BMW i4 eDrive35 review: Sweet and low-down
Despite its less powerful motor, the electric i4 is one of the sweetest cars for fans of the German brand
GOOD news if you’re a BMW enthusiast and an electric-car believer, not to mention a bigger fan of sedans than sport utility vehicles (SUVs): the i4 eDrive35 is now the brand’s cheapest electric vehicle, having swiped that title from the big-selling iX3.
The bad news is that “cheap” is relative, and the i4 still costs S$345,888. For that money you can take home a Tesla Model 3 with enough acceleration to make a Ferrari driver sweat, and still have plenty left over for wine, women and song.
Still, a BMW’s a BMW, isn’t it? And anyway the i4 is a mighty fine car in its own right.
It used to be sold here in eDrive40 form, with a brawny motor tuned for a hearty 340 horsepower (hp). The i4 eDrive35 makes do with just 286 hp, which sounds like quite a bit less, yet it’s still a properly quick car.
It whips to 100 kmh in six seconds flat, which isn’t much slower than the eDrive40’s 5.7 seconds. It’s not like you could have used all the time you would have saved to finish your MBA dissertation any quicker.
Anyway, it’s the way the i4 doles out its acceleration that matters. Being electric, it doesn’t oblige you to wait a beat for a gear change or for turbochargers to spool up. Instead, the BMW unleashes its torque instantly, so the gap between stretching your right foot and grinning like a loon is tiny.
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Of course, if you fancy yourself a speed demon there’s still the twin-motor i4 M50, which cracks 100 kmh in a white-knuckle 3.9 seconds, although the scarier thing about that car is its S$461,888 price tag.
But the basic i4 is in some ways the sweeter car. It keeps the same even keel but feels better balanced, with a bit more feedback coming through the steering wheel. In the best BMW tradition it lives for corners, diving into bends in a playful way that makes it feel like it’s possessed by the spirit of a puppy.
Better yet, its exemplary fluidity is paired with supple ride quality, which goes to show that you can actually have an electric car with deft handling that doesn’t feel like it was designed to rattle the fillings from your teeth.
In other ways, the i4 feels more ordinary, though that isn’t a bad thing. It’s highly conventional inside, in the sense that its controls are the same as any BMW’s (except for the fact that you can use regenerative braking to drive it with only one pedal).
Many electric cars whirr to life when you climb aboard, but you still jab a start button to wake up the BMW. The dashboard is the same one found in a 3 Series. The infotainment system doesn’t come with arcade games. You can’t make the turn signals sound like flatulence, as you can in a Tesla.
As a matter of fact, the i4 shares its bodyshell with the BMW 4 Series GranCoupe, so you know what to expect there: it can accommodate four adults comfortably (and five in a pinch), and its tailgate opens wide to make it easier to chuck things into the boot.
For all that, the i4’s BMW-ness means it comes with the attendant irritations of the brand’s latest cars. You’ll hate the air-con controls (I certainly do) because they need you to jab the touchscreen repeatedly and all over the place. I’ve never liked the current virtual driver displays and their angular graphics, although they’re less offensive in an electric car than in a combustion one somehow.
The car could do with a 360-degree monitor for parking, too, because its slinky shape means it’s hard enough to see out of the back.
All that said, the i4 makes it clear that there’s room for BMW in the post-Tesla world. It does have a plusher interior than the American brand’s Model 3 (with upholstery that looks especially good in chocolatey brown), and it’s something the average BMW driver can climb into and operate without feeling like they need to unlearn how to drive a normal car first.
In that sense, the i4 is neither adventurous nor particularly futuristic. But its electric drivetrain does make it feel like BMW has managed to build a better mousetrap, while retaining the qualities of the mousetrap you know and love.
BMW i4 eDrive35
Motor power/torque 286 hp/400 Nm Battery type/net capacity Lithium-ion/67 kWh Charging time 7.25 hours at 11 kW (AC), 31 minutes 10 to 80 per cent at 180 kW (DC) Range 483 km (claimed) 0-100 kmh 6.0 seconds Top speed 190 kmh (limited) Efficiency 19.3 kWh/100 km Agent Eurokars Auto or Performance Motors Limited Price S$345,888 with Certificate Of Entitlement Available Now
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