The efteling nostalgia of the i4 should tempt classic BMW driver to drive electric (and it works!)

Let Blik be honest. When we picked up the i4 for a week of testing, we expected a surrogate BMW, a car that looks fossil and is green. Because the i4 is friendly to the climate, but has the appearance of a ‘real’ old-fashioned BMW: optically noisy, fast, dominant; the dynamic boss of the left lane. Big grille, air scoops, fat exhausts. Only this is all fake, because the i4 is fully electric and therefore does not need huge cooling holes. After all, there is no combustion engine in it.

The i4 is like a street lamp you see in old towns, it looks like a 19th century gas lamp, including a golden crown, but inside is high-tech LED. The i4 is fashioned from the same ecomodernist Efteling nostalgia, intended to entice the classic BMW driver to trade in its roaring exhaust (which most BMWs have long since lost, they have a four-cylinder that sounds similar to that of a Renault Mégane) for a climate and environment-friendly electric power source.

Some BMW drivers don’t want to part with the sound of the engine crash and the suggestion of emotion that it causes. Look would be hypocritical if we pretended not to recognize this feeling. We also walk outside when a DC-3 flies over or when a classic Ford Mustang thunders past. Even for a modern AMG 63, we let the conversation stop for a while. So we understand the resistance despite all the rational advantages of electric.

So can a BMW without a combustion engine be a BMW? Sure enough, as the iX shows, another e-BMW. This electric SUV is a completely different car than the i4. The iX does not have a BMW appearance, if only because a car with the streamline of a pillar candle simply does not look so dynamic. With the iX, everything seems to be focused on comfort and convenience, not on Freude am Raggen. A right choice, Blik previously judged, because if you want an aggressively designed car, buy a Kia or a Peugeot. Some find the iX ugly, we don’t get tired of it. And then it also drives excellent.

Why has BMW built an e-car again that looks like its fossil ancestors? This design has drawbacks. An e-car that is fully conceived as an electric car has more interior space, because there is no large combustion engine that steals space from the cabin. Because the battery is incorporated in the floor, the luggage space can remain larger. And if all goes well, the software has also been developed for e-driving, so that the navigation leads you to a charging station, and not to a diesel pump from TotalEnergies (where you stand in front of long lines in France anyway – who was complaining again? about problems with electric charging on holiday?).

Because the i4 looks like a fuel car that has been converted to electric, we had doubts about its ability. Wrongly. Almost everything is good (yes it costs 60 grand. And it has excessive power, it remains a BMW). The steering behavior is sublime; you only have to think of an approaching bend or the nose will go exactly where you want it. Harman Kardon’s sound system (961 euros) is delightful. The range is more than adequate with 400 to 450 kilometers and the charging speed is great: at maximum power, it pumps up to 100 kilometers in five minutes.

Even more good: the navigation really understands you. She warns you if you are about to run a red light. The display has a car wash function, which shows you exactly how to drive into the rails without destroying your rims. When you press the P button (of the parking brake) after a ride, the doors are also unlocked, so you don’t have to search for the button when your loved one wants to get in. And despite its excess weight and power, the i4 only consumes 17 kilowatt hours per hundred kilometers – so the thing is also quite efficient (measured at an average of 15 degrees Celsius with average driving behaviour, we think it could be even more economical).

The list of good points is endless. Despite its patser appeal, its fake exhausts, its fake air scoops, its fake grille, Blik fell head over heels for this BMW. So a little bad can be quite good.