2022 BMW iX Review _ Truly Groundbreaking

BMW is one of the first luxury brands to dip its toe into the world of electric vehicles almost a decade ago, but only now is it finally coming out with a new-from-the-ground-up electric SUV, this 2022 iX. What's up, folks? I'm Dave Underkoffler, editor-in-chief of Autolist.com, a sister company to CarGurus. We've spent the past week with this, the iX xDrive50. It's all-electric, has about 300 miles of range, 516 horsepower from a pair of electric motors, all-wheel drive, a groundbreaking design inside and out, and it starts at about $84,000. So is all that enough to unseat rivals from Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and, of course, Tesla? Let's go find out. But before we go any further, be sure to like and subscribe to this channel so you'll never miss another update from CarGurus. All right, let's start with the exterior of this iX, and BMW went for a totally groundbreaking design, and it's a little hit or miss. Generally, I like it. This color is mineral white metallic. I like the other colors. There's like a dark gray that's really nice. There's a dark red. This white looks a little too Star Wars, Stormtrooper-y for my taste, so I don't love that. But otherwise, it's this modern sort of sporty look, and it really is turning a lot of heads this week since we've been driving it. A couple things to notice. This is sort of a fake grille. Electric cars don't need the cooling that gas-powered cars do. You also have active shutters down below, and our tester has a $2,800 sport package, which means that this fascia area is a little more aggressive than it will be on the base model. So on the iX, the size of the wheel that you get will actually affect the range of the vehicle, so we have the optional 22- inch wheels on our tester. That's the biggest you can get, and it means that the range is 315 miles. If you opt for the base model, which has 20-inch wheels, the range then goes up to 324 miles, so just something to consider when you're shopping the different trims. Moving along the side, the dimensions of this are roughly the size of BMW's X5 crossover, although it does sit a little lower and looks a little sleeker. Finally, at the back, our tester has clear tail lamps, and that's another element of the sport package. Base models will have your traditional red back there. One thing to note about the iX is that there's no frunk. So first of all, BMW doesn't even want you to open the hood. How badly do they not want you to open it? Well, there's no hood release like there is in most cars. You have to find a cable pull near the driver's feet, and then a second cable pull by the passenger feet. Once you do that, you can then see everything that's under here, but there's also no strut or no stand to hold the hood open. So in order for me to show it to you, I have to sit here like a moron with my hand above my head. The iX xDrive50 that we're testing has two electric motors. They make a total of 516 horsepower and 564 pound-feet of torque, and they'll do 0-to-60 in four seconds flat, according to Car and Driver. Those dual motors means it has all-wheel drive, and powering it all is a 106.3-kilowatt-hour battery. BMW says you can charge from 10% of battery to 80% in under 40 minutes using DC fast charging. As I mentioned, the range will depend on which wheel size you get. Base models with 20-inch wheels have 324 miles of range. 21-inch wheels will give you 305 miles of range, and these 22-inch wheels will give you 315 miles of range. All right, so the interior of the iX matches the groundbreaking design of the exterior. You've got a lot of shapes and patterns and fabrics that you probably haven't seen in cars before. The main thing you notice when you get in is this screen. This is a curved screen. You've got a 12.3-inch display for the driver, and then a 14.9-inch screen for the infotainment system. That's standard. You have wireless Apple CarPlay, wireless Android Auto. This screen here is a touchscreen, and it works really well. It's responsive to your touch, and the processing speed is pretty quick, so I like that. Another nice feature is that there is redundancy built in, so if you don't want to use the touchscreen here, you've got controls down in the center console, and that's really nice. Now, you're probably noticing that some of these controls look a little different, and they are. This car has the $1,100 luxury package. What does that add? Well, it adds glass controls, so basically you get glass features here. This is the rotary knob for the infotainment system. You've got a glass button for the volume and for the shifter, and then on the doors to adjust the seats, you also have glass controls. Plus, you get this walnut wood trim. It's kind of a nice feature. I'm not sure how I feel about the glass. What do you guys think? Let us know in the comments below. Otherwise, I really like the rest of the cabin. It's really futuristic. You've got really nice views, good visibility, but it also doesn't look weird. They didn't go too far. It's expressive, and remember, this is a $100,000 vehicle. Yes, it starts at $84,000, but ours is loaded up with all the options, and this is sort of what you would expect for a $100,000 EV in 2022. So, for that money, you get things like this sort of gold trim around the vents. You get microfiber fabric on the dashboard with some really cool cutouts in it. These seats are optional. They have wool and then microfiber fabric stitched together in them, and they are some of the most comfortable seats I've sat in in a really long time. I really like that. Two things I don't love about the interior. First, the climate control buttons. Yes, you do have dedicated temperature controls on the screen at all times for both the passenger and the driver, but what drives me nuts is there's no fan speed, and to me, that's the button I'm reaching for the most. To get to that, you have to go through a couple different menus. It's here, and then you can select it. That's too tedious. I wish that weren't the case. Also, there's a lot of cheap plastic down below, lower level of this car. That shouldn't be the case on a $100,000 vehicle. This kind of stuff scratches very easily and scuffs, and it will show its age very quickly, so I don't love that. Our tester also has an optional sound system. It's $3,400. It has 30 speakers, 1,600 watts of power, and some of those speakers are actually integrated into the seats themselves, so that's kind of cool. Our car also has a heads-up display and massaging, heated, and cooled front seats. Now to the back seats. Now, while the vehicle may not look that large, you have a lot of space throughout the interior, so I've got the front seat adjusted to where I would normally have it. I'm 6'1", so I'm basically sitting behind myself, and as you can see, I've got tons of space for my knees, tons of space for my feet, and more than enough headroom. Another nice feature is that the floor is completely flat back here all the way across, so the person sitting in the middle actually has plenty of space, even if they're tall, so that's nice if you're carrying five adults. You've also got some nice amenities back here. You have your own climate control system down here. You've got a pair of USB ports on the back of either seat, and this roof, while it's glass, it doesn't open, but it does turn from opaque to clear at the touch of a button. So in terms of cargo space, the iX has 35.5 cubic feet of space back here with the seats up. Those rear seats do fold flat. They're split 40-20-40, and with them folded flat, you have 78 cubic feet of cargo space. Now, there is a button in the cargo area to get those seats to fold flat. That's kind of handy, but that same button then doesn't get them to fold back up. For $100,000, you would hope that that would be the case. Two other features that you're probably noticing with this hatch open. The first is these lights right here. That's a safety feature. Those are actually the hazard lights, so when you have the hatch open, maybe you're on the side of the road in the middle of the night, you still have a way for other motorists to see you. That's a really nice touch. You're also probably noticing this material here. A lot of the panels in this car are made from carbon fiber reinforced plastic, and you can see that when you've got the doors or this cargo hatch open. You can see the weave here, and that's kind of cool. So one of my favorite parts of the iX is how it drives. This thing has phenomenal power. As I mentioned, 0-to-60 in 4 seconds flat, but it's not just about straight-line acceleration. It's about how comfortable it is while it's going so fast. This is a quiet car. It's a smooth car. It's a car you can take for a really long road trip, provided that you can charge it. So our test car has the optional air suspension. It's a $1,600 feature, and it really does wonders for this car's ride. A lot of BMWs today feel kind of harsh, no matter what setting you have the suspension in, but not so here. The big bumps, little bumps, they're all handled really well, and I like that. It also handles body roll really nicely, and that's a cool feature. So like all EVs, the iX has regenerative braking, but what it doesn't have is a way to easily adjust the levels of that braking. A lot of cars today that are electric are putting paddles behind the steering wheel or otherwise making it very easy to fine-tune that. Not so in this car, and I do miss that. And while we're on the subject of brakes, the ones in this BMW are good, but at times they can be sensitive, and they take a little bit of a learning curve to adjust to, so that can be frustrating at times. In terms of visibility, you've got a lot of it if you're looking forward. You have a really nice commanding view of the road while driving, but when you look over your shoulder to blind spots or in the rear-view mirror, that's where things get a little tighter. When it comes to competition for the iX, it's kind of in a gray area. It's more expensive than Tesla's Model Y or Audi's e-tron, but then it also has more horsepower and is larger than those vehicles. But at the same time, it's less expensive and has less range than Tesla's Model X. So as we mentioned, the iX starts at $84,000. The one we're testing is $100,000, so what do you get for that extra $20,000? Well, you get the handling package with the air suspension, you get the luxury package with the glass controls and the walnut console, you also get that high-end sound system with the 30 speakers, the 22-inch alloy wheels, the Sport package, goodies like that. In terms of safety features, the iX has your standard fare—blind spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alerts, lane departure warnings. There's also an optional adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go functionality and a next-gen lane-keeping assist that works at up to 124 miles per hour. Finally, because this is an EV and very quiet at low speeds, BMW has programmed in a sound at up to 19 miles an hour, so pedestrians and other people around you can hear you coming. All right, there you have it, our review of the 2022 BMW iX. Pros? Well, it's got effortless acceleration with a really smooth ride, a groundbreaking design inside and out, and DC fast charging and over 300 miles of range. Cons? Well, not everyone's going to love the design and the exterior, and it does look a little strange and white. We didn't love all the controls on the inside of the car, and it gets expensive. This one you see here is over $100,000. So for the full review of this iX or anything else you're shopping for, head over to CarGurus.com, and if you have a car to sell, check out the new Sell My Car service that CarGurus is offering. It allows you to get top dollar for your trade-in without ever leaving your house. Thanks for watching, be sure to like and subscribe to this channel, and we'll see you out there.