NEW BMW M5 vs Audi RS6 | Has BMW got it right with the latest M5?
welcome to the most controversial car of 2024 it's the new BMW M5 why is it so controversial well there's a few reasons but the main one is that apparently it is very very heavy but you know what I don't believe that I think this is one of the lightest M cars ever as you can see from how easy it is to pushed did I mention that it's also a hybrid now [Music] two yep in the last8 years the ultimate in super saloons has gone from a straight rear wheeel drive V8 to an all-wheel drive plug-in hybrid they say progress is King but I'm starting to understand just why this car is so controversial but it's not like BMW's M division hasn't pleasantly surprised us before because remember when the current M3 came along with its controversial styling and then there was all-wheel drive weren't too sure about that were we but it turned out to be absolutely brilliant and also the thing about this car's weight I mean yes 2.4 tons is a lot it's too much but let's not pretend that the previous M5 was a featherweight Saloon I mean it was getting on for 2 tons this is just a continuation of [Applause] that and it's not like BMW has skimped on the power either there's still a 4.4 L twint turbocharged V8 that makes 577 brake horsepower which actually is about 40 brake horsepower less than the f90 but this time there's a single electric motor integrated into the 8-speed transmission that adds another 194 brake horsepower as a result total system output is 77 brake horsepower and 738 lb foot of torque they are unbelievable numbers it's the most powerful M5 ever made but actually the power to weight ratio is slightly worse than the previous M5 and that means that the na to 62 mph time is also a little bit [Applause] slower although let's face it the difference between 3.4 and 3.5 seconds isn't really noticeable and the M5 didn't need to be any quicker off the line what it does need to do though is somehow turn that huge weight into an exciting drive it's a big [Music] task has it succeeded yeah I think it has yeah it's a little bit slower from U to 62 mph but the rolling speed the speeding gear or when you're overtaking that is noticeably better and because you've got that electric motor in the transmission it means that when you want the power it's there you flex your foot on the accelerator and you get that instant surge of forward motion and if you want to see an action you just pull the left hand paddle that activates boost mode and everything goes into maximum attack so when you go for the accelerator I mean this thing is so fast and you know what I like the noise this thing makes I mean it's obviously not up there with previous m5s that have not had a plug-in hybrid powertrain or maybe not had turbochargers of course not but I don't think the quality of the sound is any worse than it is on the BMW M3 and yes there's lots of sound augmentation going on but at the end of the day it rumbles like a V8 it revs nicely it sounds good when you're in the upper reaches of the Rev range it's a pretty convincing effort I've got no issues with it I can't really compose and I know a few people aren't so Keen but for me sounds pretty good okay but it's no real shock that a V8 with 717 brake horsepower is fast and sounds decent but what is surprising is what the M5 is like in the corners what's really impressed me about this M5 is despite how big and heavy it is and how wide it is I felt confident in it straight away the front end is so pointy you've got a variable ratio steering rack which is the first time we've ever had that in an M5 and just off center the steering response is really direct and quick and yeah it does take some getting used to but once you do get used to it it just means that you can be really quite delicate with your inputs I've got no doubt that the rear wheel steering also first time in an M5 is helping with that agility but I think most of it comes from just this really well judged steering and it does make the car feel agile when you're really leaning it into a corner and you get to the point where you are getting a bit of slip from the front wheels and that takes a lot you can just come off the accelerator and the car adjusts around its axis it doesn't feel like a runaway train like you'd perhaps expect from a car that I'll say it again weighs this much I mean no doubt on a track when the speeds are higher you'll start to feel that weight more definitely but there'll be more Focus versions to come but with this car on the road I've got no problems with the way that it goes around corners the only time you start to feel the suspension struggle is over large expansion points in the road it's not so much that it unsettles the car but the harshness coming through the chassis suggests the damping is approaching its limit and as such there are times when it starts to feel a touch edgy and lacking a little bit of composure unfortunately that's what you get when you drive a 2.5 T limo like a sports [Music] car and while there are a lot of drive mode settings in this car there's an awful lot of customization I like it because you can tailor make it to whichever Road or environment you're in I think the drive Logic the transmission setting being in its most aggressive Sport Plus mode is a bit much the changes are a bit jolty and also the chassis in Sport Plus doesn't really work on the road Comfort or sport are absolutely fine you know if you can get over the size and the weight and potentially the looks if that's not your thing of the new M5 then there's a lot of car here there's a huge amount of car and I'm surprised with how much I like it especially given how comfortable and refined it is I drove it from London to South Wales for this shoot and it was easy it was a lovely thing to drive down in and then when you get here it's still brilliant so the M5 is comfortable absolutely rapid and surprisingly good fun the only problem with that is that when it comes to fast capable luxury cars Audi has been all over it for years and right on Q here's Mr Ben Barry with a timely reminder of why the M5 still has some very stiff competition a first drove of the M5 back in the summit as a prototype I liked it straight away but I still think it's got its work cut out to beat this the RS6 and that's not despite it being 5 years old that's because it's 5 years old there's no plug-in hybrid technology here just the mest whiff of mild hybridization 4 L V8 8-speed automatic gearbox all-wheel drive it's just the same as the RS6 has been for the last couple of generations and I think there are plenty of people out there who now want the last of what we've got they don't want the next thing as we sort of creep towards full electrification they want the last while they can still have it and that certainly ticks the Box in this case with the RS6 it sounds a bit crazy to say this in the context of the RS6 but versus the M5 this is the more compact car by quite margin it's also hundreds of kilos ligh at 2,100 kilos which is already pretty heavy anyway now this one's the performance model they're all performance models now apart from the super toppy GT the limited edition thing that's 170 G and that means 621 brake horsepower and combined with that weight 2.1 tons that means the power to weight ratio is 296 brake horsepower Buton and that is one brake hor SP more than the M5 now I think a key reason to buy the RS6 is because you want an allrounder and you know in the name of research I've been driving this car around for a week now I've been doing all sorts in it taking the family out driving it on a roads B roads motorways around town wet and dry roads and it has absolutely aced all that stuff it is a lovely car to live with it is really refined it's sophisticated it's got this kind of luxurious feel it's a real high performance car that doesn't involve any compromise whatsoever 4 L V8 is really key to this car's appeal you know when you're on The Daily Grind it kind of just slips into the background in some of the less aggressive engine modes this is in the more pronounced engine mode so you may be able to hear it burbling away but it just Slips Away really sophisticated really muscular and flexible but then when you crank it up it really delivers now there is some lag here once you get to about 2,300 that's when it all really wakes up and starts to deliver but it's really linear really powerful it's almost like a gif in the way it keeps repeating its performance on that kind of endless Loops really linear just keeps pulling when you do wind it up I love the sound of this thing it's just really kind of deep and Bassy and resonant and it it reminds me of those um slightly Niche reference but those drums you get in Orchestra pits where they're like half an eggshell shape and they're playing them with drumsticks that have got those big felt ends on them to damp down the sound and it's got that kind of lovely kind of really kind of character I love it now this is the performance carbon VOR sprung so you get the base performance version you get carbon black and you get carbon for spring and you might remember me and James did a video earlier this year on the M3 touring and the RS6 I was a little bit down on the RS6 in that video and I really like this car and it's almost exactly the same spec so I'm not fully rowing back on that because that other car was a carbon V sprung and and with that spec you get the 22in o wheels that are 20 kilos lighter all around but you're also supposed to get Continental sport contact sevs that car didn't come on the contes it came on hancook tires I just couldn't get the confidence in the front end I couldn't get the bite and that really spoiled it for me this car it's on the cones and it's completely transformed now partly it's transformed because you got that extra front end bite but it's also I think it feels sharper I don't know if that's sidewall stiffness or quite what it is but actually the first time I got into it it felt kind of over responsive when I turned into a corner felt like it was turning in too much and and what you do get with with these cars now all the performance models is dynamic steering so variable ratio steering and rear wheel steering as well so those two things combine makes it super super agile and responsive but it is perhaps a little bit over responsive I feel like I'm making multiple inputs to actually place the car where I want it to go now the steering on this car is really nice I think with a caveat which I'll get on to in a minute but in terms of daily usability with this steering it's got a real nice waiting to it obviously you can tweak that but ultimately in the middle setting it's got a nice resistance and feedback I think versus the m5's really kind of chunky steering wheel it's nice to have such a thin diameter wheel you got the Alcantara on the rim as well which makes it feel tactile I think even before you're really doing much with it it helps make this car feel lighter and more agile when I was back home and driving this car on Greaser roads I was getting a little bit of push and and under steer um on some of the faster stuff and that was with the sport blocking diff is standard on these cars now and you can set it to comfort balanced or more Dynamic and in the more Dynamic setting it really wakes this car up really digs in and makes it much more positive in the way it powers out of a corner I think as a complete package AG this thing really really takes some beating what I really like about it is it's so usable every day it's the sort of thing that you could use it in the same way as you could a range over you could toss the keys to someone else in your household who maybe doesn't want to be scared by an edgy feeling performance car and it just does its thing and yet when you step up and you do use that performance it can really deliver I think as an all round package it's still 5 years on really does take some beating this car [Music] [Applause] so unsurprisingly the RS6 is still deeply impressive and if you thought its cabin was dominated by screens then well the M5 takes it a step further with its super wide curved screen and a light show that would put the Las Vegas Strip to shame it's undoubtedly the more upto-date and Tech filled cabin having said that it does have a number of shortcut buttons on the M panel and there's also a handy dial to control the menus without having to operate the touchcreen this means that although both cars have personalized drive mode shortcut buttons the M5 is the slightly easier car to make quick adjustments on as for the driving position the RS6 feels lower and more natural plus its Slimmer Alcantara trimmed steering wheel is much nicer to hold than the overly chunky rim on on the M5 for those after a more old school design the RS6 clings on a little harder to the cin design of the 2010s whereas the M5 is For Better or Worse absolutely with the times either way both cars make for a lovely place to sit in but which one is our overall favorite before making our final decision I hopped into the M5 with Ben to get a read on his thoughts and glean some bonus information about the development process of the [Music] M5 it's just got so much hasn't it I mean we're barely scraping the surface there going up to what 5,000 RPM or something it's got a load more to go and it's I don't know it felt pretty to me yeah it's just so effortlessly quick with that rolling speed when you want it I mean the things that I noticed after driving it for only about half an hour was that BMW's M division has done a lot better with the transition from regular straightforward petrol to plug in hybrid than AMG has done with the C63 I know they're not strictly Rivals but it's night and day different because that powertrain really let the car down it's very nicely integrated isn't it from the the step from being in electric mode in the hybrid setting and then transition into petrol I think the mechanical transition is very good it's very smooth but you've also got this synthetic noise that maybe some people might not like the idea of yeah but it kind of Smooths over that in a experiential way as well as you're sitting there driving it it feels very consistent and actually because BMW has added the hybrid element to the powertrain there's now even more mode that you can choose yeah I mean before you've got things like the steering the brake the drive logic which is the gearbox the suspension all the obvious stuff but now you can go into M hybrid and you've got dynamic dynamic Plus Electric e control hybrid yeah is it too much you think it is too much I mean the get out of jail card for that is that You' still got these M1 and M2 buttons on the steering wheel and effectively you can set one for your everyday and one for kind of high performance driving so I get that but initially as you approach sh is an awful lot of stuff to get through and there's so many different variables that sometimes just having them in two settings yes might not be enough anyway yeah do you think with this M5 that there's a danger that maybe it's easy to judge it too harshly because the last M5 that we remember and that a lot of the people watching this video will remember was the f90 the M5 CS which was one of the best m5s of all time whereas this is the entry level it's the first M5 of the New Gen and it's obviously not going to match up to that from a dynamic point of view yeah I I think there is there is that risk and and also I'm not sure that they're going to do a competition version really I was really lucky earlier this summer actually just before goodw to drive this in Prototype form it was it was actually finished and signed off in terms of a chassis point of view but I spent the day driving it with Derk hacker who is second in charge at M division yeah so it was quite interesting to get his insights just seem you know sometimes they they play their cards close to their chest don't they but I just wasn't sure they were going to do one they'll certainly do something like a CS again I think but yeah I mean it's a very different car isn't it to the to the Cs it's the plug-in hybrid it's a bigger car it's a heavier car it's quite a different proposition yeah and how does it compare to the Prototype that you drove this is this the same it feels as I remember it yeah see the chassis was signed off I I'm not sure it was still in camouflage I think maybe from a more of a visual point of view drove it back to back with the M5 touring but yeah it was interesting to hear the logic on why they went for the plug-in hybrid and I sort of empathized with their situation at the time so this was back five years ago they were having their regular meetings that they have on a on a Tuesday Morning him with Frank van M and the the senior team and they were looking at like you know could we do a V8 in 5 years time for a car that's going to be on sale for seven years well they thought quite understandably you know maybe they couldn't but maybe full electric was just a step too far to go from an 5 with no hybridization at all to straight to that so they had all sorts of different discussions about that and it started off with the M3s engine the s58 the six-cylinder maybe a smaller electric battery MH and then they just decided they wanted to do everything they wanted to keep the V8 the 4.4 L V8 and they
wanted some proper electric range so they've they've kind of refused to compromise and and done everything but the compromise is then having a car that is very heavy 2.4 tons are just over interesting oh that was quite rough wasn't he so that's in Drive logic setting three the maximum gear shift speed and that is a little bit UNC I think it's it's too much it's trying too hard yeah I'd agree but I think I think so what's so nice about this is that you can switch between four-wheel drive four-wheel drive sport two wheel drive and you've almost got two two and a half cars in one with that yeah this four-wheel drive sport motor in now if we just accelerate yeah oh that rear bias there was absolutely and then just hooking up out his corner all that power and you won't get I mean the RS6 it can push more power to the rear but you won't get that same level of easy to access bit of rotation what mem has done really well he's kept that Spirit of rear wheel drive you could feel it was not fully layy there but it was very very rear biased it felt maybe what 95% rear biased just a little bit of the front so I think that balance that they've dialed into this car that is key to its appeal and that's when versus the RS 6 when you really start to push it that's that's when it just has to make the difference for me yeah definitely coming into this test the RS6 was a known quantity for both of us and yet as it approaches the Twilight of its production this particular RS6 felt better than any other example i' driven before compared with the M5 it felt smaller lighter often more pant and that engine is just a masterpiece the RS6 has a huge reputation and it's not going quietly for many this would be the pick of the two cars and justifiably so [Music] however Ben and I both agreed that the M's ability to take its outright performance to a level slightly higher but also more versatile than the RS6 is gives it the win the way it can switch from comfortable Cruiser to a ballistic and hugely enjoyable b-road weapon is Simply Sublime the size and weight are both excessive but they don't spoil the experience thanks to some utterly outstanding engineering and a clear determination to bring the feeling of an M car into the plug-in hybrid generation it's a close one but the M5 is simply too good to turn down
2024-11-28 21:52
