This EV Wagon Isn’t Coming to the US, but If We’re Good, Another One May Come

• BMW reveals range of electric i5 Touring and gas-engine 5-Series Touring models, intended to be offered in Europe and other markets.

• The i5 Touring and 5-Series Touring models will not be offered stateside, even though the i5 sedan and its gas-engine sedan sibling will be sold here.

• One version of the 5-Series Touring could be offered stateside at a later date, becoming the first 5-Series station wagon to be offered here in years, while promising quite a bit of performance.

BMW has held back quite a few important wagons from North America, starting with the E30 3-Series Touring model from the 1980s. Its successor, the E36-generation 3-Series wagon also passed us by, but in fairness Mercedes-Benz thought that its W202 C-Class of the 1990s was too European to offer stateside, perhaps overlapping with the W124 E-Class.

How we got the E46 3-Series wagon here remains a mystery, but Mercedes also opted to offer the W203 C-Class longroof here around that time.

The F11-generation 5-Series Touring that arrived in 2010 was also deemed too European for US tastes, which were now firmly in the grip of SUVs and crossovers, and so was its G30 5-Series Touring successor that arrived in 2017.

Just which snub stung the most is up for debate, but we know that well-kept E39 5-Series wagons are valuable for a reason.

And we can now add the i5 Touring and its gas-engine twin to the list of BMW station wagons that we're not getting.

"The BMW 5 Series Touring, the epitome of driving pleasure, sporty elegance and modern functionality in the premium upper mid-range segment, is entering a new era," BMW says, as if just trying to rub it in.

The automaker reveals that even Japan will get the i5 and 5-Series wagons somehow, and that's a much smaller market for BMW, one would think. But Japan must be doing something right, on the other hand. (Japan, give us a call).

The absence of the i5 Touring stateside is certainly going to sting a bit, because in electric form it would have offered those of the longroof persuasion a 593-hp dual-motor layout in the M60 flavor, with power coming from an 81.2-kWh battery.