New third-gen BMW X5 is here - and it is boring!

Moses7

nothing special here

I was just expecting little more from the new X5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx3_uj990ow

Viper_JB

Has the sameish nose as the F10, just looks like another standard soccer mom suv though.

AugustusMinimus

It's like they got the present model and just changed things so that the car would look different. Sadly all the changes seem to have made the car fugly as hell.

Chris Bangle got a lot of heat for his designs, but at least none of them were boring and in my mind, none were ugly either.

Max Power1

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

It's like they got the present model and just changed things so that the car would look different. Sadly all the changes seem to have made the car fugly as hell.

Chris Bangle got a lot of heat for his designs, but at least none of them were boring and in my mind, none were ugly either.

They took the existing one and gave it the F10 front end

Otherwise it is exactly the same as the current model! (or it seems so from that photo)

Matt Simis

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

It's like they got the present model and just changed things so that the car would look different. Sadly all the changes seem to have made the car fugly as hell.

Chris Bangle got a lot of heat for his designs, but at least none of them were boring and in my mind, none were ugly either.

This is pretty much what I thought too.. the current one looks wider and chunkier too, which is what you want in a SUV.

Stallingrad

Hard to believe that ugly thing is as aerodynamic as an Audi A4.

Yakuza

Bit of a pointless video - how many viewing angles of a baldy bloke taking a saddle out of the boot does it take to hammer home the "you can open the tailgate with the key and close it with a button" point?

Still, if it pushes down the prices of the E70, I might be able to afford a 7-seater with a bit of poke, rather than the soul-sucking succubus of a Qashqai+2 that I have now.

Zubeneschamali

Stallingrad wrote: »

Hard to believe that ugly thing is as aerodynamic as an Audi A4.

If you mean it has the same Cd factor, that does not mean it is as aerodynamic.

Drag is the Cd times the frontal area, so an SUV with greater frontal area and the same Cd will suffer more drag.

ShadowHearth

I think BMW is just doing "Audi" now. All cars are almost copies of each other, just size different. I was never fan of X5 and this new obe did not made me one. I guess I never liked bmw suv I'm the first place.

Sobanek

sDrive25d will be available about six months after the launch of the new model, this will be the first BMW X5 with rear wheel drive only.
It will most likely be cheaper than the current X5 3.0d and thanks to the 2.0d lump, it will be most likely Tax Band A/B.

Max Power1

Sobanek wrote: »

sDrive25d will be available about six months after the launch of the new model, this will be the first BMW X5 with rear wheel drive only.
It will most likely be cheaper than the current X5 3.0d and thanks to the 2.0d lump, it will be most likely Tax Band A/B.

RWD only?
Surely that defeats the purpose?

Anan1

Max Power1 wrote: »

RWD only?
Surely that defeats the purpose?

What purpose?

Max Power1

Anan1 wrote: »

What purpose?

Well it is a 4x4... so ... offroading?
Can't really offroad in a RWD

Seweryn

Max Power1 wrote: »

Well it is a 4x4... so ... offroading?

Are you serious? This ugly thing or its 4x4 predecessor would be eaten by a 50-year old Land Rover off road.

Max Power1 wrote: »

Surely that defeats the purpose?

Not sure if it has any defined tbh.

Matt Simis

Max Power1 wrote: »

Well it is a 4x4... so ... offroading?
Can't really offroad in a RWD

But its not an [offroad] 4x4 its a SUV... lots (and lots) of US "light trucks" are RWD. A 2wd version would get better mpg and perform the same role to the same ability in most cases as the 4wd version. At least its not FWD IMO!

pete4130

You can't offroad in an X5 anyway.

Seweryn

Stallingrad wrote: »

Hard to believe that ugly thing is as aerodynamic as an Audi A4.

Believe it or not, this now over 30-year old chunky car beats it still.

Stallingrad

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

If you mean it has the same Cd factor, that does not mean it is as aerodynamic.

Drag is the Cd times the frontal area, so an SUV with greater frontal area and the same Cd will suffer more drag.

Sorry to go off topic, but if low Cd is not the measure of drag how do we know if one car is more aerodynamic than another?

Sobanek

Seweryn wrote: »

Believe it or not, this now over 30-year old chunky car beats it still.

If I'm correct, the Opel Calibra is still one of the most aerodynamic vehicles ever built.

In 1989 the Opel Calibra was launched with a drag coefficient of 0.26.

AugustusMinimus

Is it just me or does the new X5 kinda look a bit like the X3.

And I'm saying this as the X3 is prob the ugliest thing BMW have ever produced.

Matt Simis

Stallingrad wrote: »

Sorry to go off topic, but if low Cd is not the measure of drag how do we know if one car is more aerodynamic than another?

You are actually meant to be using CdA not Cd, Cd is dimensionless, while CdA considers total area (meaning SUV's get hammered):

From GasSavers.org:

CdA actually considers more factors, as it is Cd (drag coefficient) multiplied by A (the frontal area of the object in question). The value you found has to be Cd...it's far too small to be the CdA value of a vehicle that size unless it has a Cd value of <0.15 (which it doesn't )

For example: Car A has great aerodynamics (Cd=0.25), but a very tall roofline and, consequentially, a large frontal area of 3.0m^2. Car B is less slippery (Cd=0.35), but is smaller overall and has a frontal area of only 2.0m^2. At any speed, Car B will cause less aerodynamic drag and waste less energy overcoming it.

Just in case you're interested, the formula for aerodynamic drag is:

1/2 * rho * velocity^2 * Cd * A where rho is air density (which changes with temperature, altitude, etc)

And a more useful rating list (export to Excel and sort by the CdA column):
http://ecomodder.com/wiki/index.php/Vehicle_Coefficient_of_Drag_List

And:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_aerodynamics#Drag_coefficient

Sam Russell

Sobanek wrote: »

If I'm correct, the Opel Calibra is still one of the most aerodynamic vehicles ever built.

In 1989 the Opel Calibra was launched with a drag coefficient of 0.26.

I think some Ciroens got better figures than that.

alias no.9

Max Power1 wrote: »

RWD only?
Surely that defeats the purpose?

Marginally reduced kerb climbing ability outside schools, that's about it really.

Zubeneschamali

Stallingrad wrote: »

Sorry to go off topic, but if low Cd is not the measure of drag how do we know if one car is more aerodynamic than another?

A low Cd is in an indicator that a design is low drag compared to a similar sized car with a higher Cd, so it is relevant.

Naturally, BMW would prefer to quote the Cd for their new SUV and point out that it is improved over the old model (true), rather than say that it is as aerodynamic as a shed on wheels compared to an actual car.

pete4130

pete4130 wrote: »

You can't offroad in an X5 anyway.

Have to laugh and all the people jumping to give the X5 a dig and most likely having some crazy off road obstacle course in mind.

They are no landrover defender off road but they are well able for most normal off roading i.e. a wet field, or getting through a mucky gap etc or for pulling trailers etc where the 4wd would also be very helpful.

Making a 2wd only version is silly.

rebel.ranter

Sobanek wrote: »

If I'm correct, the Opel Calibra is still one of the most aerodynamic vehicles ever built.

In 1989 the Opel Calibra was launched with a drag coefficient of 0.26.

I think they were the first to use it in their advertising as a selling point but there have been a few cars that have equalled or beaten it according to this, including a 0.195:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_drag_coefficient#Typical_drag_coefficients