car, have far outweighed (pun intended) the cons—at least up until now. I, for one, have personal experience driving a Porsche Taycan—even at the track—and the extremely low and uniquely situated center of gravity that an EV platform affords, does have its merits.
But have we crested the top of the hill? Is there a hard limit to what’s acceptable, for luxury performance sports sedans in particular? Could it be 4,000 lbs? That seemed casually easy to stay under before EVs and hybrids started to become part of the mainstream think-tank. Or would 5,000 lbs be an easier target, granted that most of the best performance oriented EVs are already managing to stay under that? There are many industry experts who believe that advancements in technology will help address the weight issues, though we’re past the point of no-return when it comes to this class of cars ever returning to the 3,000 lbs range.
What do you think? Does weight matter to you? Are cars too heavy nowadays?
