The all-electric BMW iX is an intriguing vehicle that is unlike any BMW before it. Its outward style, interior design, and cutting-edge cabin technology make it one of the most interesting BMWs ever produced. However, none of this matters if it does not have a sufficient electric range. Range is what EV buyers live and die by, so if it can’t compete with Tesla and Lucid, the iX could not sell well enough. This is why I chose to explore how far I could go on a single battery charge in real-world circumstances, with no fancy testing processes; just myself, the vehicle, and a lengthy drive.
Sure, I could have made a perfect circle with the equal amount of highway and city driving, ideal weather, and an average and precise speed of 75 mph, or whatever. However, such tests are always amusing to me since no one drives in that manner. To observe how actual consumers would see their range decline, just hop in and drive someplace far, like any genuine person would in their gasoline automobile.
That’s what I did a few weeks ago with the BMW iX. In fact, I utilized the iX to go automobile shopping. The vehicle I want was in Reading, Pennsylvania, some 125 miles from my home in central New Jersey. That amounts to around 250 miles of driving, while the iX’s advertised maximum range is roughly 300 miles (for the record, my trip computer said I had 288 miles of range before I started the journey). The plan was to drive all the way to the seller, purchase the vehicle, and then drive all the way back in the iX to pick up my new car the following day.
In this video, I capture my journey there and back, including my range, efficiency, how the vehicle operated, what I liked about it, and any problems I had. It was an intriguing day, and the iX kept surprising me. I won’t tell you if it finished the voyage in one trip or how efficient it was. However, it was one of the most intriguing experiments I’ve ever done with a vehicle. Check it out, and remember to subscribe to our channel!
