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Originally Posted by mkoesel
That makes sense given the evidence - we've already seen it testing.
It also makes sense from a business perspective because having the X5 and the 5 Series offset by so many years means the latter inevitably begins to look very dated toward the end of its life. BMW did something similar with the X3 - the first generation was based on the long-in-tooth E46 3 Series platform, but with the second generation they skipped it way ahead and used a platform similar to the F30. The X5 won't be quite the same because they aren't skipping a platform generation, but it would appear they have a similar goal in mind.
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The main problem with F15 is the letter F. If it stayed on the usual 7 year cycle, it would continue production until mid-2020. By that time, the only F vehicles remaining would be niche cars like F23 or F82 and the UKL/F56 derivatives. Most importantly, for
two years it would be the only F vehicle in Spartanburg, making a mess of the highly unified production process at that plant. The short product cycle, on the other hand, allows Spartanburg to fully transition to G platforms (or CLAR as Scott loves to call them) by mid-2018. There's probably 8 digit savings in manufacturing costs thanks to that. Makes perfect sense.