The 2022 BMW iX Is a Futuristic $100,000 Electric Luxury SUV

This is the new 2022 BMW iX and it's BMW's latest SUV. Unlike other BMW SUVs though this one is fully electric. It has about 520 horsepower and a sticker price of over a hundred thousand dollars. It also has styling that's uh interesting let's say. It brings the brand's design in a whole new direction and today I'm going to review it. Before I get started be sure to check out Cars and Bids which is my enthusiast car auction website for cool cars from the modern era now with free listings. You can list your cool car for free and auction it on Cars and Bids and we've had some great sales recently including this E39 BMW M5 brought $34,000. This fantastic Audi R8 V10 Plus sold for over $112,000 and this wonderful Subaru Impreza WRX STI hatchback brought almost $30,000. Those are excellent cars. If you're looking to buy or sell a cool modern enthusiast car from the 1980s and up Cars and Bids is the place to do it with daily auctions and great selection at CarsAndBids.com. So let's talk iX. BMW launched the i all-electric brand a few years ago with the i3 hatchback and the i8 sports car but the iX is BMW's first electric SUV. Right now there's only one version it's called the xDrive50 and it has about 520 horsepower but an M60 model will come soon with 610 horses. All iX models come standard with all-wheel drive and the xDrive50 this version starts at around $84,000 although this one has a sticker price of around $105,000 with options. As for competitors it's really just the Tesla Model X as most other brands haven't rolled out their own fully electric luxury SUVs yet. So today I'm going to review the iX which is breaking new ground in the BMW world. First I'll take you on a thorough tour of it and show you all of its quirks and features then I'll get it out on the road and drive it and then I'll give it a Doug's score. All right I'm going to start the quirks and features of the BMW iX which by the way is very quirky. I'm going to start with getting in where you see your first quirk and that would be the door handles which are basically just holes in the side of the car. You can see they're not handles at all you stick your hand in here and there's a little button to pop them open and then they do indeed pop open just stick it in and you're inside the iX. And the quirks continue on the inside of the door panel where for one thing you see the button to open the door from the inside not a handle it's this button here you push it and the door electronically pops open and then you open it the rest of the way. Now if you're in a situation where the electronics aren't working there is also a backup mechanical handle it is hidden down here in the door panel and you can pull on that and that has a mechanical release to open the door if the electronics fail. But that is not the quirkiest thing on the door panel no no that honor goes to the crystal seat controls. Take a look here you can see the seat controls are literally crystal for the base of the seat the backrest and even the seat memory it's all crystal controls on the door panel which is something you don't see too often. But then you climb inside the iX and you realize that the crystal controls on the door panel are just the beginning of the crystal controls in this vehicle. In the center console you have a crystal start stop button as you can see and this is the gear selector also crystal and also very eye-catching. But more interesting than that is the crystal control for the volume the stereo volume which you can see here this little knob you can slide up or down and this large crystal circle in the center that controls the infotainment system not with a plastic control like everything else but this cool crystal mounted in the middle. It's all very luxurious and exciting and the surfaces for the controls actually get even more unusual than crystal because you can see also in the center you have this wood panel and this isn't decorative instead this is where all your center controls are located so the upper part of this wood panel is your infotainment controls you can see home media telephone you press down on the wood panel to pull up those various things on the infotainment system at the bottom left of this wood panel you have controls for like your camera system your driver assist your suspension height again press on the wood panel to bring that stuff up in the screen and you have your drive modes here press my modes and you can select your drive mode you even have your stereo next track and previous track buttons all integrated into this wood panel center control something i've never really seen before now interestingly these controls here in the center the crystal stuff and the wood panel is basically the only controls you have in the entire middle of this car to do anything because they've reduced the amount of buttons and switches in here to make the interior as minimal as possible everything else is pretty much integrated into the infotainment system now that does mean you get a cool minimalist interior which looks neat but it also means there's a lot of stuff integrated into menus and screens including the climate controls now you can adjust the climate control temperature very easily these climate temperature sliders are on the screen but they're always in the same place they're always there so you can easily just swipe your finger and the temperature but everything else requires that you press climate menu in the center which brings up this this display which has kind of a dizzying array of climate functions and they're laid out pretty poorly they're all the exact same size and shape so the control for the heated seat and steering wheel is the same size and directly in a line with the control for the fan speed for instance and it makes everything a little bit more difficult to figure out you really have to look at exactly what you're controlling rather than just kind of know the placement of everything and to make matters worse accessing the passenger climate controls actually requires you to slide over to the passenger side of the screen just to access those controls it's really not the best display setup however i will say one interesting thing about the climate controls in addition to heated seat heated steering wheel regular climate controls you also have this which seems a little odd that so if you want additional heating beyond the heated seat the heated steering wheel heat coming out the vents you turn that on and various panels on the dashboard and the center console will start giving off heat to add like a warmer ambience in the cabin which is a pretty cool idea interior vehicle radiant heating you see that in some houses but not often in cars now aside from the climate control situation not really being that great in this infotainment screen i gotta say everything else is fantastic let's start with the screen itself which is this big curved panel mounted on the dashboard on these posts looks very interesting and it is tilted just a little bit towards the driver in a throwback to old school bmw models that always had their controls turned towards the driver because they wanted to give the driver easier access so controls were within easy reach so you could focus on driving but anyway this giant screen panel situation here the center screen is bmw's latest iDrive system iDrive 8 and it's tremendously easy to use really responsive really intuitive very well laid out and incredibly quick fast high quality excellent resolution it's really really good and it's very configurable you can see here on the home screen it displays several different things at once which i always love to see and you can choose very easily exactly which widgets you want displayed you just kind of tap on it hold it down and you can slide things around or you can even add or subtract widgets depending on exactly what you want to see it's really a good system and quite easy to use and figure out certainly a big improvement over prior bmw iDrive which was starting to feel a little dated now with that said there are so many controls and features in this system that when you go into menu to check out all the apps it's a little overwhelming you can see an enormous number of different things in here you have to learn and figure out if you get one of these there are a lot of familiar names integrated in here obviously apple carplay and android auto but you also have spotify in this car and you even have a dash cam that can record while you're driving and that way if there's an accident you have footage of what happened and you can use it to prove your innocence from your built-in dash cam and your bmw that is a pretty cool feature among a lot of other cool features in here one especially nice thing to see speaking of cameras is this 3d camera showing on the outside of the car which is really useful it really looks like a little hovering device showing exactly what's around you from every angle and you will notice that the car in this image is color matched to the car i'm actually sitting in that's not by accident you get one of these in white that image will be white you get black it'll be black they've actually matched the vehicle color in the screen on the camera system to the vehicle color you actually have which is a cool piece of attention to detail now the other part of this big curved giant screen panel on the dashboard is over on the driver's side the gauge cluster screen which is also a big improvement over prior bmw gauge screens i had complained in previous bmw reviews that their gauge cluster screen just wasn't that useful or configurable compared to rivals that has changed significantly here for one thing you have several different screen layout options that allow you to choose what you want to prioritize whether you want to see the speedometer larger and the power you're using or whether you want to prioritize like info displays in the center which you can pick from several your music your range and also a large map this was one thing bmw didn't offer before but now you can prioritize the map large directly in front of you like some rivals have now i personally think the mercedes benz gauge cluster screen setup is still a little bit better and a little bit more configurable but i will say this is a huge improvement and bmw's is easier to use with these little buttons and switches on the steering wheel very intuitively controlling everything mercedes can be a little complex to figure out how to adjust all the menus in the gauge screen now speaking of the steering wheel it is rather unusual for one thing it's not really a wheel at all it's not circular it looks almost like a hexagon which is kind of strange and then there's the center part where you have like one big line across two spokes i guess but no upper or lower spokes which is also kind of weird steering wheel a little unorthodox in this car now on the left side of the wheel you have controls for your driver assist systems and i've driven this car using those systems and i think they work fantastically the car will speed up slow down go around corners absolutely no problem and the steering wheel is capacitive touch which is great that means you can just rest your hand on the steering wheel and it will know you're there you don't have to jiggle the wheel all the time to let the system know that you're paying attention it's not easy to set a following distance using this system the buttons on the steering wheel don't control the following distance from the vehicle in front of you instead you actually have to go into the center screen using some menus in order to adjust your following distance which is annoying so many other cars just have a simple rocker switch on the steering wheel which makes it a lot easier but anyway on to the rest of the quirks and features in this interior and there are quite a few like for instance the roof panel big glass roof panel and there is no sunshade because you can just tap this button here in the ceiling and the roof will automatically go dark you press that and now light is no longer coming in through the roof you press it again and then instantly it opens up and you can see the sky the sun whatever you can just tap that on and off to close or open the roof to your heart's content more and more automakers offering this feature and it is really making those rolling sun blinds a thing of the past which is nice because they take forever to open and close also another interesting quirk in this interior is the climate vents especially the ones in the center they are very small very wide but very thin to kind of help keep the perspective of the minimal interior and i think they look pretty cool and they do a good job blowing air out despite their little size now also on the dashboard the vicinity of the climate vents you can see these little leaves over on the passenger side kind of imprinted into the leather so what exactly is going on there well it turns out that the leaves are there to signify that the dye from the leather in this interior comes from olive leaves which i guess is more sustainable of a process than traditional leather dyeing and so they're letting you know their sustainability by putting those leaves over on the passenger side certainly a little quirky now speaking of passenger side of this interior one interesting thing on the passenger door panel you have this little cutout which you don't have on the driver's side that is intended to be for smartphone storage passenger can stick their phone in there and have it easily accessible while they're riding along in the car there's also a second smartphone storage compartment in the center console you can see it here and i guess this one could be used by the driver or i guess also by the passenger if they have a second smartphone to store but either way keeps it within easy reach but out of your hands which is nice also worth noting in the center console i mentioned earlier the gear selector is this crystal switch and it has kind of a strange operation you push it forward to go into reverse you pull it backwards to go into drive and then neutral is in the middle strangely there's no real park in this car to activate the park gear you can press p here but that's really the parking brake you turn that on and park defaults to being on also but it's not actually the park gear now the other way you can go into park in this car is when you come to a stop just open the door and then it automatically goes into park without you having to press anything pretty simple one other interesting quirk of this vehicle is getting in and turning it on and the sound it makes when you do kind of a futuristic video game sound take a listen but last thing i'll say about this interior when i'm sitting up here it is pretty nice it's beautiful the minimalist thing really works the materials are good it's a handsome interior that really does look nice if you can get past the fact that you don't have your traditional row buttons and switches like in some cars certainly an interior for more tech focused screen-minded people but i suspect those people will really love the overall layout design and quality of this interior unfortunately we can't say the same thing about the exterior this car has been the subject of an enormous amount of criticism regarding its styling and design much of which has been focused on the grill you can see the rather large grill panels here they do look a bit big and a bit cartoonish although personally i don't hate them as much as everybody else i actually think bmw's big grills work pretty well on the suvs i think the x7 looks great for example and this one doesn't look so bad to me i think the real bmw grill problem is on the cars where it looks totally oversized like the new bmw m3 where it's just laughably big and frankly the new 7 series with a grill is also too large but here again we have grill complaints and i think one of the big challenges for people is this vehicle doesn't need to have a grill this size in fact it doesn't need to have a grill at all this is an electric car so it doesn't need airflow through the grill so this is all just decorative and i think some people take issue with a decorative grill being so massive and oversized in front one interesting thing though about this grill that redeems it a little bit bmw claims it is self-healing meaning that if you get a rock chip or something flies up and scratches this grill the material it's made out of will respond to heat and over a period of 24 hours will actually work to eliminate the scratch as if it wasn't there which sounds like kind of not real but that's what they claim it'd be interesting to see it actually work in terms of styling with this vehicle up front i actually think worse than the grill is this this black like weirdly shaped panel below the headlights that comes if you get the sport package in this car otherwise you don't have it and it looks strange especially on lighter colored cars not as bad in this dark red but it's a real contrast and a strange shape if your ix is lighter colored it really accentuates it next up on the outside of this car i want to talk wheels for a second these are the optional 22 inch wheels larger than standard and to me they look fine not especially beautiful not ugly they're fine and they fill out the wheel arch well enough but one important thing to note these wheels actually diminish your range if you get the standard wheel you have a 324 mile range according to the epa but if you upgrade to these 22s it drops to a little over 300 miles so the 22 inch wheels are bigger they look better but they do hurt your practicality just a little bit in terms of range now to me the other interesting thing on the side of the ix is gold trim everywhere you can see this gold trim line running below the windows a very obvious piece of gold trim you have the same thing below the mirrors and there are several other gold accents on the side of this car including in the door handles that really stand out from your usual chrome or black trim that you typically see on most cars i guess to help the ix stand out a bit from other bmws and it's the same story on the back of the ix where you can see more gold trim this time on the badges over on the left ix is trimmed in gold over on the right x drive 50 also in gold again standing out from other bmw models now when it comes to the rear of this vehicle it is certainly an interesting look has kind of a minimalist look to it in back just like it did in the interior and there are a few notable items worth pointing out one is the very thin taillights you can see only a couple of inches high they're nice and long and wide but they are not very tall and again kind of a cool distinctive minimalist look also cool is the backup camera which is actually integrated into the bmw logo back here you can see the little camera at the very bottom and that kind of cleans up the rear of the car and again is sort of cool and minimalist so you don't have some ugly camera sticking out i do however find it strange that despite these minimalist touches which are obviously very intentional the rear wiper just sits here in its default position not even straight it's at some ugly angle and it's very obviously sticking out there i just don't get it doesn't look good on the back of this car and i don't understand why more automakers don't stick the rear wiper under the rear spoiler and hide it from view like range rovers always have but anyway before i go into the cargo area back here one rather clever trick i want to show you take a look at the built-in camera cleaner system in back you clean the camera and the bmw logo pops out and it cleans and that is just really really a cool little hidden trick for cleaning your backup camera but anyway next we move inside the cargo area you pop open the tailgate it opens automatically of course the first thing you notice back here is this extra set of lights inside the cargo area that's because the regular brake lights and turn signals for this car are mounted on the tailgate itself but by regulation they can't go up with the tailgate and be completely out of view so a second set of lights is here to turn on once the tailgate is up in order to still have visible brake lights for safety's sake which is kind of an interesting quirk you don't see in too many vehicles now the other thing you notice when you get back here is there's not really all that much cargo space in the back of the ix the ix is almost exactly the same length as the bmw x5 within like an inch or a half an inch but the cargo area is just a lot smaller it looks a lot narrower and obviously the load floor is higher there's just not all that much room in this cargo area for the size of this vehicle now you can open up the floor you can lift this up and you can see that reveals even more cargo space but it's still not a huge cargo area in the back of the ix a little bit of a demerit in terms of practicality now other items that are quirky and interesting you can note back here one is this little shell material on the side of the cargo area you can see there's kind of a weave here and that's because a lot of the ix's structure is made of cfrp carbon fiber reinforced plastic they do this to save weight add rigidity you can also see it in the door jams when you open them up the cfrp in here which adds sort of a cool little performance car credential to the ix also interesting in the cargo area of the ix is this this emergency inside release handle normally you only see this on vehicles with a trunk so if someone is kidnapped they can pull the handle and escape you don't see it in suvs because the cargo area is open to the rest of the interior and it wouldn't really make sense but they have to include it here because the cargo cover is a hard fixed piece as opposed to one of those ones you can just roll out and as a result this does function like a trunk when the tailgate is closed and so they need that emergency release to comply with regulations kind of interesting one other notable item back here over on the passenger side of the cargo area you do have a couple switches you can use to drop the rear seats you pull on those and the seats go down as you can see creating an even larger cargo area which frankly you might need if you have big stuff but anyway next we move on to the back seats and i have to say it's quite roomy back here like i said before the ix is the same size as a bmw x5 at least in terms of length and it feels way roomier in this back seat in fact i wonder if part of the reason the cargo area is so small is because they robbed some space in order to give you more rear seat room it is really roomy tons of knee room tons of headroom which is great and because this is an electric car you don't have like a transmission tunnel or a driveline running through the center of the car taking up space in the rear seat floor so there's a lot more rear seat leg room and it feels more open in here and you have more of a chance to stick a middle seat passenger because there's just more space but anyway on to the interesting quirks and features of the rear one that i love is the usb ports you have two usb c ports on the back of each front seat you can see two here on the driver's side and two over here on the passenger side so you can charge a lot of devices back here you also have rear climate control as you can see two different zones so each rear side can choose their own temperature and you have heated rear seats which is obviously also nice and speaking of the seats one rather interesting item is access to the child seat tethers you pull on this loop and then this leather panel at the base of the seat lifts up and reveals the child seat anchors which is a pretty cool idea makes them very easy to access if you're sticking in a child seat the only drawback is this leather loop you have to pull on is actually pretty big and it can kind of stick in your lower back when you're sitting in the seat so before you climb inside you have to kind of push that leather loop into the seat which is a little bit on the annoying side now another interesting quirk back here on the back of the front seat below the usb-c ports you can see there's this little panel that slides down you open that and there's like a hole behind there that is for accessories bmw sells like ix accessories where you can mount a laptop or a coat hanger or whatever you can stick that right there in that little slot in your back seat also interesting back here the rear doors like the front doors have a button that you push to electronically release the door to climb out press this button the door pops open and then you open it up the rest of the way to get out and also like the front there is a secondary mechanical release located further down on the door panel kind of hidden where you wouldn't normally see it so if the battery fails or the electronic popper fails you can still climb out of the door using the good old fashioned way and next up we move up to the front of the ix where i would normally open up the front panel and show you the front cargo area except there is no front cargo area in the ix and in fact this front panel doesn't open up at all which is kind of a shame because like i mentioned rear cargo room leaves a little to be desired it would be nice to have like a supplementary front trunk but you don't get that in the ix now you do get one little opening panel up here and it's not what you'd think in order to add washer fluid for the windshield you tap on the bmw logo in the front and it pops open and that is where your washer fluid goes in since the front panel doesn't open and reveal a washer fluid reservoir that is how you get it in behind the hidden pop-out bmw logo and by the way speaking of the bmw logo having some interesting functions take a look at the key which is kind of sleek and futuristic but i especially like that when you press the bmw logo it locks the door so you push that the doors are locked which is kind of a cool touch but anyway since i'm up here let's talk performance like i said this is the ix x drive 50 and that is the only model available the ix for the 22 model year and it has about 520 horsepower 516 to be precise now starting price around 84 000 this one is equipped to around 105 000 with options if you want more performance there will be an m sport version coming the m60 which will have 610 horsepower although it's going to have a steep price starting around 106 000 and then of so it'll be pretty pricey for that power even this version though does 0 to 60 in 4.4 seconds which is pretty quick although the m60 will do it in 3.6 according to bmw which is seriously quick for a family suv now in other markets bmw will also sell a base model an x drive 40 version with about 325 horsepower but that's not coming to the states at least not yet this ix has dual motors front and rear which means it comes standard with all-wheel drive and as for rivals like i mentioned earlier there aren't really that many the audi e-tron suv is similar sized but it's a different price point around 65 000 to start it doesn't have as much stuff or as much performance or as much range really the only rival for the ix right now is the tesla model x and this is bmw's so those are the quirks and features of the new bmw ix now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the bmw ix i have been very curious to see exactly what this vehicle would be all about now a lot of people have been talking about the exterior styling and that's been 95 of the conversation around the ix um but there's obviously more to this vehicle than that including a pretty good driving experience so i want to start with acceleration 060 and 4.4 you floor it and it kind of takes off now i'm used to having this happen in these electric sedans like the model s plaid and the porsche taikon but this is a crossover and it is seriously quick like seriously seriously legitimately feels very very very quick and i can only imagine that the n60 version is probably even more insane and that's assuming they don't do an ixm which would probably be even crazier now of course there's more to this driving experience than just stomping on the throttle and feeling the acceleration and i got to say i like a lot of other things about this car one is the ride it is exceptionally comfortable the ride quality in this car even in sport mode which i am right now going over bumps i'm like shocked i it feels like a very expensive luxury car which i guess makes sense because it is one but usually people are willing to forgive a bit of ride quality in the suvs to trade for practicality this really does feel comfortable that's one of the first things i noticed the seats are comfortable the ride the suspension it's all really nice and comfortable in this car now in terms of handling uh pros and cons i would say to handling it does steer pretty well the steering is relatively precise there's a little vagueness on center and honestly it's a heavy vehicle and so it steers heavy um when you're going around hard corners you can feel that now it does have more a performance slant to it than some other like certainly more than the e-tron suv that didn't feel to me quite as performancey it was more just sort of a luxury high-tech vehicle this does feel from acceleration standpoint and from a steering turning handling standpoint it feels more enjoyable than that it does have a sporty feel to it and more than most other suvs and frankly more than the tesla model x which has never really felt that sporty to me unlike a lot of electric vehicles where you get a lot of sounds because they don't have an engine to kind of mask out the road this car actually is reasonably quiet it keeps the road at bay to an extent and it just feels really nice in here nice and comfortable you're also sitting pretty far up high even though it doesn't have a high look to it on the outside you do have a pretty high driving position which feels good now in terms of using the technology while you're driving some people are going to knock this infotainment system for the climate control situation i gotta say this car is really high and you play around with the infotainment system for a long while and you still won't get to everything and i think that the kind of people who are the buttons forever never screams crowd are not really what this vehicle is for this is a 100 000 ultra high-tech performance luxury suv it is for people who want to be like on the cutting edge of performance luxury and tech and that's what this is truthfully there's a lot to like about the ix i've now spent some time in it driving it enjoying it um i like it a lot more than i expected to when it first showed up i'm looking at it i'm like this is not what i'm looking for in a styling and there's not much ground clearance so you're questioning the suv ness but then you get in the interior is fantastic materials are great and the driving experience is just great it accelerates fast it steers great the ride is so nice and supple and i think the tech is fantastic and frankly i think this is a good all-around car would i buy it over a model x it would certainly be a tight race x has a lot of great benefits i personally hate the gullwing doors and i would buy almost anything to not have that um but even those aside this is a really competitive and really excellent vehicle and i think it makes a really great case for itself if you can get past the styling and the pretty high sticker price and so that's the bmw ix the styling may not be for everyone but this is otherwise a pretty compelling package excellent technology a fantastic interior great driving experience good performance good practicality frankly there aren't that many electric suvs in this price range and market segment but now the ix is here and now it's time to give the ix a dug score and the dug score is here 65 out of 100 which places the ix here against rivals this looks like a pretty low result but it's actually really good most of the cars in this list are high performance models like audi rs or porsche or mercedes amg the ix very nearly holds its own with those and it beats out more traditional rivals like the audi q8 bmw x5 and even the model x overall i was impressed with the ix an excellent vehicle with a lot of great qualities except for a high price and a polarizing design