BMW has taken considerable steps to join the likes of Volvo and Rivian in making its interior sustainable. IX contains almost no chrome accents (for aesthetic reasons, if not altruistic ones) and has lots of secondary raw materials including reused plastic, FSC-certified wood, leather that was tanned using olive leaf extract, and floor coverings and mats made from recycled fishing nets.
I had been inside the vehicle briefly a day earlier for a demonstration about its self-parking ability. There was one hiccup: a forced start and restart, as the vehicle had moved off the “correct” line in which to park and had to be manually reoriented. BMW will need to make its auto-park program more durable and adaptable to address the myriad variations of real-world parking.
Capable Performance
Still, for the duration of my own day with the iX, it made me feel as relaxed as those contented grass-fed cows. The iX has the length and width of a BMW X5, the height of a BMW X6, and the wheel dimensions of the BMW X7, so it felt plenty familiar from behind the wheel when it came to size and heft. I lazily cruised through tiny towns on Bavaria’s slow back roads, passing startled locals as time and space allowed with plenty of power from the 523hp-equivalent dual electric motors. (I drove the $83,200 iX iDrive50; a presumably less-expensive iX iDrive40 will not be offered in the U.S.)
I floored it on sections of the autobahn where I had the opportunity, easily hitting 120 mph in this all-wheel drive, 5,659-pound rig. (Top speed is electronically limited to 124 mph.) The iX felt stable and oh, so quiet, except for the exciting (manufactured) whirr of the electric motor and general hum of the tires on the road. Zero to 62 mph takes 4.6 seconds. Noise-reducing tires are optional for buyers outside the U.S.
IX offers the choice of adaptive or individually adjustable recuperation on the brakes, which helps increase overall efficiency and enable one-pedal driving and coasting. It’s nice to switch between those modes, depending on your energy needs and how heavy the traffic is.
I spent most of the day in the most gentle of regenerative brake modes; there are several others to choose among, depending on how much you want to drive using a single pedal. BMW says charging from 10% full to 80% full on a DC fast charger will take a (relatively) quick 35 minutes. BMW will be selling a home charger, though a spokesman declined to specify the price—“Similar to competitors,” he said.
If you don’t have a charger at home, I don’t recommend buying an EV; it’s too inconvenient. In my experience public chargers are often broken and out of the way in sketchy areas such as Denny’s parking lots and abandoned garages—or so full of customers I have to wait to charge, before I wait some more.
After a quick tour of a portion of Dingolfing’s 2.45 million-m² campus (the plant manufactures battery cells using 100% green energy from certified sources), I departed for the airport, where I arrived calm and refreshed. Against all odds—since car navigation systems never seem to work well—BMW’s new route-planning guidance performed without a hitch. An interior camera even took snapshots of the verdant Alps along the way. Posterity! My luggage, coats, and associated travel paraphernalia had weathered the journey in spacious ease; the absence of the center tunnel found in internal combustion vehicles created additional legroom and plentiful space for storage.
Premium EV-curious consumers will be happy to learn that BMW has finally waded back into electric territory to address the SUV. Deliveries will start in March 2022. It’s about time.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.