BMW iX3 50 xDrive M Sport - long-term review

This month the iX3 has taken us to Cornwall to stay with friends who've just bought the holiday cottage they've rented for the past half-dozen summers. To Dorset, for a combined fossil-hunting and glamping getaway that was our daughter's birthday present. And then to Chester, to celebrate an uncle-in-law’s birthday at the horse races.

Those three trips have taught me that: three families of four can't co-exist in a four bedroom house, or with two parking spaces; that camping, glamping or even "glamorous camping" (as our 5yo insists on calling it) is not for me, not now, not ever; and that no matter the rules, my wife’s Yorkshire-born-and-bred family will smuggle booze into Chester Racecourse.

However, among all the hassle of two showers between 12, sleeping in a yurt with a plastic skylight that woke us by 5am and then super-heated us by day, and explaining to our Generation Alpha children why their grandad kept appearing after each race with more of something called “cash”, what I never had to think about was charging the iX3.

Which is the opposite of life with most EVs. Because with an EV you’re usually thinking (smugly) about charging it at home during off-peak tariff hours; thinking (smugly) about how it’s trickle charging during the day instead of your home solar giving back to the grid; or thinking fretting about public charging, and whether there will a) be a space, b) whether the charger will work, c) how quick it will be, and d) how expensive it will be.

And once you’ve done all that thinking, there’s really no other thinking time left in the day to have anything interesting to say to anyone you meet. 

But in the iX3 we made it the 190-mile trip from home to Cornwall with 55 per cent energy remaining, and had plenty left for a few days of pottering about. And when we called it and left a day early (because 12 people…) we stopped at the Eden Project and spontaneously plugged in there – for both a top-up and a prime parking space that eschewed the park and ride. The only hiccup was opening the iX3's frunk to find the cable was missing.

Luckily it was under the boot floor, and after moving parking spaces to a charger that worked, we spent a day in a big greenhouse during a heatwave, and then had more than enough energy to take us home in air-conditioned comfort. Side note: the iX3’s air con is instant and very chilling. If only 28kWh didn’t cost £21!

For the trip to Dorset, it didn’t even cross my mind to look for a charger, and we didn’t plug in again until we were home. For the 260-mile journey to Chester, such is the real-world 400-mile-plus range that we arrived with 40 per cent to spare, plugged it in for a 11kW boost when out one day at an attraction for the kids, and got it up to full with a (gratis) 7kW charge one night at a hotel before the return leg.

All of which means, this fascinating charging chat (imagine if these pages were also filled with stories of our petrol and diesel adventures at the pumps each month) is done and dusted for the duration on the iX3’s time with us. Such is the actual, useable range that we needn’t treat the iX3 as an EV anymore, but merely as a car. Which is a win for BMW.

It also therefore means the ends of a succession of front- and rear-three-quarter static shots of the iX3 plugged into a charger, which the Art Desk will be over the moon about. And it means I can talk about something else next month. I think I’ll be griping about the stupid pop-out door handles that keep pinching my fingers…