BMW’s cheapest EV in Singapore will be the made-in-Germany iX1, with twin motors and more than 400km of range on offer

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SINGAPORE — The BMW iX1 is on its way to Singapore and will arrive in early 2023. BMW has released pics and details of an all-new X1, alongside a pure electric version.

The company says it will start production of combustion X1 models in time for an October 2022 launch in Germany, and assemble the iX1 “immediately after” that. For the moment all versions of the X1 will roll off the same assembly line in BMW’s Regensburg plant.

The carmaker says it designs its vehicle platforms to accommodate combustion, plug-in and full electric versions of a given car.

READ MORE: This is the BMW iX1’s fiercest competition… and it’s already here

While the X1 itself is now in its third generation, the iX1 will be the first electric version of BMW’s compact sport utility vehicle (SUV). The car is officially still under development so performance figures are still provisional, but BMW reckons the iX1 xDrive30 will be able to cover 413 to 438km on a single charge.

The brand didn’t quote battery capacity, but working backwards from the projected range and BMW’s estimates of the car’s power consumption (17.3 to 18.4Kwh/100km) gives us 76kWh of useable capacity from the lithium-ion pack.

BMW says the iX1 has the latest charging tech and software that debuted on the flagship i7, which should give it the same maximum top-up speed of 195kW. At 120 kilowatts, the fastest charging speed now available in Singapore, you should be able to take an iX1’s battery pack from 0 to 80 percent in roughly 30 minutes

As per the electric vehicle (EV) norm, the batteries sit under the floor, while motors at each end of the iX1 deliver up to 313 horsepower (or 230 kilowatts) combined, though only in temporary boosts. The car has all-wheel drive and BMW reckons it should hit 100km/h from standstill in 5.7 seconds.

In general, the new X1 is larger than its predecessor (it’s longer, wider and taller by 53mm, 24mm and 44mm respectively) with more cargo room, but the iX1 does have slightly less boot space.

EV hardware under the boot floor means it offers 490 litres of room back there, expandable to 1,495 litres when you flop the back seats down (versus 540 to 1,600 litres).

Apart from a closed-off front grille, the iX1 looks different from its combustion siblings because it has signature accents in BMW i Blue.

Inside, the curved screen that has started to pervade the BMW range is present and accounted for. It houses a 10.25-inch touchscreen for the infotainment system, which runs BMW OS8 software, and a 10.7-inch screen for driver displays.

The system is also 5G-ready, so it’ll be interesting to see what features and upgrades BMW will offer in the form of over-the-air updates.

Pricing info isn’t available, but our best guess is that the iX1 will cost at least S$260,000 here at today’s Certificate Of Entitlement premia. That’s not cheap, but it would make it the cheapest electric BMW.

The iX1 will also be the sixth battery-only BMW to go on sale here, after the i3 urban runabout and joining the iX3 (a larger but less powerful SUV), the iX (a boxy SUV that the brand upholds as its tech flagship), the i4 four-door coupe and the flagship i7 (a plush limousine).

The ongoing switch to electric cars is not only gathering pace but is taking on all shapes and sizes.

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