[livingfire83]

     Featured on BIMMERPOST.com

Finally received my 2022 iX xdrive50, ordered on 10/31/21. I wasn't expecting it to come this fast considering how many things were going belly up with the pandemic supply chain issues. It arrived at the port on the 1st of July, but was held back for almost a month to have the recall (Airbag issue) fixed.

Specced as:
Blue Ridge Mountain Metallic
20" wheels (wanted max range)
Mocha Sensatec
Dynamic Handling
Premium package
Bowers and Wilkins
Ventilated seats
Active Driving Professional
Icon LED laserlight


Initial thoughts:
1) Coming from a Tesla Model 3, it's clear that this car is leagues ahead of Tesla in its build quality and its drive quality. The car almost floats on the road!
2) I'm happy about the color combination, the green/blue and brown interior makes the car feel very "Forest-y"
3) The sound system is unreal. I had been particularly curious about the headrest speakers and the shakers. The headrest speakers aren't intrusive, and you can adjust the volume of each headrest...so if someone in the back is taking a nap you can reduce the volume to nil in the headrest of that seat. The shakers really do vibrate, and its not too much, it'll only vibrate at appropriate times
4) Car turns on a dime, but it doesn't have that odd rotation feeling I've experienced in other cars with rear steering, it feels very natural
5) Haven't found any need for the selfie camera yet, but apparently it also monitors which seats are occupied
6) Active Driving is pretty smart, and the lane change is smooth. It does nag you to touch the wheel
7) Speaking of the wheel, the positions where most people hold the wheel are the top, 10/2, and the bottom quadrants. Each of them is pretty natural feeling, although doing a full rotation will take a bit of getting used to
8) Ventilated seats are a must in a hot climate and makes the cabin quite comfortable
9) Lights are crazy bright, although I wish the matrix system was unlocked
10) Trunk space could be bigger, but its fine for the size of the car

Overall, it's a great ride, comfortable, clearly luxurious and quite an upgrade from just about every other EV. I'm curious to see how other companies will contend with the quality in this car.

I know people are hesitant or downright rage filled when they look at pictures of the front grille, but honestly I love it. How many cars look so close to concept vehicles? My dealership has been awesome (Autobahn FW), and this was the first iX delivered!

[Carnook]

Congratulations! I'm jealous of your B&W

[cfm56d7b]

Congratulations! Enjoy the vehicle.

[razor488]

Congrats! I used to get my car serviced at that dealership when I lived in Fort Worth.

[ggalanis]

Originally Posted by livingfire83

Bowers and Wilkins

Originally Posted by Carnook

Congratulations! I'm jealous of your B&W

Congrats!!! And add me to the list of jealous people about you getting the B&W on your iX50.

[ScullyD]

Good to see people starting to get their cars, enjoy!

[gs6456]

Nice color. Can't wait to see shots of the inside.

I'd have paid a lot of good money to get that sound system in my i4 M50.

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by livingfire83

Finally received my 2022 iX xdrive50, ordered on 10/31/21. I wasn't expecting it to come this fast considering how many things were going belly up with the pandemic supply chain issues. It arrived at the port on the 1st of July, but was held back for almost a month to have the recall (Airbag issue) fixed.

Specced as:
Blue Ridge Mountain Metallic
20" wheels (wanted max range)
Mocha Sensatec
Dynamic Handling
Premium package
Bowers and Wilkins
Ventilated seats
Active Driving Professional
Icon LED laserlight


Initial thoughts:
1) Coming from a Tesla Model 3, it's clear that this car is leagues ahead of Tesla in its build quality and its drive quality. The car almost floats on the road!
2) I'm happy about the color combination, the green/blue and brown interior makes the car feel very "Forest-y"
3) The sound system is unreal. I had been particularly curious about the headrest speakers and the shakers. The headrest speakers aren't intrusive, and you can adjust the volume of each headrest...so if someone in the back is taking a nap you can reduce the volume to nil in the headrest of that seat. The shakers really do vibrate, and its not too much, it'll only vibrate at appropriate times
4) Car turns on a dime, but it doesn't have that odd rotation feeling I've experienced in other cars with rear steering, it feels very natural
5) Haven't found any need for the selfie camera yet, but apparently it also monitors which seats are occupied
6) Active Driving is pretty smart, and the lane change is smooth. It does nag you to touch the wheel
7) Speaking of the wheel, the positions where most people hold the wheel are the top, 10/2, and the bottom quadrants. Each of them is pretty natural feeling, although doing a full rotation will take a bit of getting used to
8) Ventilated seats are a must in a hot climate and makes the cabin quite comfortable
9) Lights are crazy bright, although I wish the matrix system was unlocked
10) Trunk space could be bigger, but its fine for the size of the car

Overall, it's a great ride, comfortable, clearly luxurious and quite an upgrade from just about every other EV. I'm curious to see how other companies will contend with the quality in this car.

I know people are hesitant or downright rage filled when they look at pictures of the front grille, but honestly I love it. How many cars look so close to concept vehicles? My dealership has been awesome (Autobahn FW), and this was the first iX delivered!


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Attachment 2951713

How does active driving compare to FSD on the Model 3?

[GOLFFRR]

love it! great color and congrats. thanks for the write up!

[mar_carol]

Beautiful vehicle! Love that color!Congratulations!

[GTiceman]

Congratulations. I would also be curious as to the price difference between your Model 3 and the iX as your equipped it.

[vampire81]

i love the color of your car.
please post photos of the interior.

[Louis_BE]

I did come from a Model X, build quality is indeed better but I would not say miles (had the 2020 model x) I love the iX more then the Model X for a dozen reasons, but there is one thing that blows my mind, the long distance planning is just awful, I really hope they do a redesign from the ground up, it really is needed.

[pikcachu]

Originally Posted by Louis_BE

I did come from a Model X, build quality is indeed better but I would not say miles (had the 2020 model x) I love the iX more then the Model X for a dozen reasons, but there is one thing that blows my mind, the long distance planning is just awful, I really hope they do a redesign from the ground up, it really is needed.

Do you miss the apps, Netflix etc ?

[Louis_BE]

Originally Posted by pikcachu

Do you miss the apps, Netflix etc ?

No I don’t it’s the map / route planner that I miss dearly, granted it’s for long trips only, but that it’s so poor, is really something I did not expect.
Yes I can use ABRP + CarPlay to have almost the same experience as Tesla but there is no integration with the car so live SOC / consumption and battery pre conditioning are not happening.

I did plan a 1000km route, and the BMW navigation was 1 hour longer then if I would optimisme myself via ABRP. It stopped after the first 140 km at a 50Kw dc charger for over an hour of charging ???!!! There was 350 kw HPC at 5 km away …

[razor488]

What is the best app to use for route planning between Plugshare, chargeway, chargepoint, or ABRP?

[sor]

ABRP is the most detailed but almost unbearably so, IMO. It will produce a very optimal trip, micromanaged trip and have you charging to 53%, driving to 10%, charging to 67%, driving to 10%, etc. I find the UI a bit unwieldy to customize the trips. I like to check it but I also like the PlugShare planner a bit better and how it lets you build the trip by showing you charging options and the distance between them so you can add them one at a time to your route plan.

I care more about the stop cadence and stop timing than I do about perfectly optimizing the charging level and overall route time though. Also, in my area I have become familiar with the charging options while owning an e-tron. On the major freeways there are EA 350kw stations every 60-80 miles so I hardly need to plan at all.

[Ryan Stinn]

We, briefly, had a Model Y before the iX 50 and it's truly night and day difference in build quality. I have described it as the BMW is car first and Tesla is computer first. I agree the route planner built in to the BMW is second rate and, in Canada at least, doesn't even show most of the charging stations available.

[sahajesh]

Originally Posted by Louis_BE

No I don’t it’s the map / route planner that I miss dearly, granted it’s for long trips only, but that it’s so poor, is really something I did not expect.
Yes I can use ABRP + CarPlay to have almost the same experience as Tesla but there is no integration with the car so live SOC / consumption and battery pre conditioning are not happening.

I did plan a 1000km route, and the BMW navigation was 1 hour longer then if I would optimisme myself via ABRP. It stopped after the first 140 km at a 50Kw dc charger for over an hour of charging ???!!! There was 350 kw HPC at 5 km away …

I don't want to go OT but this is exactly the sort of thing that would make people dislike EVs - if they don't know better, they'd assume that BMW knows best and would accept that extra, futile charge time.

For all the battery tech and iD8 features, the ability to plan a long journey effectively is key and this is where BMW is severely lacking.

Is this something that will improved with iD8 or do we need to wait for iD9.

Even using CarPlay isn't a better option as until Apple releases the next-gen AND manufacturers support it, you still won't get SoC data shared from the car to CarPlay.

[Louis_BE]

Originally Posted by sahajesh

Even using CarPlay isn't a better option as until Apple releases the next-gen AND manufacturers support it, you still won't get SoC data shared from the car to CarPlay.

Well, with Tronity there is live SOC data that apparently should work with ABRP … so that could be an interim solution. The only thing you miss out is the battery pre conditioning (more of a winter thing).

But the fact that it’s so awful is beyond comprehension, it’s clear BMW i3 drivers never took long road trips.

[ixDriver]

Originally Posted by pikcachu

How does active driving compare to FSD on the Model 3?

Not OP but traded in my 2018 Model 3 after 4 years for an iX50 myself last week.

So personally I think Musk sent the devs down a dead end trying to solve universal FSD when they had a very strong highway Autopilot, and have now blown their lead. Highway Autopilot stopped substantially improving around 2020 in my personal experience.

I found active driving assist pro to be fantastic on the highway
* No phantom braking
* Less "hesitation"
* More consistent following distances
* Smoother acceleration & braking
* MUCH better creeping & coasting in slow stop&go traffic
* Lane changes worked well
* Better handling of lane width changes for things like HOV merge lanes
* More pleasant "alert driver" noise when it wants your attention than Autopilot
* I like that you can also take over steering and then hand it back to automatic control easily
* Similar for accelerating through the speed management to pass an adjacent car, etc.. (Tesla would hard brake against you often as you let go of accelerator)
* Hands free under 45mph is a nice novelty but not key

All in all, wife wasn't really sure when the iX was driving itself or when I was driving. In the Tesla 90% of the time she was very aware the car was driving us, and found it unpleasant.

Again though, this is comparison of divided highway driving performance, which is really the only place where both products are supposed to be used if you read the fine print.

[Louis_BE]

Originally Posted by ixDriver

Not OP but traded in my 2018 Model 3 after 4 years for an iX50 myself last week.


I found active driving assist pro to be fantastic on the highway
* No phantom braking
* Less "hesitation"
* More consistent following distances
* Smoother acceleration & braking
* MUCH better creeping & coasting in slow stop&go traffic
* Lane changes worked well
* Better handling of lane width changes for things like HOV merge lanes
* More pleasant "alert driver" noise when it wants your attention than Autopilot
* I like that you can also take over steering and then hand it back to automatic control easily
* Similar for accelerating through the speed management to pass an adjacent car, etc.. (Tesla would hard brake against you often as you let go of accelerator)
* Hands free under 45mph is a nice novelty but not key

I concur, the Driving assistent is way more confident on the highway, with the Tesla I was always looking to intervene when phantom breaking or hesitation occurred, making the feature “worthless”