Jonathan Gitlin
PALMS SPRINGS, Calif. – For decades, automakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz have competed in group testing for the title of the world’s best car, an honor awarded by several magazines. The battle was mostly between the 7 Series and the S-Class, with occasional challenges from Lexus. Jaguar and Cadillac often lag behind.
Today, there’s a serious new contender for the crown as BMW’s latest-generation 7 Series goes on sale.
I became addicted to cars-as-technology in the early ’90s, and what a way cars have become since then, as powertrains have pushed new boundaries and sources of energy, and interiors have become more engaging and protective of their occupants.
The Bavarian OEM made the decision a few years ago to invest in a powertrain-independent vehicle architecture so that the new 7 Series will be available with an internal combustion engine, as a plug-in hybrid (which will come to the US in time) , and as a fully battery-electric version called the i7. BMW brought both gasoline and BEVs to Palm Springs for its international first run, and you can read about the 760i xDrive elsewhere on these pages today.
But the star of the show is the i7, which once again proves that if you want to make a luxury car even better, you have to give it electric motors.
Jonathan Gitlin
The electric version has full functionality with its gasoline-powered partner, including a new advanced driver assistance system that allows hands-free cruising on pre-mapped divided-lane highways and a huge curved theater display for happy passengers in the back seat. BMW has even managed to make the car fun to drive.
The electric powertrain technology in the i7 is now relatively well known. It is BMW’s 5th generation EV powertrain and debuted last year in the i4 sedan and iX SUV. It uses the same family of electrically powered synchronous motors for both axes, powered by a lithium-ion battery pack that uses prismatic cells. (BMW is switching to cylindrical cells for its sixth-generation EV platform, which we’ll see in the Neue Klasse of 2025.)
There is currently only a single i7 for sale, the $119,300 i7 xDrive60. The vehicle uses a 255 hp (190 kW), 296 lb-ft (401 Nm) engine in the front and a 308 hp (230 kW), 280 lb-ft (380 Nm) engine at the rear for a combined total output of 536 hp (400 Nm). kW) and 549 lb-ft (745 Nm). The battery pack has a usable 101.7 kWh out of a total capacity of 105.7 kWh.
BMW
The i7 has an official EPA range estimate of 318 miles (512 km) on the smaller 19-inch wheels and 308 miles (496 km) when clad in 21-inch wheels, just like our test car. On a 2.5-hour ride with a lot of elevation changes and very little urban driving, I averaged 23 kWh/100 km (2.7 miles/kWh), slightly better than the 23.9 kWh/100 km (2. 6 miles/kWh) EPA rating.
Charging ups and downs
DC fast charging takes 34 minutes to return the battery to an 80 percent charge state (SoC), or 80 miles (129 km) for every 10 minutes, and i7 owners get three years of unlimited charging sessions with Electrify America. I tried to charge my test i7 but my attempt to fast charge ended in partial success. I arrived at the charger with 56 percent SoC left, but the session was aborted after just a few minutes due to an error or error and 9.5 kWh, leaving the battery at 67 percent SoC.
If I really had to top up the battery to 80 percent I would have unplugged the car and plugged it back in to try and fix the problem, but I didn’t need 80 percent and didn’t feel like wasting half an hour on the being told on the phone that no one else knows why it is happening either.
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You’ll find I’m in the wrong box because the unit I was parked in front of kept having communication errors with the car. What you can’t see is that I’m taking the photo from the center of the drive-thru line at In-N-Out, making access to these chargers nearly impossible (and worse if you drive in and find yourself plug is on the wrong side and you have to turn the car 180 degrees).
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BMW
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I ran into In-N-Out to grab a burger and while I was waiting, the charging session ended.
EVgo
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The information here was not enough for me or the BMW engineers to determine what was happening and whether it was the fault of the car or the charger. Maybe a bird was on the cable and it disconnected? This shouldn’t be so opaque.
BMW
On my return, I notified the BMW engineers of the problem, and when they heard I was using an EVgo charger, they nodded meaningfully and said yes, they had been having problems with that bank all month. (BMW brought in waves of international media for several weeks to pilot the i7; Ars and the other US and Canadian outlets were the last.) Besides, they didn’t know what the problem was, which is what my argument about reliability of the fast charger from earlier this one was. summer.
