BMW has made its presence felt at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show with a selection of rides, including the new iX. Built around the Group’s new modular scalable toolkit, it will launch in China and other markets before the end of 2021, and will be offered in two specifications, the xDrive40 and xDrive50.
The lesser variant comes with a total
output of 327 PS, takes over 6 seconds to sprint from 0 to
100 km/h and can travel for 400+ km on a single charge.
The iX xDrive50 has a combined 503 PS, dropping the
acceleration time to under 5 seconds and increasing the range to more than 600
km on the WLTP test cycle.
A rival to the likes of the Mercedes-Benz
EQC and Audi E-Tron, the iX is the brand’s tech flagship model, boasting the
new generation iDrive that combines the infotainment system and digital
instrument dials into a wide screen. Besides the usual offerings from Google
and Apple, it will feature apps that are relevant to the Chinese market, such
as the ones from Tencent that are extremely popular in the People’s Republic.
The iDrive will also integrate the digital communication service WeChat,
supporting phone calls, voice messaging and sharing of location data.
The iX will arrive in the United States in
early 2022, in the xDrive50 variant, with an estimated MSRP of around US$ 85,000.
Europeans will also get the xDrive40 model when it goes on sale before the end
of 2021, and pricing will kick off from € 77,300 (US$ 92,831) in Germany.
