BMW iX briefly:

  • BMW iX is a large and luxurious SUV, but that weighs heavily on sustainability
  • The leather on the inside is treated with a substance based on olive leaves
  • The battery is produced with recycled contents and the range goes up to 750 kilometers
  • BMW iX is a very comfortable SUV, but it's also very dynamic
  • Each iX contains around 60 kilograms of recycled plastic or about 2.400 recycled 0.5 liter PET bottles
  • BMW iX comes with all-wheel steering and pneumatic suspension as optionals

In the BMW iX, the pleasure of driving goes together with sustainability

Who says that if you want to enjoy driving a car, you need to make sacrifices to sustainability? Not the BMW iX, as this car was conceived from the very beginning to be planet-friendly. I want to start with this and not its on-road capabilities, because I find it very important that BMW gave such attention to a subject that other manufacturers skip over.

You already know from our test drive for the MINI Aceman that at the BMW Group, every car has its own sustainability sheet and I will attach here the one for the BMW iX.

There are 4 principles that engineers at the BMW Group apply when designing a new vehicle for the companies BMW, MINI or Rolls-Royce. The first is the climate impact or the emissions associated with a vehicle's life cycle from the moment the production is getting ready and until it leaves the roads for recycling. The efficiency, circular economy and the supply chain are the other 3 principles that encapsule sustainability at the BMW Group.

When designing the iX, BMW rethought the entire production of the batteries, as these have a big impact on the environment, generally speaking. The numbers I am about to show you are for the xDrive 45 model, which has a smaller capacity battery than the xDrive 60 variant that I had for testing, but the production principle applies here, as well.

The high-voltage batteries in the xDrive 45 model contain about 12% secondary material. Some 50% of the nickel used for the production of these batteries is recycled and the cobalt comes from recycled contents only.

Also, to evaluate the energy consumption of a car as accurately as possible, BMW drives around 200.000 kilometers for every model and the tests are done accordingly to the WLTP (Worldwide harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure). To validate all the sustainability aspects of a model produced by the group, BMW engineers collaborate with experts at TÜV Rheinland Energy & Environment GmbH.

For the xDrive 45 model, the carbon footprint is calculated as such: 20.2 tons of emissions are associated with the supply chain, 0.7 tons from the actual production stage, 11.4 tons are estimated from operating the vehicle (these vary a lot, because BMW can't know for sure how long the car will be on the road for and in which conditions it will be driven, among others), as well as 0.6 tons from recycling the car at the end of its life.

Thus, the total estimated emissions for a BMW iX xDrive 45 for its entire lifespan is rated at under 33 tons of equivalent CO2 emissions. The emissions associated with driving the car, 11.4 tons in this case, are resulted after BMW engineers drove the car for at least 200.000 kilometers to test and validate the range and energy consumption. Generally, the emissions coming from operating a vehicle are the ones that fluctuate the most and by using only renewable energy for charging, if this can be achieved, the carbon footprint drops from 11.4 tons to just 0.8 tons equivalent CO2, according to BMW calculations.

Water consumption is another important factor to take into account when talking about sustainable production, since this not at all unlimited resource is used for many things, such as painting the car. At BMW, in 2024, the average water usage for factories around the world was 1.67 cubic meters per car. At least 85% of the materials found on a BMW car are recycled at the end of its life in one of the specialized facilities that dismantle these vehicles. In this sense, the company set the ground for a global network of over 2.800 collection points in 30 countries.

Other important things to know about the BMW iX are the treatment for the leather installed on this car, which is based on olive leaves, so a more sustainable alternative than what's being used on the market, in general, without affecting the quality of the material in a negative way. And, if we're talking about the construction, BMW iX has high contents of carbon fiber for its frame, carbon fiber that is manufactured in the USA by a company owned by BMW and which uses 100% renewable energy for production.

The fabric rugs found inside of the car are also made from 100% recycled plastic, just as the textile materials found on the doors and the inside of the boot. Each BMW iX contains about 60 kg of recycled plastic or about 2.400 PET bottles of 0.5 liters.

How it feels to drive the BMW iX xDrive 60

The BMW iX is very well fitted for sustainability, but how does it feel to drive this beast? Does it have the DNA of a BMW? The reality is that I can't tell you that, as this is the second-ever BMW that I've driven after an i3 that I took for a spin a couple of years back and that I heard was oriented more towards efficient, city driving, rather than sporty driving.

What I can say for sure is that the BMW iX is a monster in the best sense of the word and it is a very nice-to-drive car, both comfortable and calm, but also dynamically. My testing version was an xDrive 60, with two electric motors that produce 544 horsepower between them and a maximum torque of 750 Nm. These numbers are excellent, even for a 2.5 ton SUV, but they don't tell the whole story for how fast this car really is.

The acceleration is very quick even in the Efficiency driving mode and in Sport, things completely change for the direction, the suspension and the pedal response times. I was very comfortable overtaking in many scenarios in this car, without pushing my luck, but this kind of power offers you confidence when engaging in such a maneuver.

The danger is that you pick up speed without realizing, because it's also very silent, so you need to keep your eyes on the speedometer to avoid any potential speeding fines. The good news is that you have a very clear and easily-visible head-up display that you can use in this sense.

The car is very well soundproofed and you only start to hear things from the outside upwards of 130 km/h and without music, because if you have it turned on, even at lower volumes, you're not going to hear almost anything. This is where the drag coefficient comes in to play, rated at just 0.25 on this car, an impressive number for what at first may seem like a brutal SUV that wouldn't leave you the impression that cuts the air in an efficient way.

BMW iX is also very stable around the corners, too, which I kind of really expect, as it is a very heavy car and with a low center of gravity, thanks to the batteries in the floor. Still, if you're after the maximum for stability, you can turn on the Sport mode and it will stay planted on the road. My car came with 23-inch rims and at first, I thought it will be very sporty, but not very comfortable. But that wasn't the case.

The car does both very well and the suspensions help a lot, too, as the iX can be equipped with pneumatic suspension for the front and rear axile, like the one that I tested. The suspension setup is generally well tuned by BMW engineers for this SUV and do a great job for the driver that wants to play with the car, as well as for the executive that might want to work on a project from the backseat as relaxed as possible. I didn't have an issue with crossing over tram lines or railway tracks in general, nor with the speed bumps or road imperfections. The pneumatic suspension has two settings, but it can't be manually adjusted to raise or lower the car like in a Range Rover, but it rather knows what it has to do depending on the driving scenario.

The steering is very light at lower speeds, which makes maneuvering around the city very easy, but it stiffens at higher speeds and especially in Sport mode, to offer better precision. The car also comes with 4-wheel steering (not in standard, though), which improves maneuverability in the city and around packed spaces.

And it is a precise direction, indeed; What I like here is that, when you activate the adaptive cruise control, the car guides your steering, as well as helping you keep your lane, but in a very subtle way. If for example you want to avoid a pothole or an obstacle and you don't have the time to use the blinkers, it will initially correct your movement slightly, but if it feels that you insist, it will let you finalize your maneuver safely and without bothering you.

Consumption and charging speed BMW iX xDrive 60

Even if it's a large, heavy and powerful SUV, the BMW iX can be a pretty economical car, if you drive it around the city and on express roads and with the Efficiency mode turned on. This way, the car can drive upwards of 700 kilometers with a full battery and I think this is possible, if the weather isn't too hot or cold. I took the car for a spin and after around 300 kilometers driven on various roads, the battery hit 38%, but I drove it with all different driving modes, I used the air conditioning, as well as the ventilated seats and the massage functions. Also, I didn't try to achieve the best consumption, so I drove it a bit sportier, in general.

In the second day, I charged it to around 72% and I left with it for the whole day on an infernal weather. After around 170 kilometers I came back home with some 40% in the battery, which was enough to get back to the initial starting point the next day with 38% juice.

The energy consumption that I've noticed during my test fluctuated between 17 and 27 kWh, depending on the type of road and traffic conditions, as well as exterior temperature. Most importantly, I wasn't afraid even for a bit that I would be left with a drained battery.

With the right preconditioning, the battery can charge at a rate of 195 kW at the right DC charger, from 10 to 80% in just 35 minutes. I plugged it into a 150 kW station, where it received a maximum of 139 kW (but I didn't precondition the battery at all), but it still charged in a reasonable 16 minutes from 38 to 72%. It was enough to drive it for an entire day and to take it back the following morning, where we parted ways at 38%.

A piece of advice that I would be glad if you took into account is to drive it in Maximum Efficiency mode as much as possible in the city and around country roads. It is sort of an Eco Pro mode that limits the power to 25% and the top speed limit to 90 km/h, while also poewring off the air conditioning. With this setting you can drive for up to 750 kilometers without recharging in the right scenarios and I think you can use this driving mode when it's not boiling hot or freezing cold outside.

Otherwise, I drove it in efficiency for an entire day and I had more than enough power and comfort to not feel that I made any sacrifice whatsoever to gain some range. Use this feature to your advantage.

Comfort and materials in the BMW iX

Being a premium SUv, you won't miss on comfort and quality materials in this car. It was pretty difficult to find any plastic on the inside, mainly on the center console and on the door covers in the bottom part, where there's some space for water bottles and whatever you might have on hand. Other than that, absolutely everywhere you'll find at least some soft fabric or leather. It's the same feeling as in the Mercedes-Benz EQE, for which you can read the test drive here and I can truly say that if you choose to pay for a premium brand and for a highly specked car, you get what you're paying for.

Despite being made of leather, the seats don't get scorching hot from the sun and the fact that they have ventilation is a wonderful thing. Of course, there's heating in the front seats, in the steering wheel and even for the backseat. The panoramic sunroof can be opaque or transparent and the switch is made via voice commands or with the help of a touch button above the center console. The shift in transparency is done instantly and it applies to the entire sunroof, not 50/50 like for Renault cars, such as the Scenic E-Tech or the Rafale.

What I would recommend for maximum comfort on a longer journey is picking the right seats. The ones I had on my testing unit were part of the M package and were comfortable up to 200-250 kilometers driven, after which they started to feel tiring, because they're short on the seating area and don't offer much support for the legs. But it's obvious that they are sporty seats, as you have plenty of side support for dynamic driving, so I guess it depends on your driving style. I would have liked some more plushy ones for longer journeys.

On the backseat there are no comfort issues, especially since you have climate control with plenty of ventilation passages, as well as heating, but not in-seat ventilation, at least not on this version. It's more than enough, though, in my opinion, and I can clearly see the iX being used as an embassy vehicle or for a CEO that is often times away from the office.

There's 500 liters of boot space for luggage, not too big, but you can fit plenty of stuff in there, as the loading area is generous and if you fold the backseat, you gain some 1200 liters for a total of over 1700.

As I said, my car came with pneumatic suspension and the comfort was amazing, with few situations where I felt a pothole or road imperfection, so this car is well-fitted for longer journeys, without a question.

Technologies on the BMW iX xDrive 60

We get to the part that I like quite a bit about the iX. It's obvious that this car is focused around the driver, because it has a dashboard that's well-adapted for the multiple driving modes. In Sport mode you get information for power and torque levels and you also have an accelerometer and you can pick from multiple information screens according to the various driving modes. You can even use a real-time guiding mode using augmented reality, but the car will warn you to never count on the digital image alone, which by the way, have a very good quality.

If you use the augmented reality-powered navigation, you will see arrows in real time on your dashboard and this looks as if you're playing one of those Need for Speed games. Very nerdy and possibly a useful feature for some drivers. The head-up display is also clear and well lit, like on the MINI Aceman.

The car sports 4 cameras to cover its perimeter 360 degrees and for the ones in the front or the back, the iX might suggest you that you clean them, which you can do via the integrated camera washers. At the same time, the front grille for this car is very high tech. Its heated and it can even regenerate itself from light scratches. Even though I didn't try this, if it scratches itself from a tree branch or something like that, it can completely regenerate itself.

Just like on the MINI Aceman, you have a reverse assistant, which backtracks on the last 200 meters that you've driven and using the My BMW app, you can activate the automatic parking feature, which can park and enable the car to leave the parking spot it finds itself in, under the condition that the cars around it are parked correctly.

The infotainment system from BMW has everything, but I feel like it's a little cluttered. It's not bad that it has a lot of apps and features, but I would have liked to find a shortcut for the Apple CarPlay connection, like we have on the MBUX from Mercedes-Benz. At least you have shortcuts for quickly adjusting the safety ADAS features, which you can find on the center console. At least the system responds quickly to commands and the connection is impecable.

The audio system sound superb, it's an 18 speaker unit Harman / Kardon. It has excellent bass, very good mids and highs and sounds balanced overall, but can be very punchy, depending on the music you listen to, as well. In some markets there is an optional 30-way Bowers & Wilkins system, but not in Romania. Oh well.

Conclusions BMW iX xDrive 60

There were a few cars that I drove and that were not easy to say goodbye to, and the BMW iX is certainly one of them. It's an EV with great potential from almost all standpoints. It's not ideal for city driving or at least I wouldn't buy it for a daily commute, it would be a shame to waste all this potential after all. You will want to go outside the city to play a bit with it.

Instead, it's a fantastic choice for longer trips, comfortable and very spacious and that yells premium from all over. I think that this is how a true BMW is supposed to be, although this is only the second model from the manufacturer that I have driven.

At a starting price of 82.000 euros for the 408 horsepower xDrive 45 version, this isn't a cheap car, but honestly it doesn't leave much to be desired. The xDrive 60 model that I drove has a starting price of around 98.000 euros and with the M package and various optionals that the car came with, the final price was 128.000 euros. The question remains: 3 room apartment in Bucharest or luxury electric SUV?

The competition for the European market is mostly comprised of the Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV or the Audi Q8 E-Tron that I didn't get to drive yet and if you're looking for something more minimalistic, there's the Tesla Model X.