Takes the luxury EV to new heights, but its design is easy to criticise

You might not like everything that the BMW ix is - but what it does as a luxury EV demands recognition. The car’s combination of generous Suv-level cabin comfort and versatility, and of a genuinely relaxing and understated luxury ambience, with world-class rolling refinement and drivability, instant and effortless performance, and creditable real-world range is one unmatched by any of the market’s other zero-emission SUVS. It has compelling fitness for purpose and a real completeness of appeal as a near-£100,000 luxury car - even if it doesn’t smash down barriers in terms of outright electric range in the way that some will expect of a top-level EV.

None of that might matter to you, however, if the car fails the first test of a piece of luxury product design: simply, that you want one. BMW’S current approach to design is likely to continue making that hard for some of us. For others, the less traditional approach to product positioning that this car represents, and the things that it says about its owner, could make the ix exactly the right kind of slightly reluctant, alternative status symbol for the rapidly changing, unsure times in which we now live.