Pretoria - Electric cars, or EVs if you will, are here to stay and whether you love them, hate them or are indifferent, the next few years will see a radical change in car ownership and driving habits.
Electricity and South Africa is a bit of an anomaly considering Eskom’s inability to keep the lights on, with the varying stages it continues to subject us to and threats that things will get worse in winter, the new minister notwithstanding.
A logical consequence is that those who can afford it are going off-grid. Despite the increasing number of public charging stations across the country, in an ideal world, you want to plug your EV in at home because it’s a bit of a mission to make the detour.
Most owners I’ve spoken to have installed solar, are in the process of doing so or are planning to go solar as soon as they can.
Which brings me to the BMW i4 M50.
The four-door Gran Coupé is a dynamic head-turner to be sure, starting with the rather large kidney grille, blanked off in this electric version, doors with frameless windows to the elegant lines of a coupé with the sloping roof that provides enough headroom for rear passengers.
The chassis-mounted lithium-ion battery provides a gross energy content of 83.9kWh and net energy content of 80.7kWh.
The two electric motors that are mounted to the front and rear axles produce a combined output of 400kW and 795Nm, which will hurtle it to 100km/h in 3.9 seconds and a governed top speed of 225km/h.
BMW claims a range of up to 510km in the WLTP cycle but expect real-world figures closer to 400km when fully charged.
It obviously depends on your driving style and how heavy your right foot is, air conditioning use and the amount of regenerative braking produced.
It’s something that will eventually become second nature, but you can’t help continuously glancing at the range display as you drive. Once it starts getting to 100km, there’s an involuntary nervousness that makes you tap the touch screen to start looking for charging stations.
You can also use the GridCars app which will guide you to an impressive number of stations in Gauteng.
I used the charging station at Menlyn Maine a couple of times. With 100km left, It will fill you up in about an hour.
It does mean having a coffee and a sandwich at Starbucks between laptop-working hipsters; just the kind of person who would choose an EV above a conventional internal combustion engine.
It’s wired to take a 200kW DC charger but most quick chargers locally are 60kW, costing about R5.88 per kWh. If the i4 M50 were to be charged from zero, it would cost R493 to fill the 83.9kWh battery.
The irony wasn’t lost after a charge with my fuel container in the boot to fill it for the umpteenth time for the generator at home.
With sport seats, premium surfaces throughout and chunky multifunction steering wheel, the interior is everything you would expect from an executive BMW, including a 12.3-inch instrument panel with various settings and curved 14.9-inch touch screen with BMW’s Operating System 8, which takes a while to figure out but once you have, it’s easy enough to use.
Thanks to the low centre of gravity, chucking the i4 around is a lot of fun, albeit without any exhaust theatrics.
In Sport Mode though, sound is piped into the cockpit with the optional BMW IconicSounds Electric as part of a collaboration with composer Hans Zimmer.
I’m not sure I’m too fond of the buzzing, whoosh-type sound but my partner thought it was brilliant.
Acceleration is blistering as is passing slower traffic, so much so that even my teenage son, who has no great passion for cars, looked forward to passing manoeuvres and quick-sprint getaways.
But it’s when you get into the twisties that you get to appreciate the chassis and suspension as well as the low-slung battery and noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) levels.
The all-wheel drive system allows you to do things that normally you would think about twice without a hint of things going awry, with outstanding composure and body control.
It might be electric but the i4 M50 is undoubtedly a driver-centred offering.
It does require focused driving, however, because if you go over the limit, it’s going to hurt.
Potholes on our unmaintained roads, being what they are in the rain, unfortunately, brought a premature end to our time behind the wheel, with a sidewall cut.
And here’s the thing. It’s not limited to the i4 M50 but many of BMW’s offerings don’t provide any form of spare wheel, puncture repair kit or compressor.
You’re at the mercy of BMW On Call which is okay-ish if you’re safely at home but not so much if you’re alone at night or on the N14 in the Northern Cape.
That aside, the BMW i4 M50 shows how electric mobility has advanced over the past few years and if EVs are your thing, the future is bright.
It comes with a two-year/unlimited kilometres warranty, an eight-year/100 000km battery warranty and a five-year/100 000km maintenance plan.
Price: R1 646 200