BMW iX xDRIVE40

Battery-electric technology flagship arrives in the UK with less potent motor

- MATT PRIOR

TESTED 24.11 .21, HAMPSHIRE ON SALE JANUARY 2022

If you think the good thing about the BMW iX is that you can’t see how weird it looks from inside it, then you should see inside it.

BMW’s third BEV (after the i3 and iX3) is a big SUV, nearly five meters long, two meters wide and 1.7 metres tall. Not too dissimilar to the X5, then, only more spacious inside.

It’s also more radical inside, and not always in such a bad way. There’s a huge screen across the dashboard centre, but the rotary infotainment controller remains, only now created from what looks like crystal glass and sited on a tall, wood-finished console.

The seat controls have migrated to the doors (not sure why), which are luxuriously padded, and the steering wheel is sufficiently weirdly shaped that, well, I think it’s a wonder they were sensible enough to make it the same on one side as the other. It’s also stupid to hold because the spokes are right where your fingers would like to wrap around the rim. And the heater controls are now on the touchscreen, annoyingly. You can’t pick normal round instruments, but at least they tell you what you need to know.