Photo: BMWBLOG
In today's issue:
The first electric BMW X5 has been driven, and the reviews split on whether it beats the gas one; BMW already has a $1,000 loyalty offer on it, the same as the gas X5's
Porsche plans to sell fewer cars and make up the difference with paint, options, restorations and one-offs
Chery is considering a Canadian factory, and Kia Canada is pricing its EV3 against the Chinese brands coming in
Filtered from 3,122 items published across 268 sources in the last 24 hours.
TWO X5S, ONE ARGUMENT
The 2027 iX5 60 xDrive is the first electric X5. It has two motors making 570 hp, a 144-kWh battery and a peak charging rate of 460 kilowatts, enough to add up to 170 miles in 10 minutes, per Car and Driver. There is no EPA rating yet; BMW is targeting about 450 miles of EPA range.
It starts at $81,250, about $7,700 more than the gas X5 40 xDrive at $73,550, per Edmunds, which notes the X5 is regularly BMW's best-selling model in America. Only the charge port and badges tell the two apart from outside, per Car and Driver, and the iX5 is about 1,000 pounds heavier, per Road & Track.
Motor1's verdict is "A Better Buy Than The Gas X5," and its reviewer wrote that the iX5 "felt like the more complete SUV," per Motor1. "I think the EV is the pick of the bunch," wrote Ars Technica.
Car and Driver went the other way: it found the iX5's ride bouncy, said it enjoyed the gas model's ride and handling more, and concluded the iX5 is "outmatched by its own stablemate," per Car and Driver. "If a pillowy soft ride is high on your list of priorities, you'll want the lighter gas car," per Edmunds.
Deliveries start in the first quarter of 2027, but BMW has already told dealers it will give returning BMW owners and lessees a $1,000 loyalty discount, twice what it offers on the iX3, according to a memo CarsDirect reviewed, per Electrek. The $1,000 matches the gas X5's loyalty offer, as does 4.99% financing for up to 60 months, and it does not cover the $1,450 destination charge, per BMWBlog.
The reviews disagree about the car and agree about the problem: once the electric and gas X5 look and cost about the same, the EV has to win on how it drives, and the $7,700 gap is what separates them on the window sticker. BMW's opening offer is aimed at keeping its own owners rather than winning new ones, and nothing about it is EV-specific. One of its closest rivals outside the brand, the 628-hp Lucid Gravity, starts at $81,750, per Road & Track. The iX5 will be built at BMW's plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, the first all-electric BMW made in the U.S., per Electrek. Read Car and Driver's full review.
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Also worth knowing
Porsche's Plan for Selling Fewer Cars Is Charging More for Each One: Porsche's deliveries fell from a record 320,221 in 2023 to 279,449 in 2025 and are down 16% through September, and its operating margin was 1.1% last year against a long-term target of 15%, per Automotive News. Its answer is personalization: a Paint to Sample color costs $15,050 on a 2027 911 Carrera that starts at $137,850, a Sonderwunsch color $32,940, and Porsche wants option revenue per car up about 20%. Product boss Alexander Fabig said future projects "could exceed a 200 percent price premium over the base model." The average configured Porsche in the U.S. already reached $128,663 in 2025, up 31% from 2019, according to Edmunds figures cited in the same report. #analyst
Chery Is Weighing a Canadian Factory as Kia Prices Its EV3 Against the Chinese Brands Coming In: Chery is considering local manufacturing in Canada, possibly by taking over idle plant capacity or working with partners, after it starts selling there next year, per Automotive News. "Even without the American market, Canada is a market that is worth having a factory for manufacturing," executive vice president Guibing Zhang said. It could be the first Chinese automaker to build in Canada, whose deal with Beijing lets in 49,000 Chinese EVs and plug-in hybrids a year at a low tariff, a quota that rises each year, per the same report. Kia Canada's answer is the EV3, which starts at C$39,744 with delivery before rebates, near the average transaction price of about C$45,000, per Automotive News. "We're trying to be the first affordable EV brand in the country," COO Elias El-Achhab said. #market
Dealers Now Make $521 Selling the Car and $1,985 in the Finance Office: Dealerships' gross profit on the vehicle itself averaged $521 per new- and used-car deal from January through August, down from $718 a year earlier and $884 in 2024, while finance-and-insurance profit per deal rose to $1,985 from $1,893 and $1,772, according to StoneEagle data reported by Automotive News. Total gross per deal still fell, to $2,506 from $2,656 in 2024. Dealers sold about the same number of add-on products per deal and made more on each; guaranteed asset protection, which covers what the loan still owes when a car is totaled, was in 39.2% of deals, up from 36.5% two years ago. Georgia dealer Andy Welborn said many buyers from the 2022 shortage now owe more than their cars are worth, and "we don't need people running around in 84-month contracts with rates that are higher." #market
Reveals & culture
Mercedes-AMG Is Bringing the C63 Back as Both a Gas Car and an EV: Mercedes CTO Jörg Burzer told Australia's Drive "we're working on both," per Motor1. The combustion version comes with the next-generation C-Class, not the current one. On Monday, AMG CEO Stefan Weckbach said the C63 will not get its V8 back; Burzer would not say whether the next one gets a V8: "I don't know what these guys are doing at AMG," per Autoblog. An inline-six C53 replaces the four-cylinder plug-in hybrid C63 in the meantime.
Hyundai's New Tucson Took 15,045 Orders on Its First Day in Korea: That beats the 10,842 the outgoing model took in 2020, per Motor1. Hybrids made up 55% of the orders, up from 48% last time, per Autoblog. The fifth-generation Tucson reaches the U.S. in late 2026 or early 2027.
Photo: Hyundai
Volkswagen Wanted an Electric Bugatti, and Mate Rimac Talked It Into a V16: Rimac told Automotive News Europe that the easy route would have been a Bugatti on the Nevera's platform, but feedback on the Nevera convinced him the market "was going in a different direction," per Motor1. He has said only 71 of a planned 150 Neveras have sold.
Photo: Bugatti
Fiat Revived the Autobianchi Name So Italy's Government Can't Take It: A new Italian law lets the government reclaim a trademark unused for five years, and The Autopian suggests the government might use such names to lure Chinese automakers, so Stellantis has to use the Autobianchi name or lose it, per The Autopian. The Pandina Tributo Autobianchi borrows the all-black tailgate of the Y10, which ran until the brand closed in 1996.
Photo: Fiat
Quick links
The New Toyota RAV4 Missed an IIHS Award Over Rear-Seat Protection: It scored Acceptable in the moderate-overlap front test because of rear-passenger injury measures, and the plug-in hybrid was rated Marginal, while the Hyundai Tucson earned a Top Safety Pick+, per Autoblog.
Acura Trademarked Four New Names Ahead of Three New SUVs: Honda filed TDX, LDX, TYPE-TRAIL and TYPE T on Oct. 16, after Acura confirmed an eight-seat flagship and an off-roader, per Motor1. None is confirmed for production.
Wayve, Stellantis and Nvidia Are Teaming Up on Self-Driving Cars in France: Announced with the French government on Oct. 23, the collaboration pairs Stellantis's L4-ready vehicle platforms with Wayve's AI driver running on Nvidia's Hyperion hardware, per Stellantis. The release names no vehicles, cities or launch dates. Wayve already has a driver-assistance deal with Mercedes.
Truist Sold Its $5.5 Billion Near-Prime Car-Loan Book and Is Closing the Lender: Regional Acceptance, which has bought dealer loans to buyers with bruised credit since 1978, was "a roughly break-even business," Truist's CFO said, and The Auto Wire traces that to loss reserves booked up front and charge-offs eating the interest, per The Auto Wire. Bloomberg reported the buyer is Apollo Global Management, which Truist has not confirmed.
Toyota's Mid-Engine Test Car Goes Racing This Weekend: The coupe-bodied GR Yaris M prototype, first seen lapping Fuji Speedway in July and still wearing GR Yaris lights, runs in the experimental ST-Q class at the Super Taikyu round at Okayama on Oct. 23 to 25, per Motor1. It is built around Toyota's new turbocharged 2.0-liter G20E four-cylinder, which Toyota is targeting at more than 400 hp in a road car.
Yesterday's picks
Volvo Swings to a Loss and Cuts 2,500 More Jobs, With 50,000 EX60s Ordered and About 5,000 Built: Volvo Cars posted a third-quarter operating loss of SEK 5.6 billion ($565 million), against a SEK 6.4 billion profit a year earlier, on revenue down about 23% to SEK 66.9 billion ($6.74 billion), per CBT News. Excluding one-off items the loss was SEK 3.7 billion ($373 million), per Automotive News. Citi analysts said the consensus had been a loss of SEK 724 million ($73 million), Reuters reported, per the same CBT News story.
Canada Freezes Its Tailpipe Rules Until 2030 but Keeps Its 75% EV Target for 2035: Ottawa said Oct. 21 it will hold the fleet emissions standard at 172 grams per mile instead of tightening it from the 2028 model year, months after it repealed the EV sales mandate, per Automotive News. Annual tightening resumes with the 2030 model year, per Electrive. Automakers welcomed it, and Brian Kingston of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association said "even a flatline emissions standard is extremely challenging to meet."
Worth a listen
One episode from Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform, picked out of everything the shows published in the last day.
BMW iX5 First Drive! + GM’s Next-Gen EV Platform Revealed (InsideEVs Plugged-In Podcast, also at insideevs.com): Tim Levin and Mack Hogan walk through GM's next-generation EV platform and its single central computer, then get to the first electric BMW X5, from its 460-kW charging to BMW's 450-mile range target.
InsideEVs Plugged-In Podcast
More from Suspension
Earlier: Toyota's Mid-Engine Mystery Coupe, in the Jul 23 issue
Earlier: Mercedes' CEO Says the Four-Cylinder C63 Did Not Bring "the Whole Tribe" Along, in the Oct 19 issue
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