Feature
Shared DNA: iX xDrive50 v i4 M50 Words: Will Beaumont Pictures: BMW
Homogenous blobs, only identified by the badges on the front. White goods that all behave the same, look the same, drive the same. Other than range anxiety and phenomenally high purchase costs, it’s the concerns that electric cars will be all too similar to one another that really worries us car enthusiasts and makes us want to eschew the idea of EVs.
I
do not want to choose my car purely on its practicality and then settle for how much luxury I can afford, which seems to be the purchase model that many people fear is being introduced. But, for some time, I’ve suspected that the mass adoption of electric cars will not create such bland, unidentifiable disposable products. Why? Manufacturers are already experts in sharing components across multiple models, sometimes across different brands, and tweaking things here and adjusting bits there, so that, with even a common make-up, each car has its own character. There’s a whole community of Volkswagen Group hot hatches that use the same engine, gearbox, differential, chassis and body structure and each one has its own identity. A Golf GTI is not like a Skoda Octavia vRS or a SEAT Leon Cupra. BMW are masters of it too. Take the B58 engine, BMW’s single-turbo threelitre straight-six. My quick calculations suggest it’s been plonked into over 15 cars, all BMWs with the 40i badge, not to mention the Toyota Supra and Morgan Plus Six. Many of those BMWs also share gearboxes, suspension components and back axles. You’ll find similarities in their structures, too.
28 BMW Car Club Magazine February 2022
Yet, still, no two cars are exactly the same. Oh yeah, similar, for sure. They all try to behave and act like BMWs, but you’ll never confuse an X3 M40i with an M440i. Even an F31 440i and M240i, cars with a lot in common, are easily identifiable from behind the wheel. However. Despite using an engine as an example of my confidence in the variety we could have in the future, my faith wavers because of internal combustion engines. Or lack of them. Not just because I love them. No, thanks to the noise they make and how easily that can be altered with different length pipes, clever valves, strategically placed or omitted sound deadening, a car’s voice can handily be changed. And the way a car sounds is certainly a significant part of its character. As luck would have it, though, I got a chance to experiment, take a glimpse into the future and drive two of BMW’s new electric cars back-to-back to see what diversity will be available. Not just any two, but the iX xDrive50 and the i4 M50. Both cars have the same electric motors at the front and back that drive all four wheels, they share all sorts of technology and have a fundamentally similar layout. There are some differences. The iX has a slightly larger battery, 111.5kWh compared to the i4’s 83.9kWh. The iX www.bmwcarclubgb.uk
