Dial M for More

Range-topping electric SUV gets extra power and technology, not sportiness

- James Dennison

It is big and heavy, but the weight vanishes when you floor it in a straight line

FOLLOWING THE DECIDEDLY MIXED response to the BMW iX's exterior styling, you might think that the company's M division would have prioritised an aesthetic overhaul when it came to the flagship 619-hp M60 version. After all, there is nothing that a carbon diffuser and a set of bulging wheel arches cannot fix, right?

Not so. BMW have barely touched the design for this £112k (Rs 1.12 crore) performance range-topper. Instead, the performance is left to speak for itself. Along with that 619-hp headline figure, there is also a scarcely believable 1,100 Nm of torque that hits home like an F/A-18 launching off the USS Ronald Reagan.

They have achieved this 115-hp increase over the xDrivego model by sticking with the same 111.5-kWh battery but tweaking the six-phase motors. The 0-100 km/h time drops by eight-tenths to 3.8 seconds, with range taking the hit from 630 to 560 kilometres.

It feels more like an all-round halo model than a specialised M performance variant