HEAD TO HEAD
ELECTRIFIED ESTATES
If it’s a large electrified estate you’re after, it’s been slim pickings... but now the BMW i5 Touring and Mercedes E300e have entered the fray. Which should you take to the beach this summer?
WORDS JOEHOLDING
PHOTOGRAPHY JONNY FLEET WOOD
What’s odd about the picture on the previous page? No not Geronimo (but we’ll come to our inflatable unicorn friend in a bit), you’re looking for something that’s missing. Yep... where is Volvo? Scandinavia’s finest left the estate car family group chat last summer, having mercilessly purged anything that wasn’t an SUV from its UK line-up. Middle England mourned. But no sooner had we resolved to pitching BMW and Mercedes’s would-be heirs to the big posh wagon throne head to head, Volvo reversed its plan. You can now order a V90 again. Order is restored.
No fully electric Swedish wagons yet, mind. Porsche’s got the Taycan Cross Turismo, but it’s more lifestyle than substance, and as far as electric goes, that’s it. Until you scroll down to the MG5 end of the menu. Not today, thank you. There’s a smattering of plug-in hybrids of course, but all come with compromises. Usually in the boot. Hold that thought...
Which brings us to these two: the new BMW i5 Touring and Mercedes E-Class Estate, two very different attempts at keeping the genre alive. The BMW’s the EV – embracing all that comes with instant power and a whopping battery – and the Merc’s a PHEV, having its cake and eating it with both combustion and e-propulsion. So let’s get one thing straight from the outset: we’re not comparing like for like. There’s more than one route up the Matterhorn, we’re here to find out which gets us closer to the summit.