‘No rare earths… crystal glass… a magic carpet over the road…’

Well, thank God for that. BMW’s iX is superb.

I can’t describe the sense of relief. (It’s right up there with getting the call from features man James Taylor to say that our Sports Car of the Year test – page 88 – had passed without incident. No Ferrari SF90s in the Irish Sea; no 911 GT3-shaped holes in the Welsh landscape; no calls to our insurance company trying to explain that, really, dangling a photographer from a sideways M4 is absolutely essential business, and had never gone wrong before…)

Why so relieved that the iX isn’t a duffer? Because while every single BMW-a“liated soul I’ve spent time with over the last year and half has been very keen to tell me what a mightily important car it is, no one was being very clear about precisely why. What will the iX achieve that the Audi e-Tron or Jaguar i-Pace have not? What, a decade from now when I can afford one, will the iX be famous for?

This month I had the opportunity to ask the chap in charge of the project, so I did. Frank van Meel is as charming as he is clever (the M5’s xDrive system was his baby, and remains pretty much a textbook example of how to introduce a potentially divisive bit of new technology: ask people not to judge until they’ve tried it, then make it virtually flawless), and not a man prone to wa›e. But his iX mission statement is less a soundbite, more a soliloquy.

‘Well, from my perspective it is the only SUV right now that’s both an electric vehicle and really cool. Of course, you can say it’s a new interpretation of design, of sheer driving pleasure, of multi-functionality and of luxury, all in one. And it’s both i and X, so you get the best of i, with our fifth-generation powertrain… no rare earths… over 600km of range… good 0-60mph… And of course real luxury on the interior. This inside-out feeling – a sense that you’re in your own luxury compartment, above everything else, floating on a magic carpet over the road.

‘Plus you have our shy-tech technology, so the functionality is there but you don’t have switches everywhere. We wanted to achieve something that was hassle-free, beautiful, luxurious, a typical BMW, very comfortable, with amazing details… the crystal glass in the interior, the electro-chromatic glass… the frameless curved display… It’s the newest of the new combined with something special.’

I mean, it’s a hell of an elevator pitch, though you’d need to wedge a fire extinguisher in the nd doors to buy yourself the time to deliver it.

I’m relieved because it turns out all of the above is true. The iX is luxurious in a refreshingly modern way – indulgent and feel-good as much for what it leaves out as the stuff it shoehorns in. Turns out it does ride better than a limo. And its new iDrive architecture really does hint at enormous capability without freaking you out on first acquaintance.

But mainly I’m relieved because the iX – and Frank did pledge this to be the case – is a true BMW: engineered like a Rolex (arguably over-engineered in places, but we like that), with a powertrain that’s both state-of-the-art and emotionally engaging, and, within the confines of its class, something of an ultimate driving machine. Phew.

Enjoy the issue.

For those on the outside, the Max Power scene (p80) was/is ba ing. But Ben Barry was on the inside, and tells all.

A car with as many facets as the BMW iX requires a writer of uncommon gifts and good sense. is that writer (p56). CJ Hubbard