And that's good since the starred chef Thibaut Ruggeri has concocted a small meal for us which alone is worth the trip from Paris. Without detailing the menu here, I would just say that one of the particularities of the meal is to be composed mainly of ingredients from the 5000 m2 vegetable garden which is held on the site of the Abbey. Moreover, this commitment to sustainable development is not only found on the plate, in our hotel room, linen, and organic cotton bedding, and 100% natural soaps immerse us in a deeply eco-responsible philosophy, which place was not chosen by chance by BMW France to present us its electric range which is in the same approach!
A HUGE BATTERY
So of course, we will say it right away, there are disappointments. The use of aluminum and carbon fiber allowed the I3 to weigh only 1350.Kg does not seem to benefit our iX so well, which still weighs 2585.Kg (in xDrive version 50, the xDrive 40 version weighing "only" 2440. Kg) but it must be said that with a huge 111 kWh battery, we did not expect a featherweight. On the other hand, it takes no less to announce 630 km of WLTP autonomy (for a consumption of 19.8 kWh).
For my part, going below 20 kWh seems complicated to me, my minimum being closer to 21 kWh on the departmental roads bringing us back to Paris, for 25 kWh in the end on the mixed route. Suffice it to say that the 630 km will be difficult to reach in real conditions. In my opinion, we should rather oscillate between 550 km on the national and 400 km on the highway!
Siri opens up
Tech-savvy friends,
know that the iX is THE car you need at BMW.
An example? The key…
or rather the absence of a key!
Indeed, rather than
giving us a classic key to use the car all day, the BMW teams gave us iPhones!
Because, as long as you have a recent iPhone (integrating a U1 chip – Ultra
Wide Band – therefore from the iPhone 11), your phone alone is enough to unlock
and use the car. Well, objectively, it's useless (well, it's always one less
key in your pocket), but that's why it's great.
Another example? The
onboard computer, at first glance very similar to that of the I4, is
nevertheless powered by processors with a 20x higher computing capacity. In
short, augmented reality guidance is astoundingly accurate and menu navigation
is even smoother.
We won't talk about
the Bowers & Wilkins sound system with the diamond dome tweeters normally
found on speakers like the famous B&W 800 D3 which equips the Abbey Road
recording studio (made famous by The Beatles)!
A CONCEPT CAR INTERIOR
Let's stop talking
about technology, let's open the door and settle down... Let's just say it
right away, if the exterior may not please everyone (I didn't fall in love),
the interior as for him… ouch: how beautiful!
Well, we find the
panoramic curved screen of the I4, but for the rest... no doubt, we are in a
higher range (by the way, forget the idea of benefiting from the ecological
bonus, with the 103,500 € requested for our xDrive50, we broke the ceiling a
long time ago… and even the xDrive40 version will not be entitled to it with
its price of 86,250 €). Where our I4 placed us in a cocoon dedicated to
piloting, the interior of this iX is intended to be more refined, and airy.
Here, there are far
fewer buttons, and the buttons that remain (on the iDrive side) are sensitive
buttons hidden in the woodwork. It may seem gimmicky, but the result is
sublime. Add to that the crystal iDrive dial (optional), and you suddenly feel
like you're travelling in the limo of the future.
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