A road trip with the BMW iX xDrive50

With the discontinuation of the i3, the iX is BMW’s only electric car designed exclusively as such and not based on a combustion engine. Reason enough for us to take an in-depth look at this car on a 2,000-kilometre road trip in European winter weather. Are charging card chaos and range anxiety still an issue in 2023?

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After various trips in and around Munich, we drove to Amsterdam in one day and back to Munich two days later. Since we already tested the BMW iX xDrive50, this report will therefore not only be about the car on the long haul but also about our experiences with the charging infrastructure over this busy European route.

Unusual kidney grille design

The design of the iX is one of those things that takes some getting used to. The proportions are unusual, and the body is somewhat reminiscent of the silhouette of a pear. At first glance, the long bonnet and imitation radiator grille do not suggest an electric drive system; the rear is massive at the bottom and becomes much more delicate towards the top. But the more you look at the car, the more pleasing the design becomes, and by the end of our journey, I quite liked the rear end – but I’ll probably never be impressed with the imitation grille. In a way, this is another parallel to the i3: its design is also very unconventional, but it becomes more pleasing over time.

Spacious interior

In the interior, there are further references to the i3: the dashboard is slightly offset and seems to float, and there is no need for an overly massive centre console. Instead, there is still room for a small travel bag between the driver and passenger. The iX feels a bit like a living room on wheels. The back seat is especially comfortable: solid thigh support, princely legroom and enough airy space above passengers’ heads. This is made possible in part by the wheelbase, which at three metres is exceptionally long for a vehicle that is “only” 4.95 metres long. It feels much shorter when driving, thanks to rear-axle steering. The space in the rear of the car comes at the price of a relatively small boot: 500 litres big-ish, but still not much for a vehicle of this size. If you fold down the seats, you have a space of 1,700 litres. There is plenty of room for skis, as the centre seat can be folded away individually.

We made our first charging stop at the Supercharger Leonberg near Stuttgart to obligatorily try out just how well the Tesla charging station accepts the BMW. It works wonderfully and at full power, although activating the charging point via the Tesla app can be a bit awkward. It is much more convenient with a charging card or with Plug&Charge or Autocharge solutions (identification of the car directly via the plug, without a charging card or app). At Tesla, this feature is unfortunately reserved for Tesla models.

A comfortable home on wheels

Even though our test car surged forward with the power of 523 electric horses, the iX is definitely not a sporty car. The 2.5 tonnes of unladen (!) weight simply is too unwieldy in tight turns; the seating position is very comfortable but also much too far from the road, and more lateral support wouldn’t have done any harm either. But the iX is really excellent at comfortably covering long distances.

In one week of testing, we covered a total of 2,000 kilometres, most of it in two days, driving from Munich to Amsterdam and back again. In other electric cars with a long range, I often longed for charging breaks just to get out of the seat. But in the BMW, you don’t want to get out of the car, and even after many hundreds of kilometres, passengers sit comfortably in any of the seats. Not only are they all heated, but the corresponding armrests are too. If you had to, you would probably be happy to sit here for 800 kilometres at a stretch.

Its greatest enemy: air resistance

With 108.8 kWh net, the battery is more than ample, but so is its consumption. On the Dutch section our route, where 100 km/h is the order of the day, our average consumption was 24.2 kWh/100km. That still corresponds to a real range of more than 400 kilometres, but the BMW i4 manages that, too, with an 80 kWh battery and an almost identical electric drive system. At 130 km/h, as is only allowed here in Germany, the range shrinks to 300 kilometres, so our overall average for the entire tour was 32 kWh/100km. But we also enjoyed the possibilities still allowed on the German autobahn and occasionally used the maximum speed of 203 km/h.

To the iX’s credit, it must be noted that the driving conditions are, of course, totally relevant: The thermometer almost never climbed above freezing during our entire journey, and we always kept the interior toasty warm. In summer, more range will be possible – certainly at least 50, and probably even an extra 100 kilometres. Nevertheless, if you really want to drive a lot of very long distances, you’d be better off with a more streamlined car.

We made our second charging stop at the Hilden motorway junction in Germany, which is about two-thirds of the way between Munich and Amsterdam. We stayed much longer than the car actually needed to. The pizzas in the adjacent bakery shop were simply too delicious, so we could only continue after an extensive meal break. Sometimes it’s not the charging process that determines the length of the break.