7Up

The new BMW all-electric flagship sedan is here and sets new benchmarks in the segment but what makes this car so special and does it pack enough of a punch to share the crown with the 7-Series?

- Abhik Das

Flagships are examples of a manufacturer’s prime technological prowess, the pinnacle of its engineering capabilities, the very best that it can offer. This also means that time and again, the boundaries of everything that defines a flagship, need to be furthered to set new benchmarks for others to follow. The i7 is just that product for BMW and for the industry to take inspiration from. The luxury sedan segment has to have first-in-class features to stand out and that is a bigger challenge to overcome as overlapping tech across the industry has led to expectations of similar luxury features thus, most of these cars tend to also feel very similar.

Yet, as one gets into the rear left ‘boss’ seat of the i7 and spends a few seconds looking around the cabin, there is an unmistakable sense of feeling special. The materials on the seat, the touchscreen on the door pads to control all that you need back there, the general ambience thanks to the window area and massive panoramic glass roof, they all come together to make for a brilliant experience. Although, this may still sound normal for a flagship luxury sedan right? But then, there are the theatrics of the whole rear seat experience that raises the normal to exceptional levels. The rear seat entertainment experience makes the cabin come alive with the seat first expanding into a 43.5-degree recliner position as the automatic window blinds are activated, cutting a majority of the outside light while the rear cabin’s pièce de résistance is an 8K 31.3-inch touchscreen that drops down from the roof to turn the rear space into a mobile cinema. Capable of streaming OTT platforms through an Amazon Fire TV USB dongle, one can enjoy a variety of content on the go.