Audi S6 Avant e-tron vs BMW i5 Touring

The Audi S6 Avant e-tron costs £24,880 more than the BMW i5 Touring. For that premium it adds 65 kW faster peak rapid charging, 155 kW more power and a 2.2s quicker 0-62mph time. The BMW i5 Touring is not just cheaper - it also offers 68 litres more boot space. On EVcarsguide's combined category scores, the BMW i5 Touring comes out ahead overall.

The BMW i5 Touring is £24,880 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 BMW i5 Touring comes out roughly £25,000 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 328 miles for the Audi S6 Avant e-tron and 308 miles for the BMW i5 Touring - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The Audi S6 Avant e-tron goes roughly 20 miles further between charging stops. A rapid charge to 80% takes around 21 minutes in the Audi S6 Avant e-tron and 30 in the BMW i5 Touring, so the Audi S6 Avant e-tron loses less time at each stop. That makes the Audi S6 Avant e-tron the stronger long-distance car.

The two are within 23 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 477 mm of total clearance for the Audi S6 Avant e-tron.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the Audi S6 Avant e-tron and 84% for the BMW i5 Touring. 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.