BMW today revealed some tantalizing details about the upcoming next-generation 7 Series, the company’s flagship sedan, and even more intriguingly, its all-electric counterpart, the BWM i7. BMW first announced the long-rumored EV 7 Series would be called the i7 late last year, but now we have a few more details about what to expect from this premium large electric sedan.
For one, BMW estimates the i7’s range to be about 305 miles once it is tested per EPA standards, which puts it in the appropriate echelon of EV range for its luxury class—although this figure is absolutely dwarfed by the 520-mile EPA rating for the Lucid Air, as well as the 400-plus miles you can get in a Tesla Model S.
From an aesthetic standpoint, the new i7 will adopt a version of the company’s large, blocky, conjoined kidney grille that we know and, uh, tolerate from the iX. The edges will be illuminated so you’re sure not to miss it. The upper light elements, BMW says, are made out of crystal and have twin angular swooshy elements. It appears that larger driving lights reside below, divorced from the upper light clusters, as we predicted in our BMW 7 Series renders from a few months ago. The blocky scallops at the lower corners of the grille are a more pronounced styling element that echoes but doesn’t copy the iX’s similar bits.
We’re eager to see what the i7 looks like from the side and rear, but for now at least little is left to the imagination up front. But inside, BMW details a bunch of interesting features that pair function with what we hope is beauty, like the BMW Curved Display (the new iDrive display with a giant screen that sweeps most of the way across the dash) and strips that combine ambient lighting with haptic controls—BMW calls this, unremarkably, the BMW Interaction Bar. A revised Sky Lounge glass roof incorporates “LED light threads that can be individually adjusted.” We can imagine it’ll all look and feel dramatic, but we’ll reserve judgement until we get ourselves inside the i7 to poke around.
The focus today is on the i7, but there’s a conventional new 7 Series debuting alongside it next month. We’ll be eager to see how they compare, contrast, and will take on those upstarts with a head start in the EV luxury sedan space then.
