Ian Lamming tests the very latest offerings in the world of electric vehicles including the new BMW i4
IT’S that time of year again and there’s a BMW with my name on it.
Thankfully the German marque attends the annual test day organised by the Society of Motor Manufactures and Traders otherwise I don’t know when I’d get behind the wheel of a Beemer.
This year it’s the i4 and it is equally electrifying. The i4 is a four door saloon that thinks it’s a coupe – that makes it a gran coupe, then.
The kidney grille, the roundel badge, the swooping lines, it could not be from any other manufacturer than BMW and existing customers will feel right at home. It’s a tidy looking motor and the grille is very clever. Being electric there’s no need to have a grille as no engine cooling is required. But it is needed for looks so BM have used the area to house a range of sensors and a camera for all the electronic driver aids.
Inside the i4, tech blends perfectly with classy trim to provide a feeling of opulence. The dash is a gently curving screen that angles all the information to the driver and it all feels just right. BMW does make a good interior and the i4 is no exception.
That’s all very BMW and so is the ride. The i4 comes with twin electric motors and huge reserves of power. EVs are staggering and this particular Beemer puts out 544HP and 795Nm torque. That’s tyre shredding stuff and even in ‘eco pro’ it hurls you back in your seat. Expect a sprint time to 62mph of just 3.9 seconds – I mean, that’s the performance of supercars for goodness sake – and a top speed of 159mph. The power is so useable it’s just plain brilliant and i4 comes with a good maximum range of 365 miles – but not if you enjoy all that power.
Four-wheel-drive by default, as there’s an electric motor on each axle, the i4 handles well too. It seems perfectly balanced front to back and side to side so cornering is flat and grip well up to the job. All in all the i4 is a thoroughly excellent vehicle.
As a triple Abarth owner I’m quick to jump behind the wheel of the latest variant which is fully electric. One of the strengths of the old model was the spine tingling sounds and the surprising performance for what the uninitiated would see as a Fiat 500. Abarth ‘e’ looks the part but performance feels down on the petrol and the sound has completely gone unless you switch on the engine soundtrack recording. It does sound good as it rumbles into life with a deep throated burble. But once you accelerate it sounds synthetic, wrong somehow, particularly as the tickover tune remains present in the background. Very quickly it starts to irritate and I try to find how to turn it off.
Also electric – well kind of – is the new Nissan X-Trail. If you have tried the Qashqai e-Power then it will be familiar. A petrol motor acts as a generator charging the battery and the electric motor. The actual drive to all four wheel is by the electric motor only making it drive like an EV, but you’ll never run out of charge, which seems a great compromise to me. So it’s like the Qashqai but bigger and with seven seats, which is very useful.
After all these electrics it is nice to end the day with bit of nostalgia in the form of the new Isuzu D-Max. Big old pick-up, with a truck-like engine, it comes with mild vibrations that remind you that you are in something mechanical and not a video game and ahh, smell that diesel.
Fact File
BMW i4 M50
Motors: Twin electric, 4WD
Power: 544HP, 795Nm torque
0-62mph: 3.9 secs
Top speed: 159mph
Range: 365 miles
Transmission: eight speed automatic
CO2 g/km: 0
Price: £71,280.00
