BMW 550e xDrive M Sport Pro - long-term review

Continent-crushing. This has, in recent years, become the descriptor of choice for a car that’ll smash big miles at big speed with minimum fuss. And, fair’s fair, it’s a pretty good descriptor.

But we need to talk about degrees of crushing. Because while some continent-crushers merely give their continent a firm squeeze, others mercilessly compress large landmasses to the density of diamonds.

The 550e is such a car.

A winter Alpine jaunt gives the big PHEV 5er a chance to demonstrate its big-mile capabilities and I’m pleased to report that, man, it’s got big-mile capabilities. I’m not sure I’ve ever driven a car that’s quite so easy to drive quite so far. After smashing out 750 miles in a day from south-east England to the Italian border, I didn’t feel the slightest fatigued or frazzled. In fact, I’d happily have turned the 550e round and done it all again.

The autoroute? Beyond effortless. The 550e proves insanely smooth, quiet and long-legged, its light-touch adaptive driving aids taking the strain out of the occasional traffic without getting over-intrusive. Ride quality is reassuring, as is the knowledge you’ve always got a proper wall of power in reserve should you need it.

Pinned at France’s 130kmh limit, economy proves surprisingly strong for a 500bhp cruiser, the 550e nudging 40mpg. Aero must play a part in this: with a drag coefficient of 0.24 thanks to a smooth underbody among other tricks, the 550e is an unusually slippery saloon.

Out in the mountains, the 550e fares, if anything, even stronger. The Alps are hellish icy, roads frozen slick by temperatures pinned below zero for weeks. No issue for the 550e which, wearing winter tyres and with full-time 4WD, never gives a hint of struggling for grip. This is a proper all-season car.

Sure, it won’t devour a forest logging trail like a Toyota Land Cruiser – not least because ground clearance is… limited – but in icy conditions it’s a whole lot less puckering than fast RWD 5-Serieses of old.

Flicked into Sport mode, it’s a proper laugh to punt up a (wide) mountain pass, too – so long as you never forget you’re helming something with a 2.2-tonne kerbweight and the rough dimensions of Rutland. Four-wheel steer makes the 550e nimbler through the hairpins than expected, its twin-turbo six surprisingly sonorous.

No, the 5’s regenerative brakes don’t seem quite so efficient at recruiting battery power as those of the Jaecoo 7 I ran last year, but descending the mountains provides a pleasing dose of bonus regen mileage nonetheless.

Road-trip gripes? Too wide for the regular LeShuttle car carriages, for one. For front-seat passengers, its storage bins are a bit stingy – blame the transmission tunnel – while the chunky front chairs mean rear legroom isn’t quite so vast as the lengthy wheelbase might suggest.

Bootspace, too, is a touch cramped for a big family road-trip. At 520 litres, the 550e technically has a touch more seats-up luggage room than that Jaecoo 7 (not, I admit, that many buyers are likely to cross-shop the two), but the saloon configuration makes it feel significantly less practical. Unless you’re a saloon-aesthetic fanboi, I’m still struggling to figure out why you’d choose the three-box over the estate.

But, configuration complaints aside, the 550e is a beast. With its complex drivetrain and tech-heavy set-up, I expected to find it an austere, clinical, arms-length sort of car. It isn’t. It’s a properly engaging saloon: a burly, bulletproof bahnstormer that always feels like it’s got your back.

Big road trip? The 550e crushed it.