Electric or gas? BMW goes both ways with new 2027 X5 and iX5.

BMW provided flights from Washington, DC, to Los Angeles and accommodation so Ars could drive the new X5 and iX5, as well as a refreshed i7 (which you can read about soon). Ars does not accept paid editorial content. When we first drove BMW’s first Neue Klasse model, the iX3, it quickly revealed that BMW knows how to make a good electric vehicle. A clean-sheet design, it featured the automaker’s sixth-generation electric powertrain, a completely reimagined dashboard, and powerful computers to run the whole show. Now, much of that technology is being ported over to the larger X5 line.

But BMW knows not all its customers are ready to go electric, especially in the US, so it’s sticking with its powertrain-agnostic CLAR platform, as used in cars as diverse as the large 7 Series and the new gasoline 3 Series. …