2022 BMW i4 in Depth Look - Better than a Tesla & Mustang Mach E?

I'm Jacob. I'm Yuri. And we're going for a virtual drive. 2022 all-electric BMW i4. Concept. However, this is actually very close to real production, so we will talk about it in this virtual style because we can't drive it anyways. Horsepower and torque. 530 horsepower and there is no torque figure from an 80 kilowatt hour battery. And what is the electric range? Up to 600 kilometers, which is 372 miles on a European WLTP cycle. So for comparison, the Tesla Model 3 long range has a WLTP range of 560 kilometers or 348 miles. And do we have anything about charging times? You can get approximately an 80% charge in 35 minutes, which is pretty good. All-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, or front-wheel drive? I'm very happy to report that it is rear-wheel drive, so you will be able to have some fun with it. And we definitely know how to have fun on frozen legs with Mercedes products. Yes, their main competitor, but I want to start off talking about the looks because we've got that new BMW style grill that everyone hates, but I kind of like, but first I want to show off the interior because it looks crazy. It looks so nice. And we've got like a new big double screen, just like Mercedes have. I'm very excited to dig into that, but looks. Yeah. BMW is doing so many different things with their grills these days. They are updating it in three or four different ways. I don't personally like the super tall version. I think the M-Vision Next had a really cool wide version, which is kind of like the updated i8. I actually really like the tall vertical grills. I think it especially looks really cool on the 4 Series concepts and prototypes that are coming out, especially for an electric-y car. I think it looks great. And old, old, old BMWs also had grills like that that went all the way to the top to the bottom. So this is kind of a throwback, throwback, throwback. Yeah, I also get that because they're kind of trying to do like the super nostalgia thing. It's like, hey, this is where we came from and this is the future as well. And then if we look at the headlights, they're really, really thin, like super low profile. Yeah. And they look really aggressive. Overall, I actually do like the front end after you get over the grill. Yeah. When you take a close-up of that headlight, there is so much going on. Probably the most complex looking headlight. That's definitely one of the things that's going to change for the production version, but the overall shape of the DRLs will probably be the same. And then what I also really like is how that big grill blends into the hood. It's very seamless. I like how we've got that new style BMW logo up there. And the blue from the logo matches blue on the car, on the front, sides, and pretty much everywhere. Because blue means batteries basically for every car ever now. But BMW has blue in their logo. So if anyone says they're copying them, they're like, nah, it's just our blue. We're using it the whole time. So the front bumper, it kind of cuts off halfway through the grill. Below that is dark. And then it's kind of like a really aggressive splitter coming out of there as well. Then into the grill on the concept, at least, it does say BMW I4 concept while it's driving as part of the DRL, which is pretty cool for a concept car. And that might actually translate to the real production version, at least some variants of it, because we've seen actual light up grills on BMWs now. Okay. Now how about the side view? They say it can be clearly identified as a grand coupe. And I can definitely agree with that. However, I hate the word grand coupe and these four-door coupes. Yeah, I've gotten used to it, so I'm not bothered by it. But what I really like from the side view is the body line. And now this one is like very, very clean, very simple. Yeah. And according to one of the designers, the rear arches kind of look like a rally car. I don't really see it, but I understand kind of what he's saying about the upper line. And then from one of the other designers, he says he's got a clean form language fitting to a zero emission vehicle. So whatever that means. And I'm pretty sure someone said it's purposeful and aggressive. Pretty much we got every single treatment of what a car looks like in this presentation. Yeah. And depending on which presentation you watch, there's three different people that have been responsible for the design of this thing. I'm sure it's more than three, but yeah, if you keep watching videos, there's just going to be more people responsible for this. What do you think of the integrated door handles? I think they look really cool and they did a better job with Porsche than that. And the coolest part, at least on the concept, is that you can open the door and close it with a swipe on the outside. And I guess now time to move to one of my favorite parts, electric-y looking wheels. I really like these wheels. If you're going to do electric-y looking wheels, make them look cool, just like these ones. Yeah, I think these will look really cool on an M2 competition. Maybe we'll do that someday. Probably not, but I really like these wheels. I totally disagree with that, but I do like seeing them on electric cars. And now moving on to the back end, we've got very slim taillights. They kind of look like the 8 Series, but they do look very BMW. Yeah, the overall shape is very similar to the 8 Series, and I find that they just kind of removed a lot of the excess glass. And then if we look up at the top, we've kind of got a built-in ducktail spoiler, which I think also looks really nice. And moving to the top, you're basically sitting in a greenhouse. Yeah, there's actually no tint, so people are pretty much getting burnt in there. I'm sure that's going to completely change, and they just wanted it to look cool for all the marketing footage and stuff. And just before we get into the interior, I noticed that there's actually no sun visors, at least on this concept, because you can't see them through the glass roof. Okay, and then at the back, lower down, it's very flat, like a big flat surface, which I think looks nice for a simple design. And then moving on to the bottom, which I'm actually very excited for, there's no fake exhaust tips. They didn't make anything look like fake exhaust tips, but instead where exhaust tips would be, they put diffusers. Yeah, the diffusers do look really cool, but they kind of look like exhaust because of the placement and kind of where they are. It's like two on the outside. It's still reminiscent of an exhaust. Yeah, no, I know, and I think that's cool. Instead of doing like a fake exhaust for cars that don't have exhaust, they put diffusers where exhaust would be, so we still have that dual exhaust look, even though there's no need for it. I think they killed it with that part. Yeah, and for the record, I'm totally okay with what they did here. And then if we look at the color for the concept, it's a light pale copper. They did try a brighter copper on the i8, and they said this was kind of like a detuned version of that. Do you like it? I like it on the concept, and it is a matte color. I'm not sure if it'll translate to the real production model, but they have done matte paints in the past, so I wouldn't be surprised. This is my favorite electric-y new color of the year for sure. I love it. Love the way it looks. So overall looks-wise, considering the previous electric car that they had here was the i3, this thing looks stunning. I think overall this looks really proportionate with the new grille and everything, and I think it looks more proportionate than the new iNext concept that's coming out. That looks a little out there, but also pretty cool. Yeah, the iNext looks super wild. We've got crazier headlights, crazier grilles, crazier everything, and then we also have the kind of regular looking i3X as well. Overall exterior looks, this versus a Tesla, which one would you go for? Because I'd go for this. I would actually go for this as well. The Model 3 almost looks too normal, especially considering that they have a Cybertruck coming out now. Okay, so should we move into the interior then? Yes, so as I said, there are no sun visors, so we can get past that. How about the cup holders, Yuri? I didn't really notice any of them. Yeah, there are none because it's a concept, but most of this will actually translate to the production version, especially the screen. So the screen is a curved display and it looks pretty much exactly like Mercedes. And it's really cool because you can get your Speedo in the middle, which I love, and then we've got cool graphics for everything. I don't know how distracting it's going to be in real life or how good it's going to look, but I assume it's going to be very good. And the gauges change depending on the drive mode, so there's three that we can see. Core, Sport, and Efficient. They look pretty cool. We do have the same kind of backwards look which aren't actually taxed because there is no engine in this. And then what I really like is when you change the drive modes, it changes the ambient lighting. And the ambient lighting, at least in the concept, the way it pops, I think totally matches Mercedes now. Maybe even outdoes it a little bit. And they've also done a bunch of crazy stuff with the sounds this thing makes. Since it's electric, they can basically make up anything that they want. So they've worked with Hans Zimmer, who's won a bunch of Grammys and Academy Awards, and he's made this thing sound pretty interesting. We're going for a drive. Sound defines personality. It adds emotion and depth to a character. Yeah. I don't know if he's the guy I want to be doing it. I think I want the guy who did all the Star Wars TIE Fighter and all those sounds, little pew, pew, pew. Like that's the guy I want designing car sounds. Yeah. So far out of all the electric car sounds that I've heard, I think the Jag I-PACE probably has the best ones. Because it was the most Star Wars. Yeah, for sure. These things need to sound like they're from the year 3000 or something. And then to control the infotainment, it is touch as well. And it looks very cool. All the icons and everything look updated, but it also has a totally normal command center at the bottom, just like all the other BMWs, which is very refreshing. And we also have the crystal rotary wheel, which I think is perfectly in place here. There's also crystal on the crazy looking steering wheel at the bottom. And it's even on the door locks. I think it looks really nice the way that they did it here. So then if we move on to the rest of the looks of the interior, we've got really cool looking materials. Everything looks completely different. And then we've got a whole bunch of copper and gold everywhere. Yeah. I like the colors that they used here. The overall theme of the interior looks really cool. Obviously not all of it will translate to the production model, but I think what does is going to look really nice. But what's cool is that the I-3 had a bunch of weird materials and stuff, right? So you can expect a lot of the weird stuff from this concept to actually make it to production. Yeah. They had a bunch of recycled materials in the interior. I didn't really like how it looked, but I appreciate the effort of what they were doing. Yeah. And you could skate it with a tech deck, but, but also on that note, they say there are no rare earth metals in the motors. So it is technically more sustainable. Yeah. Which is really nice to see because apparently earth metal mining is pretty bad for the environment. But I don't think they said anything about it being in the batteries. Uh, yeah, I guess we'll find out. Well, there's only a couple of shots driving on the road, so there's not too much to say about it, but they have said that you should expect the driving dynamics of a BMW to translate to this model as well. I was actually pretty relieved when he said that because BMW does have a pretty high standard for driving dynamics. And seeing it drifting on the frozen lake really made me happy about the traction control system potential. Except for driving dynamics of the I-3. We got to go back and see if they said the same thing in the I-3 presentation, then we'll know if they're lying or not. And then to end it off with, instead of marketing be marketing, marketing be good. There's only pretty much one ad and it's all like, I've been filming this camcorder stuff of me back in the day in my old BMW. And now we're in the new BMW thinking about all the same stuff, picking up a mirror and then going to our buddy's glass house who has the old BMW. Like I didn't find it bad at all. You didn't find it weird that someone had a glass house in the middle of the desert? No, there was weird stuff, but they didn't do anything that was like really weird for marketing. Do you know what I mean? It was just like, here's some memories of your old BMW and here's some memories of you in your new BMW and like throw a couple of glass houses in it. Yeah, I guess you're right. However, I'd still take that old E30 BMW from the ad instead of this one. I mean, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, times are going to change, but right now I'll take that E30. Okay, so now let's get to the price. We don't have a price because it's still at least one year out of production, but it's competing directly with the Tesla Model 3. So expect the prices to be in line with that. Probably a little bit more because it is a BMW. So if you've had enough with talking about electric cars, head on over to our M3 CS video and watch us goon around in one of the more fun BMWs to drive. Or also watch our M2 competition video because that's an incredible car as well. Yeah, I think that's our best overall car that comes in a manual. Yeah, that's definitely one of my favorite cars currently on sale.