If you want an enjoyable driving experience, adding more power and battery capacity isn’t necessarily the best solution.
Carmakers are now stuffing big batteries into their loudest and proudest performance flagships—the cars in their lineup that typically have the highest emissions—and it has created a crop of cars that are quite odd. They are absurdly quick in a straight line and can take you dozens of miles on electricity, but the heavy hybrids start to fall apart when you try to throw them into a corner like their non-electrified predecessors.
This became apparent after driving the new G99 BMW M5 Touring and then jumping into a Mercedes-AMG C63s E-Performance. One has a big V-8 complemented by a big battery that gives it dozens of miles of electric range, while the other has a small four-cylinder, with a smaller battery whose purpose is mainly to increase performance. Two very different approaches that at launch drew a lot of critcism from fans and keen drivers, but for different reasons.
The new BMW M5 feels even more gutsy than its claimed 717 horsepower output would suggest. It's not surprising that one dyno test revealed that it was pushing almost 700 hp to the wheels, meaning the real output is probably closer to 800 hp. It pins you to your seat with its alarming pace, whether from a standing or a rolling start. There’s nothing quite like feeling the shove of a 4.4-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 engine with 737 pound-feet (1,000 Nm) of torque.