BMW iX Overpriced in the UK?

[MrAliG]

With frustration over the wait for a new Model X and now the possibility of no 7 seater being available in the Plaid, there is a cancelled order BMW iX going very cheap at the moment.

So I went along to the local BMW dealer to have a look.

The interior design is very nice to look at but to me the base materials feel cheaper than the Model X. The fake leather is much rougher and harder, as are the plastics. There is no microfibre on the roof. Without the glass roof it feels very dark inside. I could not get my feet under the front row seats from the back row.

Don't get me wrong, it is nice enough inside, but just not 100k nice. It bears no comparison to the new Range Rover.

The boot is bizarrely small for the size of vehicle and clearly there is no 7 seat option.

Many things that are standard in the Y or X need the purchase of expensive packs. Heated rear seats mean purchasing the £4200 comfort plus pack.

All the reviews do say it is a lovely drive which I didn't test.

I think the real problem is the car is mispriced.

Considering the space available and the performance it should be priced more in line with an E-Tron or EQC. In fact it doesn't seem to offer much more than the Model Y.

Yet it is considerably more expensive than the EQC and Model Y.

The main reason seems to be the £24k premium for the 50 over the 40. It has a very large battery and is faster, but the premium is way too much.

Indeed to get the spec the same as a Model X would require adding multiple packs bringing the price to £109,000. Way more than a Model X LR.

Also the new iX M60 is needed to perform similarly to the LR Model X and this is another £14,000

I would note that the iX 50 is $83,200 vs the Model X LR $98,940 in the USA whereas in the UK the prices are £93,905 to £102,980 (before the price disappeared). A smaller difference.

The BMW iX is made in Europe so not subject to the 10% tariff that the Model X is.

Generally the GBP price of Teslas is modestly more than the US price - USD *1.2 VAT / 1.35 exchange rate *1.1 tariff plus around 5% EU/RHD premium.

The Mercedes EQS is slightly cheaper in GBP than USD, built in the EU so no tariffs. Basically *1.2/1.35 plus 5%

The Taycan is very good value in the UK, *1.2/1.35 - 10%. No wonder they sell so well.

If you take the US price of the iX50 * 1.2 / 1.35 and add maybe 5% for UK/RHD premium you get £78,000. Even if BMW said they could add 10% as the competition has a tariff being made in the USA you would get £85,000. The pricing is way out of line.

I also checked. The iX is E100,000 in Germany which is equivalent to £83,000. If you compare the X5 45e German and UK prices are almost the same.

Everything points to the UK price being around £10,000 higher than it should be. They won't sell many at that price. There are cars available for immediate delivery at list price on the BMW website. You can't say that about many TVs at the moment.

 

[Peter 224]

I've been looking at the BMW i4-M50.. about £15k more than an equivalent M3P.
And, or course, the BMW has to rely on public charging, not Superchargers!!

 

[Lord Farquad]

Is this BMW trying to position itself “above” Tesla? The new i models look over priced when you compare them to Tesla’s. Looking at the price of the i4 goodness knows how much the i5 will be when it arrives.

 

[HaggisMan]

I made a similar comment elsewhere but I’m not sure what bmw have been up to on the EV front. Made a decent start with the i3 and i8 then just fell asleep until we got this monstrosity.
There was also a looooong thread elsewhere on the motoring internets with almost unrelenting hate for the look of the xM concept too. Have bmw lost their way?!

 

[Lord Farquad]

I made a similar comment elsewhere but I’m not sure what bmw have been up to on the EV front. Made a decent start with the i3 and i8 then just fell asleep until we got this monstrosity.
There was also a looooong thread elsewhere on the motoring internets with almost unrelenting hate for the look of the xM concept too. Have bmw lost their way?!
View attachment 756332

The Bangle years looked like a disaster but they’ve aged amazingly well. I think BMW knows what it’s doing, but they do look overpriced. I haven’t yet seen a legacy maker produce anything as efficient as Tesla, and efficiency will soon be the name of the game. The i3 and i8 were way ahead of the game, but the current range is very conservative.

 

[Cilonen]

BMWs list price for vehicles is there purely for the muppets who are prepared to pay them, and those who can't wait a few months from launch for a particular model.
Otherwise, discounts of 15% are common, with 20-30% being regularly possible (if taking a built, stock, vehicle).

My 5 series touring listed (with lots of options, resulting in it being built to order) at £54k - I paid £43k, part financed (21% discount). Had I wanted a "stock" vehicle listed for £42k, I'd have paid £29.8k (29% discount).

Wait 6-12 months from a new model launch and you can play BMW dealers off against each other easily....

 

[MrAliG]

That’s definitely true of ICE vehicles. (Although current discounts are much smaller than normal due to shortages, more like 5-10%)

When you compare the price of an ICE Vehicle to a Tesla you should take into account discounts and not the list price.

But there are no discounts on the iX at least for outright purchases. The discount I am seeing on the cancelled order is crazy. Around 30% hence my interest.

I have a spreadsheet I run to cost my car options considering depreciation, discounts etc. Taycans are reasonable to run due to the low depreciation. Shame they are just too small for me. Teslas also although depreciation may eventually pick up with more volume. Other cars such as ID3, Ioniq 5 and EV6 should also look good. We ordered my parents an ID3 when we could still get a discount and it will be stupidly cheap to run.

My suspicion is that considering the looks and high list price the iX will have much higher depreciation and be very expensive to run. I would say that the higher end E-Trons also come into this overpriced category, especially as they are due to get a big range upgrade soon.

BMW, Audi and Mercedes have a bit of a problem due to historically charging a massive premium for faster models. The EQS AMG for example is ridiculously priced for similar power to a Model S LR. Companies like Hyundai who had a pretty poor engine range and few premium performance models are finding the move to EVs much easier.

 

[MrAliG]

I've been looking at the BMW i4-M50.. about £15k more than an equivalent M3P.

I actually thought the i4 wasn't too bad. Looks about 7-8k more than the same spec of Model 3 and it may feel like a more expensive car. But for the iX 50, performance and space are closer to a Model Y LR, which is almost 40k cheaper, than a Model X LR. I would think that the BMW feels a more expensive car than a Y but not 40k more. At least the i4 is a lot cheaper than the M3/M4. These also seem overpriced to me as they aren't much cheaper than a base 911.

 

[Cilonen]

BMW iX3 facelift (launched Nov 2021 IIRC) is already showing 3% discounts, and I expect these to rise steadily by summer.
iX will show discounts within same timeframe, rising toward end of the year
i4 probably won't see decent (>10%) discounts until next year given it doesn't launch until Spring, and will be a decent seller in all likelihood.

 

[pgkevet]

Since most authors here are likely to own a Tesla and human nature is such that folk don't like to admit they bought the wrong thing, then generally rivals will be slated. Assuming charging infrastructure gets resolved and assuming other marques can be discounted against list price then the rivals begin to look attractive: better driver ergonomics, so you need less time with eyes off the road, displays in front of driver and/or HUD's, better in car storage, comfort and choices over colour...
I used a supercharger today and was lucky to get the last slot for my S - the rest were filled up with common as muck model 3’s, all default colour and all pairs having to share 125KW max rate.
"Little boxes, little boxes,
and they're all made out of ticky-tacky,
little boxes, little boxes
and they all look much the same..."

And if electricity prices shoot up and night rate benefits drop away....

 

[UrbanSplash]

I actually think the model Y in the UK is great value. Compared to the competition. The YP has absolute performance, good range, all the ‘options’ you would need, even at £65k looks good. Throw in supercharger convenience and low depreciation, with a side of desirability, and it’s an outstanding proposition. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Y list prices go up

 

[HaggisMan]

That’s what we realised. Nothing that quite ticks all our boxes at that price point. The more expensive/prestigious EQC is lacking in the range department. Cheaper EV6 is an interesting proposition but something didn’t gel on the test drive.

 

[Teddy69]

BMW price will be dictated by supply/demand.

Few years back the X3M/X4M came out and weren't selling well at all, so they started giving them away for £550/month 4 year deals, this on a car with £85k list.

The i4 I think seems quite popular, will be hard to get one for a while, not so sure in the iX

General rule of thumb, never buy a BMW when it launches at list, you'll lose easy 10% on top of depreciation being an early adopter.

 

[Js1977]

I've been looking at the BMW i4-M50.. about £15k more than an equivalent M3P.
And, or course, the BMW has to rely on public charging, not Superchargers!!

Not impressed with the looks for starters but each to their own and all that... Having said that, I think they did a good job of the i3 back in the day bar the suicide doors, however the drive on those has a tesla vibe to it, albeit a bit to eager in comfort mode to the point that driving in echo is th sweet spot which the I4-M50 seems not to be the case and feels more like an ice car (apparently)

 

[browellm]

I know it's all subjective, but it's an absolute munter.

 

[Casss]

It seems symptomatic of the fact that BMW are just all over the place right now apart from the M cars which are mostly appreciating in value (over and above the covid weirdness going on).

Their BEV / Hybrid line up is bizarre, their pricing doesn’t make sense, they haven’t been feeding their design team properly and as you’ve pointed out - they’ve lost their minds with the interior packaging especially when it comes to boot space.

And I say all this as someone who owned multiple bimmers in a row because they used to get all of this spot on. I was a die hard fanboy until recently, which is sad. The ix3 seems an ok package but painfully slow, a bit dull and with all the awful “Ev is blue bcuz electric is blue!” trinketry applied (which just reminds me of Dwight from the office shouting “parkour!” as he falls off a dust bin…)

I test drove a 330e touring and the boot was mind boggling. Big lumpy loading area, interior plastics with seemingly nothing inside them jutting out making the boot aperture tiny… it defeated the purpose of buying a touring.

I sat in the regular i4 and the i4 M50 as they invited me for a “tour” at GoodWood FOS last year, and the interiors were lovely. The I-drive system has (until Tesla came along) been the best in the industry bar none for 10+ years, so to get in and it feel old school was sad for me… it was like a 60 year old dressed in a track suit with flashy blue stripes that had “athletic” “fit!” “Workout!” plastered all over it. (Weird analogy but I’m tired…)

The i4 m50 is over priced and outclassed by the model 3. It’s painfully obvious that they’ve taken the bones of their standard modular chassis and crammed a BEV into their (standard) saloon recipe, which doesn’t work at the price. Then there’s the grille. I personally don’t hate them as vehemently as some, but think they’re a misstep. I just couldn’t own one because the jokes and jibes would be ceaseless.

The i3 will be iconic IMO. I would love to own one, but can’t justify another vehicle and it’s not big enough. The i3s is a hoot apparently too.

 

[tonyj01]

I have been looking at possibles to replace my ageing MS.

This weekend, the iX has piqued my interest. Coincidence.

I think most of the posts in this thread are correct. BMW have gone wrong with their styling with the beaver tooth look. However Bangle cars have aged well, so perhaps what looks so bad now, will look good in 10 years time. Personally, we have had quite a BMWs over the years, including an i3 - my wife went from 10 years of Minis to the I3 which was great to drive and although a small boot, the front seats are roomy. iX large car - yet small boot space with a high lip [like the i3], those funny secondary rear lights, and the bolted bonnet.

I also concur re long term BMW pricing and how lease rates drop - there is a stage where they seem to price leases to a) keep the factories going, and b) to keep those cars visible on the road - otherwise why allow the leases to be so cheap - they become the cheapest form of ownership, much less than the depreciation of actual ownership.

Perhaps this will happen with lease rates for the iX - will BMW decide they need to get this car visible on the roads at £500 a month??

I still have my conundrum - spend money on the MS, soldier on for two more years, or chop it in now? The world may be different by the time the RHD MS arrives on these shores . .


Tony

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Comparing to US prices you have to take into account US prices include no taxes, it’s just not worth doing.

Whether it’s over price or not against other cars.. it’s a step up over the etron, EQC etc, and the reviews all suggest it’s an amazingly refined place to be. Other than the ‘one day we might have self driving’ promise from Tesla, the technology in the BMW seems ahead too. If you just want 0-60 times then the lighter Teslas will always win, sound insulation and fancy suspension setting do add weight.

I’m struggling with the exterior, but colour and wheel choices often make big differences, and I suspect the one offered with a big discount was spec’d badly. A blue MX on 20” wheels looks pretty naff to me from many angles, whereas a different configuration and it looks great. So no different.

I guess it’s just which mix of features do you value over which. Personally we’re still a year or two away from public charging making long distance travel easy, and I wouldn’t spend that kind of money on a runaround, but when the supercharger network is less of a differentiator, cars like the iX (and i4) will really be one attractive. People quote Tesla as being 5-10 years ahead on EV tech, we forget BMW is 80 years ahead wrt building cars, and in some places I think it shows.

 

[rincewind]

I sat in the regular i4 and the i4 M50 as they invited me for a “tour” at GoodWood FOS last year, and the interiors were lovely. The I-drive system has (until Tesla came along) been the best in the industry bar none for 10+ years, so to get in and it feel old school was sad for me… it was like a 60 year old dressed in a track suit with flashy blue stripes that had “athletic” “fit!” “Workout!” plastered all over it. (Weird analogy but I’m tired…)

The i4 m50 is over priced and outclassed by the model 3. It’s painfully obvious that they’ve taken the bones of their standard modular chassis and crammed a BEV into their (standard) saloon recipe, which doesn’t work at the price. Then there’s the grille. I personally don’t hate them as vehemently as some, but think they’re a misstep. I just couldn’t own one because the jokes and jibes would be ceaseless.

I've test driven one last weekend. Ride quality and niose leves are notably better than the Model 3 (my performance model) but the weight, size and especially the drivetrain are off par. Simply put, the Tesla drives better. Throttle response is much better, as is steering feel.

 

[MrAliG]

Comparing to US prices you have to take into account US prices include no taxes, it’s just not worth doing.

I did exactly that adding VAT and tariffs where necessary to get to UK prices. One of the issues is that the iX is being sold at more of a premium in the UK to its US price than other cars.

it’s a step up over the etron, EQC etc, and the reviews all suggest it’s an amazingly refined place to be.

They do indeed, I am sure it is a very nice car. But I always worry that reviews, where people are provided a car for free, are poor at taking into account the cost of a car. Indeed this goes for reviews of most things. It is almost certainlyy nicer to drive than an E-Tron and EQC and has better range.

I also think it actually looks fine and nicely modern in the flesh, much better in darker colours.

I went and looked at the Carwow review again, 2million views, so the most watch iX review. Mat Watson said in the review that his iX was "fully loaded" so would cost £95,000.

This is factually incorrect to a great degree.

The car he was driving was a iX 50 M Sport - List price 96,905.

It then had options of -

22 inch wheels - £1000
Better leather - £3250 (I thought the base leather felt quite cheap, it was one of my biggest disappointments)
Laserlights - £2000
Tech pack - £5000
Comfort plus pack - £4200
Sky lounge pack - £3500 (Glass roof)
Clean and bold - £1050 (Crystal switches)

So the car actually cost - £116905. He made it very clear that he believed £95,000 was the "fully loaded price". I have not seen him being so incorrect previously and wonder if he was misled by BMW.

A lot of these add ons I would not value. But to me it really needs the Sky lounge pack and comfort plus pack (basically forcing you to pay £4200 for rear heated seats). I would also want the softer leather.

Just looking at Autotrader on youtube, they said an excellent car but the price made it "niche"

I think the Autoexpress review shows what is going on they say "The range-topping xDrive50 version takes aim at the Tesla Model X Long Range, which costs from £98,980, compared with the BMW’s £91,905 asking price. Next year the iX will be given the M-division treatment, with a 600bhp M60 variant planned – ready to go head to head with the Tesla Model X Plaid. "

Well I have a few issues with this.

The iX 50 actually costs £93,905, so £2000 more than they say. and optioned to the same spec as a refresh Model X it would cost another £10-15000 above the list price.

Acceleration wise you would need an iX M60 to compete with a Model X LR, list price £111,905. This car is nowhere near as poweful as a Plaid. I am sure it probably drives better.

The real issue is that although the iX is almost as large as a Model X it has less space inside it than a Model Y. Indeed it has less space inside it that an X5, Model X is somewhere between X5 and X7 for space. This is quite an achievement, making an EV only platform that is less space efficient than your ICE platform. Reviewers seem to be placing the iX in the Model x size category not the E-Tron/EQC size category due to its exterior size but it offers the same space of these smaller cars. In what is supposed to be an SUV, space is quite an important factor.

Also most of my comments I would put squarely at the iX 50, the iX 40 is way better priced. Currently you are looking at £1200 a month and £15000 deposit to lease an iX 50 sky and tech pack. I normally buy outright, but lease prices are an easy way to compare costs and most people lease. You can lease two and a half Model Y LR for the same money or almost two EQCs. or two X5 45e. It is also roughly 50% more than the lease on a Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo 4s! It just seems plain wrong to me.