We spent a week and 520 miles with a 2025 BMW i5 eDrive40 equipped with Driving Assistance Professional and Parking Assistant Professional. Our goal: stress-test its active safety and semi-automated driving stack in real traffic, on mapped interstates, at night, in rain, and in tight urban parking to see where the tech shines—and where a human still does it better.
Our test car paired a forward radar, windshield camera array, corner radars, ultrasonic sensors, and an in-cabin driver-monitoring camera with high-resolution maps. The headline feature is Highway Assistant—hands-free, eyes-on driving on compatible limited-access roads—plus adaptive cruise with lane centering, lane change assist by glance, active blind-spot, front/rear cross-traffic alerts, and automatic emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection. Across mixed driving from Los Angeles to San Diego and back, we logged daytime and night testing, including two hours in steady rain. We also set up controlled stop-and-go runs and soft-target scenarios in a closed lot to probe emergency braking behavior at urban speeds.
Tires were OE all-season 245/45R19s at factory pressures; all assists ran on default sensitivity, following distance set one notch longer than mid. On mapped interstates, Highway Assistant engaged cleanly and held center with minimal “ping-pong.” It tolerated gentle sweepers without trimming speed and executed glance-initiated lane changes smoothly, checking blind spots and committing decisively when clear. Cut-in handling was confident: the system eased off throttle early rather than stabbing the brakes, preserving ride comfort. It asked for a driver takeover around lane shifts in construction zones or when lane markings were heavily faded—appropriate caution, and the prompts arrived with reasonable lead time.
Automatic emergency braking warned audibly and visually, then braked firmly in our 20 mph pedestrian dummy crossing, stopping short of impact on dry pavement and still avoiding contact in light rain with a small increase in stopping distance. At 30 mph with a slower-emerging target, it scrubbed speed substantially, mitigating severity. Cyclist detection from the right at urban speeds triggered reliably. We saw no phantom braking under overpasses, and forward-collision alerts were rare and contextually appropriate.
In congestion, the stop-and-go assistant restarted promptly and tracked smoothly down to a stop, with gentle gap management that felt natural to passengers. The driver-monitoring camera tolerated clear-lens glasses but escalated quickly with dark sunglasses at dusk—good for safety, mildly intrusive for comfort. Traffic sign recognition generally matched posted limits but occasionally read ramp signage; using the offset setting avoided unexpected speed changes. Parking Assistant Pro consistently handled parallel and bay spaces and the Reversing Assistant retraced a 120-meter parking-garage path flawlessly, albeit slower than a practiced driver.
Overall, BMW’s suite feels polished and conservative in the right ways: assertive enough to reduce workload, cautious when context degrades. Highway Assistant is a class leader for hands-free composure, and the AEB performance inspires confidence. Buyers who road-trip should add Driving Assistance Professional; frequent urban parkers will appreciate Parking Assistant Pro. As with any L2 system, keep eyes up—construction zones, heavy spray, and poorly marked lanes still demand a human in the loop.
