We are leaving Prague’s outer ring road on the D1 highway, traffic is reasonable for a weekday morning. Radovan Vávra hits the accelerator and the space gray BMW iX M60 hurtles forward with over 600bhp until our heads sink into the armrests. “But that’s fine,” he says, as if nothing had happened. And it really isn’t raining, the sky is overcast, but nothing more, the asphalt is dry and visibility is good. There is a moment of silence, and then the final judgment is pronounced: “If I let my wife do that, she’ll throw me and Tesla out of the barracks.”
Vávra is a well-known promoter of electric cars. For many years he parked two Tesla S and X in the garage of his family home in Průhonice, for short trips around Prague he likes the Honda E minivan, Chirping he frequently shares graphs and data suggesting that the European auto industry is lagging behind not only Tesla but especially its Chinese electric competition. We were together last year tested the flagship ID.4 GTX from Volkswagennow after a year it was the turn of the masters of Monaco: “The Bavarian five-door was my first real car, BMW is my heart” Vavra says.
The BMW iX is a large car, measuring almost five meters, two meters wide and almost 1.7 meters high, weighing two and a half tons. At the same time, it looks much more powerful in pictures than in reality. In this, rather than the size, you will be amazed by the small details: the central touch controller made with a combination of recycled wood and crystal elements or the carbon part of the body.
„Carbon is, of course, a designer’s art, but at the same time it’s a big complication for any repairs and replacements after wrecks, nobody can just do it.” warns Vávra pragmatically.
For the Munich automaker, whose market capitalization is now 55 billion euros, lagging behind Volkswagen and Mercedes, iX is an extremely important model. With it, the company is trying to catch up with the train of electric cars, which it let go of its own fault: It already came on the market in 2013 with the battery-operated city car i3 and then with the hybrid sports car i8 . And while both models were relatively successful, the company didn’t pay much attention to them and voluntarily handed over the baton in the electric car race to Elon Musk. The iX, which is on a new platform, should bring the Bavarian pioneers back into the game.
“One thing is clear. it’s a great car. Done. In terms of engineering, construction and driving characteristics, it’s top notch. Nothing to complain about.” the Vávra melts as we cross the Říčany.
“Tesla can’t compete with this, look,” after which it rolls through a canal pothole in the road without much braking to show how gracefully the air suspension swallows every bump, even when we’re driving on twenty-two-inch tires. “Even if you compare it to the competition, namely Mercedes’ EQC and Audi’s e-Tron, this is for me the best German electric car,” supplies.
However, it is good to remember in which order we move: the basic version of the iX arrives two million crowns, the most powerful model tested for 3.5 million. At this price, you expect the car to drive well, right? “This is a good reminder. But here you feel that every detail is fine-tuned. It may be a subjective view, but here I sense German engineering precision and attention to detail more than ever.” Vávra spreads her arms.
Good. But why doesn’t someone park more at his house? Especially when he is familiar with the automaker and, moreover, even drove the less powerful variant of the iX M50 with a neighbor not so long ago.
„I just like the story with Tesla, I like cars despite their flaws. And then he twists them … ” he says almost apologetically. The BMW iX M60 has a battery with a capacity of 111.5 kWh, the declared range should be over 600 kilometers, but in reality it is more like 400 kilometers.
“These are not negative values, but the battery has a maximum voltage of 400 volts, which means only one thing: slower charging. Both Kia and Hyundai, the more affordable brands, already install cars with 800-volt batteries as standard. Do you want to buy such an expensive car and you know you don’t have the best technology? Especially when BMW itself has announced that within two years it will also start assembling octagons.”
According to Vávra, what is the point of all this? For those who buy a car with the intention of having it for a long time, nothing. If they like BMW go for it, it’s a great car. For those looking to replace it after a few years, be aware that they should either wait or accept that the price of the iX will drop faster than it would cost to purchase.
Front view of the BMW iX M60
