On the special day of Tuesday, February 22, 2022, when everyone was showing affection in the circle of friends, BMW quietly listed a pure electric sedan i4. It is also bmw's first pure electric car listed in China, and it should not be so low-key. But when I saw his starting price of 450,000, I thought BMW might be trying to avoid frontal attacks from netizens.
As when the BMW iX was listed, expensive – it was unanimous. Although everyone knows that you are BMW, has a strong brand influence, and naturally has a high premium ability, but when there are already excellent medium and large pure electric SUVs on the market, and their prices are not high, the price of BMW iX is naturally difficult to convince the public. Today, the i4 is facing the same problem, can its products support its starting price of 450,000?
The BMW i4 was launched with two models, the eDrive40 and the M50, the former priced at 449,900 and the latter at 539,900. Among them, the eDrive40 is a single-motor rear drive, with a maximum motor power of 250 kW, a peak torque of 420 Nm, a curb weight of about 2.1 tons, and an acceleration of 5.7 seconds per 100 kilometers. Equipped with a battery pack of about 84 kWh of electricity, it can support CLTC range of 625 kilometers.
The M50 version is a four-wheel drive with dual motors in front and rear, with a combined maximum power of 400 kW, a peak torque of 795 Nm, an overall weight of about 2.3 tons, and an acceleration of 3.9 seconds per 100 km/h. It also carries the same battery pack of about 84 kWh as the eDrive40, which can support CLTC range of 560 kilometers. From the parameter point of view, the performance of eDrive40 and M50 is good, the former performance is not so strong, but the battery life is very long. The latter focuses on performance, but the battery life is not bad.
But that's just a separate look, and if we look at the competitors and combine that with the price, you might have a new perspective. For example, Tesla Model 3 is also positioned as a mid-size pure electric sedan, but Tesla is not a luxury brand, but considering its extremely high popularity, it is still a direct competitor of BMW i4.
Model 3 is also similar to the i4, divided into a rear-drive version and a full-drive high-performance version, the former 100 km acceleration time of 6.1 seconds, the latter 100 km acceleration of 3.3 seconds, the former is slower than the i4 eDrive40, the latter is faster than the i4 M50, but the Model 3 full drive high-performance version is only about 340,000, which is far cheaper than the i4 eDrive40, and the acceleration is faster than the i4 M50. In addition to accelerating fast, the control performance of the Model 3 is also very prominent, and everyone who has driven it knows it. So if you buy a pure electric car mainly to pursue performance and handling, then is the Model 3 more cost-effective than the i4?
Admittedly, if it is more than design, more luxurious, the BMW i4 is naturally far better than the Model 3. The i4 based on the 4 series has a very dynamic shape, it stops next to the Model 3 and you know the difference between luxury brands and non-luxury brands, that style and high-end feeling is not given by the Model 3.
The interior is also crushing the Model 3, although the design preferences are different, but the BMW i4's excellent workmanship can make the Model 3 landless. But to be honest, in fact, in terms of design, BMW i4 is also better than Model 3, Model 3 design is only simple, but BMW i4 design is simple, and luxurious. So if you don't care so much about performance, the pursuit of brand and luxury enjoyment, then bmw i4 is indeed much stronger than the Model 3, provided that you are willing to spend more than 100,000 yuan to buy luxury, buy brand.
(NIO ET7)
However, to say luxury, Weilai's ET7 is not bad, and it has the same price as the BMW i4, but the level is one level higher. The BMW i4 is a luxury medium-sized pure electric sedan, while the NIO ET7 is a luxury medium to large pure electric sedan. If the pursuit of cost performance, Weilai's ET5 positioning is the same as the i4, the price is also cheaper than the i4, the same luxury.
(NIO ET5)
ET7 is a full range of four-wheel drive, 100 km/h acceleration of 3.8 seconds, the performance is slightly better than the i4 M50, more space, luxury is not bad. ET5 is a full range of four-wheel drive, 100 km/h acceleration of 4.3 seconds, the performance is much stronger than the i4 eDrive40, the same luxurious atmosphere. Maybe at the driving level, the ET7 or ET5 can't do the level of BMW, but how strong is the perception of this thing?
In other words, if you pursue control and performance, the Tesla Model 3 high-performance version of the performance is stronger than the BMW i4 M50, the control is not lost to BMW, the price is 200,000 cheaper than the i4 M50. If you pursue luxury, WEI ET5 or ET7 are luxury choices, and their performance is also not lost to i4, and at the same time, it is far superior to i4 in intelligence. So who will spend 450,000, or even 540,000 to buy i4, can only be the pursuit of the BMW brand of people, but such people, in the new energy era, I am afraid there are not so many.