BMW i5 Touring vs Mercedes-Benz GLC

The BMW i5 Touring costs £8,945 more than the Mercedes-Benz GLC. For that premium it adds 50 litres more boot space and a 0.8s quicker 0-62mph time. The Mercedes-Benz GLC is not just cheaper - it also offers 35 miles more WLTP range, 125 kW faster peak rapid charging and 110 kW more power. On EVcarsguide's combined category scores, the BMW i5 Touring comes out ahead overall.

The Mercedes-Benz GLC is £8,945 cheaper to buy. Running costs are almost identical - about £152 a year either way, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the Mercedes-Benz GLC comes out roughly £8,825 cheaper overall. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 308 miles for the BMW i5 Touring and 297 miles for the Mercedes-Benz GLC - effectively matched, and both well below their WLTP figures because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. A rapid charge to 80% takes around 30 minutes in the BMW i5 Touring and 22 in the Mercedes-Benz GLC, so the Mercedes-Benz GLC loses less time at each stop.

The two are within 13 mm on width, so neither is meaningfully easier to thread into a tight space. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 500 mm of total clearance for the BMW i5 Touring and about 487 mm of total clearance for the Mercedes-Benz GLC.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the BMW i5 Touring and 84% for the Mercedes-Benz GLC. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation.