- Edmunds pits the Dodge Charger EV against the BMW i5 in one of its special “U-Drag” races.
- The two cars are very evenly matched on paper and it shows in their real-world performance.
- The BMW wins all three races, but only narrowly.
They may be quite different cars with very different buyers in mind, but the BMW i5 M60 and the Dodge Charger Daytona EV Scat Pack proved to be remarkably close in a head-to-head race. With their nearly identical power-to-weight ratios, there’s almost nothing in it in a straight line, and both cars struggle to scrub off speed under hard braking. Yet one is just a little bit better at going around a corner than the other.
This has to be the closest and most exciting race in Edmunds’ U-Drag series, which pits two cars in a traditional drag race with a 180-degree corner at the end of the run, followed by accelerating back to the start line. It’s definitely more revealing than a simple straight-line race would ever be, since the winner needs more than just sheer acceleration. The test covers braking and cornering, too.
With 670 horsepower, the Charger is the more powerful of the two. However, the 593-hp BMW is over 700 pounds lighter, and it just edges the Dodge out when it comes to horsepower per pound. It has a claimed 0 to 60 mph acceleration time of 3.4 seconds, which is one-tenth off the Dodge’s official sprint time, although both are expected to post nearly identical quarter-mile times of around 11.5 seconds.
Actually racing the two vehicles, some key points stand out. Through the three runs, which the BMW always narrowly won, the German car seemed to comfortably pull away and maintain a lead before the corner. It also brakes a bit better than the near-6,000-pound Dodge (although stopping over 5,230 pounds from high speed is no mean feat) and it’s also predictably better through the corner.
However, through all three runs, even though the BMW is always the first to come out of the corner, the Dodge appears to have better acceleration from a roll, and it regains some lost ground. In the second run, the closest one to a photo finish, it almost nudges in front of the BMW. It would have won had the run been a bit longer. Both drivers activated their cars’ respective boost modes for extra power after the corner, but the Dodge seemed to be the quicker straight-line machine.
We drove the Charger EV recently, and while we liked a lot of things about it, cornering and handling, generally speaking, weren’t so strong. It looks great and it’s really fast in a straight line, but it still handles like a muscle car, which is not a compliment. The BMW, on the other hand, is not only fast in a straight line, but it works some kind of magic through the corners, hiding its heft and driving like a much smaller and more agile car.
Neither of these two cars is especially good at braking, but as an overall sporty package, the BMW does come out ahead. In a head-to-head comparison between the i5 and the new four-door electric Charger sedan, the latter’s additional weight would tip the balance further in the BMW’s direction.