For decades the area from Charlotte, NC to Greenville, SC thrived with many mills spinning cotton into everything from towels to underwear. Because of competition from abroad these companies one by one closed and shifted production overseas, taking those jobs with them. As you travel down interstate 85 just outside Spartanburg, SC you can see a sprawling manufacturing facility owned by BMW. They are celebrating their 15th year in this facility, and it has brought needed jobs to the area hard hit when the clothing industry closed shop.
BMW manufactures the Z4 sports car as well as the X5 and X6 sport utility vehicles at this facility. I was visiting our Cadillac dealers in the area this week and thought I’d stop by to take a look at the BMW X5 Hybrid, after all BMW and other European manufacturers are known for building state of the art vehicles using the latest technology.
Guess what, BMW doesn’t offer a Hybrid!
The BMW X5 is offered with a 6 Cylinder, a V8 and a diesel. I went to the BMW website to collect some information about these vehicles. The X5 48i power plant is a 4.8L V8 that puts out 350 hp. They point out on the website the vehicles gets 19 mpg on the highway. To get the rest of the story, you have to go to the EPA website. According to the www.fueleconomy.com website and what BMW doesn’t tell you on their website is that the X5 requires premium fuel. The Escalade Hybrid requires regular unleaded.
The BMW X5’s combined fuel economy rating is only 16 while the Hybrid 2WD is 20 mpg. Scroll down to another post and you will see I achieved 21.9 mpg with mixed city/highway driving. A new feature of the fuelecononmy.gov website is they list the cost to drive 25 miles. For the X5 48i it will cost you $4.41. To take that same 25 mile trip in the Escalade Hybrid would cost you $3.32.
Sorry BMW, the best car wins - Cadillac Escalade Hybrid.
2 comments:
what about their diesel? doesn't it do pretty well?
The diesel compares well. The Cadillac Hybrid mpg is 20 city, 21 highway, 21 combined. The X5 is 19 city, 26 highway and 22 combined. At the www.fueleconomy.gov website you can compare side by side and even enter fuel prices for your area. Prices are low here in SC and the cost to drive the Hybrid is $3.07 and the X5 diesel is $2.72. Oddly enough the site indicates the X5 will use more barrels of oil in a course of a year than the Cadillac. I don't understand that.
What is interesting is pricing out the two vehicles. Adding in all of the packages, options and dealer accessories to get close to the standard equipment of a Hybrid, the BMW is $77,455 and the Cadillac is $75,685. The BMW still doesn't have 22" wheels, magnetic ride control and OnStar.
May the best car win.
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