Test drove an i4 M50 this past Saturday and drove home in my i03, gobsmacked for most of the 65-mile return.
As salesmen of performance EVs are wont to do, I was encouraged, at a stop light, to perform a Launch Control start in the M50. With the buttons dialed, the pedal and brake to the metal, and the light green, it was brake off and then whoosh. I howled, and the salesman squealed as we lifted off above Hans Zimmer's Iconic synths. What an incredible experience the team in Munich has built. Dan Neil, the best working auto writer in the U.S. — he has a master's degree in English literature and is the only car critic to win a Pulitzer prize (to date) — wrote in his review of the M50 that he'd "walk over the broken remains of an M3 Competition to get to an i4 M50." ICE is where the puck was, but all of us here already know that.
Gratuitously optioned, the entry-level i4 eDrive40 is more my speed, budget, and drivetrain (RWD). Even with just one motor in the back, it would be a road-trip rocket. It's such an arresting whale, inside and out (5,000 pounds!) When the waters calm in a model year or two, I could see an i4 in my garage.
