The Electrified 1

BMW's smallest SUV gets an electric heart that makes 313bhp and almost 500Nm of torque. It's quick but does it justify the premium? We find out

- Dipayan Dutta

If you’re manufacturing electric vehicles and haven’t taken your spot in the entry-luxury space you may be missing out on a quickly burgeoning part of the market. It’s a space where OEMs have figured out they could offer more for less with an EV. It’s the right price point for manufacturers to equip them with enough range to make them practical, enough features to make them attractive to potential customers and finally, but perhaps, more importantly performance from a segment or two above. All at the cost of running two segments below especially if you’re charging at home. That’s a win-win-win for everyone involved.

So far, the Europeans have been relatively slow in the space with Volvo’s XC40 Recharge being the sole offering. The big three thus far have yet to have a viable candidate to offer, that is until now. This is the BMW iX1 and yes it is a BMW X1 with an electric powertrain, and in the flesh, without the obvious green plate, I’d find it very hard to distinguish it from its ICE counterpart. The iX1 also gets M-sport badging, and while I usually frown at out-of-place marketing badges, let’s not forget the electric makes almost twice the power of the petrol counterpart and more torque than the diesel.

On the inside the iX1 is fairly identical to the combustion X1s, which means that you get the massive two-screen infotainment and instrument cluster with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, massage functions on both front seats, the vertical wireless charger in the centre console that locks in after you’ve placed your phone, customisable ambient light and a whole lot more. As is usually the case, the quality of materials and the cabin’s styling are top-of-the-line and there are plenty of soft-touch surfaces.