FIRST DRIVE | Silent 2022 BMW iX is a swift business-class lounge on wheels

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The cynical view is that with the high prices of electric vehicles (EVs), compounded by long charging times and Eskom’s woes, battery-powered cars seem doomed to fail in SA.

This hasn’t stopped car companies speeding towards electrification, and the latest battery-powered car to land in SA is the BMW iX. The large SUV is BMW’s flagship EV and in terms of performance, prestige and range it’s a very different animal to the smaller i3 which has been on sale here for several years.

To get similar 0-100 performance from a petrol-engined BMW SUV you’ll need to get the X5 M50i, which is powered by a 4.4As impressive as the figures sound on paper, they fall short of the actual intensity of the iX’s acceleration. Due to the instantaneous nature of electric power delivery, whether pulling off from standstill or overtaking there is no waiting for revs to spool up or gears to shuffle. It’s just a surge of seamless, trigger-response thrust.

The disadvantage is you don’t have the ability to fuel up quickly on longer trips. BMW claims the xDrive50 can be charged from 10%-80% in about 55 minutes on a DC fast charger. Our experience at a BMW dealership took longer, with the car charging from 38% to 81% in an hour.The big selling point — and not an insignificant one with petrol prices what they are — is that charging at BMW dealers and at BMW-branded public chargers is free.

It’s an eclectic cabin environment, with the crystal supplemented by open pore wood, giant digital screens and leather. The lounge-like atmosphere is a clean setting with minimal physical buttons to clutter things up, and an open and airy feel is created by a lack of a centre console. A novel feature is the photochromatic panoramic roof that can be darkened or lightened at the press of a button.

 

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