BMW 5 Series Family Wins German Car of the Year 2025

The BMW 5 Series family, which includes the standard 5 Series and the i5, has been crowned the 2025 German Car of the Year (GCOTY). It had already bagged the Premium Car of the Year at GCOTY in the first round. The jury for the 2025 round consisted of around 40 German and international motoring journalists, which also included Acko Drive’s Editor-in-Chief, Siddharth Vinayak Patankar. 

With the inclusion of the i5 in the 5 Series family, an electric vehicle (EV) has won the prestigious GCOTY title for the seventh time in a row. The 5 was fun to drive, but the executive sedan trumped with its strong powertrain and handling. There are five segments in GCOTY which include Compact, Premium, Luxury, New Energy and Performance. The new Citroën ë-C3 and C3 won the Compact Car of the Year, while the Cadillac Lyriq won the Luxury Car of the Year. The Audi Q6 and SQ6 won the ‘New Energy’ award and the Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid won the Performance Car of the Year award. You can read more about it here. 

In 2024, the Volkswagen ID.7 won the German Car of the Year Award and Volkswagen won the year prior too with the ID.Buzz electric MPV. In 2022, the top honours at GCOTY went to the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which also bagged the World Car of the Year (WCOTY) in the same year. The other EVs that won the GCOTY title are the Honda E (2021), Porsche Taycan (2020), and Jaguar i-Pace (2019). 

In Germany, the BMW 5 Series has multiple powertrain options. It gets a 188 bhp, 2.0-litre turbo-petrol, a 195 bhp, 2.0-litre diesel and a 282 bhp, 3.0-litre diesel. It two hybrid variants with a 295 bhp, 2.0-litre turbo-petrol and an electric motor, as well as a 483 bhp, 3.0-litre turbo-petrol mated to an electric motor. The i5 also gets multiple powertrain options including a 335 bhp variant and a 593 bhp variant and both get a 81.2 kWh battery.