If someone has already invented time travel we wouldn’t necessarily know it for some time or, possibly, ever know. The world as we see it could be the world that’s already been irrevocably tweaked. This is the paradox of time time travel and of reviewing the BMW i4 M50, which is BMW’s idea for a performance-oriented electric car. Is it the car that started a revolution or is it just another car? A time machine would be extremely helpful here.
It’s at this point in a BMW review I need to prove to you I’ve driven a lot famously wonderful, Biermann-blessed cars. Yes, I have experienced the joy of a track-prepped E30 M3 (not great in Brooklyn). I have eaten up hundreds of miles in a perfectly sorted E46 M3 coupe (I still think about it). I’ve even driven Alex Roy’s legendary E39 M5 (it broke, which was probably Alex’s fault).
Does this car fit into the pantheon of those great BMWs? Absolutely not. But that pantheon ain’t getting bigger anytime soon. BMW’s gonna need a new one and the i4 M50 isn’t a bad place to start.
What Is The BMW i4 M50?
The BMW i40 M50 is the more performance-oriented version of BMW’s i4, which is the electrified twin of the BMW 4-Series Gran Coupe. In its basic eDrive40 variation the i4 has an electric motor powering the rear wheels. In i4 M50 trim the BMW adds a motor to the front, making it AWD.
That motor in the nose of the i4 M50 can produce up to 255 horsepower while the one over the rear axle maxes out at 308 horsepower. Does that mean this has 563 horsepower? Sort of. In SPORT the car enables ‘Sport Boost” and you’re given full access to all that horsepower, and 586 lb-ft of torque, for “over ten seconds.” Don’t let that freak you out because no gas motor is giving you 100% of power 100% of the time, either.
The necessary energy for these motors is stored in an 81.5 kWh (net) battery pack that can charge at up to 200 kW on a DC fast charger, which is slower than the Lucid Air or Panamera (both closer to 300 kW) but still enough to charge the car to 80% in about half an hour from 15% in my own experience.
Range varies a lot across trim levels. The regular i4 eDrive 40 has an EPA estimated range of 301 miles, an i4 M50 with 18-inch wheels gets 282 miles, the M50 with 19-inch wheels gets 270 miles, and the sportiest version with the 20-inch wheels gets penalized enough to hit only 227 miles.
This is technically not an “M” car in the same way an M3 is, but BMW clearly threw everything at it to make it handle and perform like one when compared to the stock i4. For one, BMW has gone and added more bracing under the hood and behind the rear axle to increase rigidity (with the integrated battery as a structural element it’s already unlikely to give into flex). They’ve also added more negative camber to the front axle, which means the two front tires should keep more of their contact patches is on the road under hard cornering. Both the i4 and the i4 M50 have rear air springs, but the i4 M50 adds BMW’s adaptive M suspension with adaptive dampers. Given the low center of gravity (37 mm lower than a 3-series) and fairly ideal 48/52 weight distribution it’s built to go around corners.
Why Does The i4 M50 Exist?
My friend Sam Smith is a genius car writer, vintage car racer, and BMW fan. He’s worked on more vintage BMWs than you’ll ever see. We made a TV show together and nothing made me happier than giving him a brand new BMW M-badged crossover so I could watch him face the harsh reality that those cars are outrageously fast and, lacking any context of what BMWs used to feel like, extremely good. He hated it. He hated it so much. And it delighted me.
I have driven classic BMWs and I think I understand their values but I’m not burdened by them like he is. He’s not wrong, of course. The BMW of yore, emotionally and ideologically, probably hit its zenith with Clive Owen manhandling Madonna in the back of an E39 M5.
Since then the idea of the “Ultimate Driving Machine” has mostly devolved into a slogan as the company, instead, builds a bunch of cars that are largely pretty great but are not entirely designed to make an increasingly smaller group of people happy. That’s a cynical view, but it’s probably the truth. Lacking a time machine you’re just gonna have to take my word for it.
Instead, BMW is making cars for people who buy a lot of cars. Some of those people want electric cars. Some of those people want and like fast electric cars that seem like what they imagine an E36 M3 handles like even if they’ve never driven or never will drive an E36 M3.
This is why the i4 M50 exists.
Which One Did I Drive And How Much Does It Cost?
I drove a 2022 BMW i4M50 w/ 20-inch wheels that starts at $65,900 before a $995 destination charge. The options were the Drivers Assistance Pro Package ($1,700), Parking Assistance Package ($700), Premium Package ($950), High Performance Package ($2,500), Carbon Fiber Trim ($300), Icon Adaptive LED w/Laserlight ($1,000), Wireless Charging ($200), Personal eSIM 5G ($300), BMW Curved Display w/ HUD ($1,000), Harmon Kardon Surround Sound ($875), M Carbon Exterior Package ($2,800), and Frozen Portimaou Blue paint ($3,600). The total MSRP is $82,820.
How does it look?
This is one of the better looking modern BMWs, which is grading on a curve a little. The giant nostrils blend nicely into the rest of the car here and the paint, while being unnecessarily expensive, does look fantastic. People kept stopping me to compliment the car’s skin, as if I’d gotten out a spray gun and did the work myself. I think the carbon package doesn’t add much to the car and I’d skip it, but the overall package works.
Calling this a Gran Coupe is one of those things BMW does that infuriates people even though you’ve got to differentiate it from the 3-series somehow in order to justify why this exists and, besides, the elongated coupe [Editor’s Note: It’s not a coupe –JT] look really works here. I even like the little Gurney Flap on the rear.
Inside, the perforated non-leather SensaTec seats are firm and easy to clean (I put two six-year olds back there, so cleaning happened). The interior color on this car is called “cognac” and the last time I had cognac was on an Air France flight back home this summer from Le Mans and I don’t remember it being so orange, but it’s attractive and nicely contrasts with the exterior.
I’m a big fan of BMWs interiors. BMW makes some of the best interiors in the world and it extends to this car as well. All the controls are nicely at hand and the placement of the curved display is ideal for a driver.
As with all iDrive variations there has to be one thing that’s extremely annoying and for this generation it’s the climate controls, which are integrated into the screen and should just be a real knob. I only wanted to punch the screen twice, so that’s an improvement.
How Is It To Drive When You Drive Like A Normal Person?
In day-to-day driving, in COMFORT or ECO-PRO mode, it’s easy to forget you’re driving an electric car. Brake regeneration feels extremely light. Like most modern BMWs the car is well-dampened and goes over bumps predictably. Steering errs towards heavy and not in a way that seems to provide any benefit, but it’s surefooted around the kind of turns you might find in a normal city.
If you nudge the shifter to the big B you get the one-pedal driving mode, which is where the regeneration can be maximized and you can theoretically drive it without using the brake. Unlike most electric cars, the single pedal driving in the BMW is way too soft and I found myself braking a lot more than I’m used to. The handoff between regenerative braking and I-don’t-want-to-hit-that-Prius braking was smoother than most, so personal preference will tell you if it’s better or worse this way.
How Is It To Drive Like An Andretti?
It’s easy to make fun of the idea of an electric car that makes engine-like noises for the driver. It sounds ridiculous. Trust me, it is not ridiculous. One of the most dangerous aspects of driving an electric car fast is that it’s hard to tell how fast you’re actually going in the moment. I suspect this is one reason why Richard Hammond crashed the Rimac Concept.ONE and I’ve certainly surprised myself driving an EV fast.
So the BMW i4 M50, in SPORT MODE, pumps this silly futuristic noise into the cabin while driving. Hans Zimmer did the sound and it’s sort of like if Max Headroom was making sweaty, pixelated love to the BMW M54 inline-six. It helps. It’s also one of the greatest clues that you’re driving a BMW.
Otherwise, there’s nothing particularly special about the i4 M50 at speed other than its instantaneous ass-punch of torque. When driving it up and down a moderately twisty mountain road I had to keep reminding myself that I’d be better off pointing the tires forward before applying any power. I have no idea where the edge of this car is because finding it would risk putting it into a tree.
Allegedly, the wider/bigger tires that zap range provide more grip and this feels like a thing that exists solely for automotive journalists to discover on track tests and not something a real human would want or need. In the fastest trim the M50 hits 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, which is not earth-shattering, but is faster than a base M3/M4.
To be honest, I have not fully adjusted to what driving an EV fast is like, even after experience with a bunch of quick EVs, including on a race track. It’s different. It’s impressive. I don’t think it’s great yet, but it could be great. We’re at a point in time where the car’s comfort zone is way beyond my comfort zone and all that extra rigidity and extra tire exists to tempt me beyond my own personal limits.
This is why, given a time machine, I’d love to know if this car has a legacy. When more M-badged things are electric, is this the car that future enthusiasts are pointing to as a vehicle that BMW got right?
In most quantifiable ways the i4 M50 is probably faster than a similarly equipped M3 (at least for a couple of laps). That doesn’t make it a better M3 unless you think the fastest M3 is the best M3, which is not an unfair thing to believe.
How Was It To Live With For A Week?
I could live with this car for longer than a week. It charges quickly enough, I got close to 2.9 miles-per-kWh on one long drive (enough to be a little better than than the estimated 221 miles of range) and not much worse around town, and there’s ample room in the trunk for everything I’d need. A Tesla Model 3 is a better electric car, but a BMW i4 M50 is a better car.
Would You Buy This Car New?
In this trim? Absolutely not. Save yourself the $20k and get the basest base model M50 anyone will build you, which puts it pretty close to the Model 3 Performance in terms of price. A less-optioned one of these is intriguing and I’d probably have it over the Model 3 and, honestly, it’s so much cheaper than a Taycan I’d maybe buy this over that, too.
Would You Buy This Car Used In 10 Years?
How much life is left on the battery, hypothetically?
What Are Some Things That Annoyed You About This Car?
Gonna be honest, in addition to some lingering iDrive-itis I’m not a huge fan of how recessed the rear seat buckle is. I nearly destroyed my back trying to get the belt around my daughter’s booster seat. It’s a small thing for most but it’s a huge thing if you have to keep doing it. The wireless charger is fairly sensitive and is good for people who wish their phone was about 90% hotter and about 10% more charged.
What Are Some Things You Loved About This Car?
I find Heads Up Displays to be mostly distracting and useless, but here it’s nicely designed and works well enough that I think it’s almost worth the money. The paint, this silly expensive paint job, is annoyingly spectacular. My daughter kept saying “Kids are going to love this car.”
The interior also has customizable lights and, for many cars, this is a joke. It barely works. BMW not only gives you a nice selection of colors but they’re also visible inside the car. The i4 M50 has a lot of little details like this that are gently pleasing.
If This Car Were A Food, What Would The Food Be?
German schnitzel which is wienerschnitzel made with pork instead of veal. Yeah, it’s pork and not veal. It’s different! Maybe it’s better, though? It’s pounded meat. What else do you want?
What’s A Cheaper Car That Does Most Of The Same Stuff?
A Polestar 2 with the performance pack ($57,400) is somewhat similar, as is a Tesla Model 3 ($56,390).
What’s A More Expensive Option?
A Porsche Taycan GTS is $134,100 and a super choice.
Who Should Buy This?
A person who needs a good commuter electric car that can handle backroads but wants something that isn’t a boring old Tesla or a sexy fridge like the Kia EV6.
Overall
If this is the BMW performance car that represents the future of BMW electric cars and not, say, the BMW XM, then I think that’s a future I can live with.
Excellent observations. Like you, I don’t hate it and would happily drive it as a mainstay vehicle. That said, I wouldn’t buy it. It is difficult to justify the cost given all the EV and BMW baggage at this time.
Dunno if the BMW:s purpose with super ugly flagships (like 7-series, X7 and iX) is to make these just regular ugly bread-and-butter models look tolerable. At least to me it worked, current 3-series is just ugly not epicly so.
However BMW: How about making pretty cars again? You guys made the 507 and E39, so I think you have it in you to make at least tolerable looking cars, if the 507 was just a fluke. Also worth noting, that you could get design help from studios that have specialized in sexy designs.
#bringsexyback
I used to think the hideous BMWs were like pigs, now I think it’s a huge ass print.
Nobody tell Thomas how much this one weighs
This is the least offensive grill I’ve seen on a BMW recently. I mean, it didn’t make me throw up in my mouth a little: I almost kinda like it.
Um…
What’s the definition of Stockholm Syndrome again?
I think I may have seen THIS press car on MA Rte. 2 East two weekends ago. You didn’t happen to race an orange M2 in western MA while you were reviewing this, did you? I mean.. of course not!
I had it THREE weekends ago, so wasn’t me. But I’m pretty sure I know who had it after me…
Why is there a separate AC and DC port cover? Oh wait, BMW.
That’s actually common for most new EVs. If you’re plugging into the wall at home or a typical charger you use the AC port. If you’re at a fast charger you’re using a combo of both.
Great review! I enjoyed it!
Thanks for this review Matt, very insightful. It seems as though modern electric performance cars, while thrilling in a straight line, still can’t get the engagement factor down. I know that modern BMW gets criticized a lot in enthusiast circles for going too comfy, too bloated, etc, and for valid reasons.
They do still make some nice driver’s cars though, and I stand by my take that the current 330i is amazing as far as entry level luxury sedans go. But it seems like that hope I’ve been holding out that EVs would start catching up when it comes to backroad fun still isn’t bearing much fruit…at least not in the price ranges I could dream of affording.
Oh well, I’m excited to watch the reviews of the Ioniq 6 keep rolling in. On paper it looks like a serious contender and I think the “everyman’s Taycan” styling is slick. Maybe Hyundai managed to bake in a little more driving character, as Biermann has said it’s been a huge focus for them. Or maybe not, and maybe my B58 goal for my next daily will remain intact.
I really want to like EVs and am conscious of my carbon footprint…but there still isn’t anything I could afford that seems as though it’ll satisfy my backroad urges. Shame the Taycan is more or less a six figure plus car, because the consensus seems to be that it’s one of the best driving EVs.
Sorry, $200 for a wireless charging pad? The same pad that comes with most economy cars these days? That’s ridiculous, but I suppose it’s par for BMW accessories.
Thank you for writing an article and not spending pages of text to bash unusual, subjective features.
“This is one of the better looking modern BMWs, which is grading on a curve a little.”
That’s pretty sad to read, because this thing absolutely sucks.
Are you saying it’s electric… and can boogie-woogie-woogie?
I am not a fan of the “frozen” frosted paint.
I am really not a fan of the angry birds pig nostril/mole rat face.
Looking at these terrible modern grilles is even more annoying when they don’t even really serve a purpose with EVs. Designers really think we like this design language so much that they need to keep around for the ~aesthetic~…
I’m sick of this focus on “aesthetic” that is little more than a company trying to emphasize its brand in the vehicle’s design language. We should have been getting double today’s fuel efficiency 40+ years ago by streamlining the shit out of cars so much that they have less than half the drag that is typical of today’s automobiles. This would also yield massive performance benefits, especially at higher speeds. Imagine a car that only needed 100 horsepower to hold 160 mph on flat ground, but then had 1,000+ horsepower crammed in it.
Screw “aesthetics”. Modern “aesthetics” don’t even look good, IMO. They look like they’re trying to hard to look tough, when in reality it’s a thin layer of plastic cladding on a car designed to crumple up when it hits something much smaller than it. I want more speed, more reliability, less features, less crap to break, less operating cost, dammit! Imagine sharing the same design for decades at a time, and thus sharing all the parts and such, so that an old car someone buys in college could be passed down to their grandkids and still serve as a reliable daily driver.
If I could only give you a star for every paragraph.
This corporate design is such nonsense where they shoehorn the same look on a disparate range of vehicles under the excuse of brand recognition when all the legendary cars that made the names these legacy automakers use to sell their bastardized, boring abominations had individual model identities that sometimes didn’t even carry over into the subsequent generation, yet nobody had a difficult time knowing who made it. If they couldn’t ID it, they obviously were interested, so they’d probably go out of their way to find out what it was, then with likely pleasant surprise, think something like: I didn’t know Xyz Motors made something this cool.
BMW is especially egregious as their base grille design is so readily adaptable to almost anything, so there’s no excuse for this ugliness even with the BS marketing parasite directives about brand identity.
I designed my own cars like open-wheeled fighter planes with rear-sliding canopies (convertible hardtop!) to increase rigidity and safety without increasing weight by losing doors nor having to make up for them in the crash structure. They’re narrow-bodied and streamlined with under-strained drivetrains and many components engineered for a heavier vehicle. It was also designed with the idea of future-proofing it by allowing an electric conversion, but not heavily relying on finicky throwaway infotainment units or nannies. The idea was fast, efficient, and cheap, built to be easily repairable and upgradeable, though still a little bit more ordinary than it sounds like what you’re building (which sounds awesome).
Corporate design is what you get when everything is designed by committee. There’s no real vision, purpose, or philosophy behind the car, just extracting money from people. This is the vast majority of modern cars, and why they suck.
With today’s material sciences, even in spite of the “safety” standards that exist today, cars of the present should be significantly lighter than the steel-bodied land yachts of half a century ago, but they are not.
They are deliberately complex, feature-laden things whose purpose is to occupy landfills at corporate-specified intervals so that a car operator has to spend yet more money replacing it with another one designed to eventually do the same. It’s stupid and wasteful, and there will be consequences to bare as a result in the future, because we don’t live on a planet of unlimited natural resources.
You’ve designed your own cars too? Between you and Toecutter, I want to see a new company making little three wheelers with a focus on fun.
Call it Autopian Roadable Streamlined Electrics! …or, on second thought, don’t…
I would like to use a time machine to go back in time and punch the guy that designed that grill in the balls. Or I suppose I could just do that tomorrow, no time travel required.
It looks like blue plastidip or a bad matte wrap. Looks cheap and tacky.
They drew buck teeth on a Ford Fusion and called it a day. Seriously, do an image search and you won’t be able to unsee it.
I was thinking Subaru meets Bugs Bunny.
In the fastest trim the M50 hits 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, which is not earth-shattering
We are so spoiled for performance in this era.
Peak car!
Depending upon the future that recent geopolitical events will lead to, this current era could indeed be peak car. It’s possible new cars could be completely unobtanium in the near future, and there may not be fuel to run existing ones, or even electricity available to charge EVs if we get a grid-down scenario. Nevermind getting things like tires and parts for used cars.
Interesting times.
$82,000 for 221 miles of range?
Allegedly, EVs are improving; in the face of this offering, it’s hard to make that case with a straight face.
Yes, it’s a quirk of EVs that, in some cases, you can get longer ranges with cheaper models. In this case, I can’t really justify buying the extremest version when the cheapest i4 M50 gets a very competitive 270 miles!
Right here in this very same article there is mention of versions that cost less and get 270 or 282.
You could spend more and get less combined with a worse interior in an F-150 Lightning. And that’s at MSRP.
Gah. Why did this end up a reply to another comment? I give up.
That’s because you forgot to initiate the Dorkulator.
I understand that that’s crap range but since when did we care about the $:efficiency ratio. Almost 3 mi/kWh is pretty good anyways, and it has an actual interior. Plus overall range of the ones without the blingy wheels is not too far off of an M3. Not bad for holding the energy equivalent of like 2.5 gallons of gas.
Miles/kWh is an irrelevant stat to me for as long as recharging is both lengthy and unreliable, as shown in the recent road trip article.
Remember also that the fast charging only gets you to 80% battery, so knock another 20% off the range numbers, plus any cold weather reductions, and pretty soon you have a city car only. That doesn’t seem like a good use of $80,000+ to me, but I can’t wait to be told again by everyone how awesome the EV future is going to be.
Like the Lexus Predator/spindle grill, the BMW bucktooth beaver grill is not going to age well. I can’t help but see a Honda Accord that’s been whacked by the ugly stick when I look at this car.
how does this article not mention the 5k+ lb curb weight? that’s obscene
That’s a fair point. It’s less than an EQE or Taycan but more than a Model 3 or Polestar 2. It’s a very German approach to an electric car, that gives you all the things you expect on your non-EV car that ends up adding a lot of weight. Tesla and Polestar, being new, are less burdened by this. The hope is that as battery tech improves the weight comes down (reverse the trend of most new cars), but we’ll see.
I would be interested to see what BMW has engineered on these to fail as soon as the CPO warranty on lease returns ends, but until they stop making pig-snouted shitboxes I really cant work up the effort required to care.