The 6 Most Interesting Things About the New BMW X5

BMW just replaced the X5’s door handles with pillar-mounted sensors, borrowed a party trick from the 7 Series, and put real stone on the center console. The fifth-generation X5, codenamed G65, revealed itself as the biggest break from the outgoing model in the nameplate’s 27-year history, and these are the five details worth knowing before it hits dealers.

1. BMW Winglets: Three Ways to Open the Door

The G65 does away with the conventional mid-door handle entirely. In its place is the BMW Winglet, a slim gloss-black tab mounted into the B- and C-pillars rather than the door skin itself, a look BMW previewed on the limited-run Skytop and Speedtop before bringing it to a regular-production model for the first time. It’s standard equipment on every X5, not an option, and it comes paired with a standard soft-close mechanism regardless of trim.

There are three ways to work the Winglet from outside the car. A light touch on the sensor at the front edge triggers the powered release on cars with the optional automatic doors. If the power system is off or the buyer skipped that option, a gentle pull engages the integrated servo motor that lets the door swing with minimal effort. And if none of that is available, a firm pull operates the winglet like a conventional handle, since BMW built a fully mechanical fallback into the design so nobody gets locked out by a dead sensor. Locking works the same way in reverse: hold a finger on the front locking surface for about a second and the car locks itself.

2. X Headlights Pay Homage to the Original X5

The new double-X light graphic is the most talked-about piece of the exterior redesign, and it’s not just a styling flourish. BMW is calling it a nod to the Home of X in Spartanburg and to the E53, the 1999 original that invented the sporting SUV category and put BMW’s X lineup on the map. The graphic folds the low beams, daytime running lights, side lights, and turn signals into a single housing, which BMW says is a first for the brand, and it stays lit day and night as part of the welcome light sequence.

Not everyone is going to want an X tattooed across their front bumper permanently, and BMW built in an escape hatch. Buyers who’d rather not run the double-X motif can switch it off inside the iDrive menu, which reverts the housing to a simpler diagonal light bar. Cornering lights remain standard either way.

3. Open and Close the Doors With the Brake Pedal

Buyers who option the automatic doors get a feature already familiar to 7 Series owners: once you’re seated with your foot on the brake, pressing the pedal automatically closes all four doors. No reaching for a handle, no button hunt. BMW carried the same radar-based sensor setup from the 7 Series into the X5’s front and rear side skirts, and the company says it’s quicker to react and better at spotting nearby obstacles than the systems it replaces. Spy photos of the next-generation X7 (G67), due in 2027, already show it wearing the same winglet hardware, so the brake-pedal trick is a reasonable bet to show up there too.

Skip the automatic-door option entirely and you don’t lose much. Soft Close, which pulls each door the rest of the way shut once it’s nearly latched, comes standard across the whole X5 lineup at no extra cost.

4. Genuine Slate BMW: A First for the Brand

BMW is putting real stone inside a production car for the first time. It’s available as part of the optional BMW Glass Controls package, which bonds an ultra-thin layer of authentic slate to a contoured base rather than trying to fake the texture in plastic. It looks the part and it feels the part too, with the same small bumps and irregular grain you’d expect from actual stone rather than a smooth composite standing in for one.

The slate covers the center console control panel, giving the cockpit a matte, tactile surface that sits in deliberate contrast to all the glass and screens surrounding it. BMW built touch-sensitive controls for the parking brake, hazard lights, and rear defrost directly into the stone itself, and the package pairs the slate with crystal glass on the gear selector, the volume roller, and the seat-adjustment switches. It’s a genuinely unusual materials choice for an interior at this price point.

5. The First Passenger Screen in a BMW SUV

The cabin also debuts BMW’s first passenger touchscreen on an SUV, a 14.6-inch, full-HD optional display that runs independently of the main central 17.9 display. It’s not a brand first outright, since the facelifted 7 Series got there before it but it’s optional in the new X5.

The screen handles video streaming, live TV, music, and gaming through BMW’s AirConsole integration, which turns a passenger’s phone into a game controller, and it also doubles as a video-conferencing display using the cabin’s interior camera. BMW built in a safeguard for the obvious concern: while the X5 is moving, that same interior camera watches for driver distraction, and a shield function automatically darkens the passenger display if it catches the driver looking over.

6. The First BMW With Five Powertrains

No BMW has ever launched with this many ways to power it. The G65 covers mild-hybrid gas engines, a diesel that won’t come to the US, plug-in and mild-hybrid electrification, a fully electric iX5, and a hydrogen fuel-cell version BMW says it’s targeting for 2028 production. Offering gas, diesel, PHEV, MHEV, battery-electric, and hydrogen under one nameplate is BMW hedging every bet on where propulsion regulation and buyer demand actually land over the next few years, rather than picking a lane and committing to it.