Hello
Very big. Very powerful. Very expensive. Very good?
I’m swapping a Kia family car for a £120k premium German SUV with 611bhp, a 3.8sec 0-62mph time and a massive 105kWh battery giving a claimed range of 348 miles. Feels like quite the upgrade. But is it? The Kia EV6 I bid farewell to in this issue could crack 62mph in 5.2 seconds, and I only ever used all of its performance when I wanted to give passen-gers a laugh.
This new BMW iX M60 is an impressive technical achieve-ment and a very desirable thing. But when we’re already strug-gling to use the power main-stream EVs give us, and when there’s no difference in the character of the motor, its aural qualities or throttle response, can we really justify spending twice the price of an EV6 on one of these, or half as much again as the iX 40 recently run by CAR’s Phil McNamara?
Sorry if I sound like I’m neg-ging the M60 already. I’m not: this is a live debate in the board-rooms of the premium car makers. Software, design and desirability have to do more heavy lifting to justify heavy price tags, and a few months in the M60 will tell us if they can.
The M60 is a great-looking thing, to my eyes at least, and especially so in this subtle, sandy Oxide Grey. But does it have more kerb appeal than my old EV6 in its military matt grey? Not sure: early acquaint-ance says it doesn’t turn heads in quite the same way, though you might not want the atten-tion. The M60 certainly doesn’t shout about its M connections, with only its blue brake calipers, unique 22-inch wheels and black M60 badging to separate it from other iXs.
Inside it feels like the French-est German car yet, with a level of exuberance
