Hi all,

two month ago, i received my company car. I chose an i5, as i wanted an EV, need some space, and hate SUVs. I could fit nearly everything optional in the car (besides the air suspension), keep that in mind. Also it is “only” the M40, the rear drive only variant).

As i am from Germany, so no freedom units. Sorry to you over there on the other side of the pond.

I am living in the countryside, and we (my gf also drives the car) have to drive daily, either shopping, she to work, or i travel long distances across Germany.

My first impression on takeover of the car: This is a monster. Not only looks it mean as hell, it is wide and long. Dude. I instantly was glad about parking and lane assistance. I knew the dimensions before hand, but 2m width and over 5 meter of length are much bigger than i had in my mind. This is my only big issue with the car btw. I have a growing blacklist of parking garages and underground parking lots i am not comfortable to drive in.

That out of the way, the car is great. Interior, quality of life features, all well designed. I will only get into a few here, as this will be (mainly) focused on the EV aspect of the car.

Efficency

After using the car for a while, i was surprised by the efficiency of the car. Our regular trips into the neighboring towns, shopping, visting friends, are coming out with around 20KW/km. Autobahn tours with free flowing traffic and a target speed of 130km/h are between 17KW/km and 19KW/km.

With the 82KWh battery pack, ~330km distance in our mixed usage and 80%-10% SoC, are typical.

Charging

Charging was promoted with 205KW and that checks out. I even seen charging rates of 210KW, reported by the car. The maximum charge rate is reached usually between 15% and 55%. On most stations, i can forget to even reach 180KW, but that is more on the state of german charging infrastructure, then on the car.

Using the charge planning feature of the satnav is just a great experience. It keeps stops at a bearable amount of time and recommends target SoC with enough reserve to accounts for possible detours or other delays. Charging stations can be filtert by network, for all those network members. I didn’t test this feature, as an all-network charging card is part of the car in my company.

If a charging stop takes longer, on board entertainment is great. Multiplayer games, TV streaming, or offline media, it does not get boring. I have the Bower&Wilkins system and ConnectedDrive. ConnectedDrive is required for the games and streaming features. The HiFi system just transforms your lokal slow charger to a mobile cinema.

Heated and vented seats

Vented and heated seats are great. For range! Instead of heating and cooling the space in the car, roughly equivalent to the space in a German student apartment, using those comfort features and lowering AC gives you a few hundreds Wh. I tested this on some very hot days. I was alone on the car, and set the temperatures to a comfortable value. Without seat venting, this was around 22°C, with seat vending, went up to 25°. This saved ~300Wh/km. I did multiple runs, and the that seemed pretty stable. I will report back after some real cold days, and lets see how the values look.

I have vented and heated seats in the front and heated seats in the back. Both features are optional.

Space

This is the only non-electric feature i will talk about, but if you got this far, you are most likely interested in it.

And the space is amazing, on all levels.

Driver and passenger seat have leg room, you can fit 3 crates of german beer in the room on the passenger side.

The back seats also have enough space. A 2,03 meter friend sits comfortable there, with enough head and leg space.

And then for the trunk. I moved a single household of a friend in 3 tours. Bed, kitchen appliances and his office. The backrest has 3 parts. It took me a while to recognize this. You can lay it flat, and it looks like two pieces, but the center piece as a separate latch. So if you fit in something long (like some cable conduits), you are covered.

Conclusion

I like this car. While it does clearly have not the longest range or the fastes charge reads on the market, i don’t find this limiting. Never was i annoyed by a charge break (only by broken chargers…), and on long distances, charging breaks are refreshing.

The 340PS are fun, and sometimes, just pedal to the metal, is just amazing.

And all the comfort features, from vented seats over the gesture media control to the onboard AI voice assistant, are well thought out and implemented.

Hands free driving on the Autobahn is a nice idea, for those who like it, i don’t. I use the full steering assistant, but i am not comfortable taking my hands of that round thing in front of me.

Lane Change assist and parking features keep this monster manageable in rush hour traffic on the Autobahn and squeezing into tight parking spots.

But: There is a price. Literally. The car as it is standing in my driveway, comes in with 94k€. I am in the privileged position to get this car as part of my salary. If you can afford this amount of money, and are looking for an EV, give it a look. You get a solid BMW station wagon that drives like an BMW station wagon. It just is fun to drive it. And you get a lot of space. More then in most SUVs out there.

If you have questions, AMA