2024 BMW i7 - Future Facing Super Electric Sedan!

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2024 BMW i7 M70 First Drive: This EV Zaps on the Bimmer V-12's Ashes
This version of the electric 7 Series trades some luxury for more speed—worth it?

As V-12 engines fade into antiquity at BMW, the automaker's M division turns to a future-facing approach for strengthening the 7 Series: The ultimate version of this flagship full-size luxury sedan is now electric.

When the seventh-generation 7 Series debuted for 2023, a battery-powered i7 version arrived alongside it. The EV shares the 7 Series' imposing looks and opulent finishings but embodies BMW's electrification ethos. For 2024, the i7 attempts a shift in focus. A new M70 variant intends to make the driver's seat more alluring than its sublime second row—it being the most powerful all-electric BMW ever will help with that.

Electric Performance à la M

This is the new king of BMW's EV lineup. A true M-badged 7 Series, an M7, remains unlikely to ever exist; M boss Franciscus Van Meel told us the 7 Series' luxury focus clashes with the track potential demanded of an M car. Still, other full-M EVs are on the way, with learnings from powerful BMW EVs like this one likely to inform that development. Positioned above the i4 M50, new i5 M60, and iX M60, the i7 M70 isn't a full-blown M but rather a one-rung-down M Performance model, netting dynamism absent from other i7 models but stopping short of a full-on track preparation. Although it shares a 101.7-kWh lithium-ion battery and 255-hp front motor with the i7 xDrive60, an upgraded rear motor abets the M70's more assertive attitude.

Having forged its reputation on tuning BMW engines, M now enhances BMW motors. Compared to the i7 xDrive60's rear drive unit, the M70's doubles its inverter phases to six. Motor length increases by 0.8 inch, allowing more electron-transmitting copper to surround its enlarged stator and rotor. This oil-cooled arrangement can spin upward of 13,000 rpm, where it makes its 483-hp peak.

Total system output is 650 hp and 748 lb-ft of torque, though the latter can rise to 811 lb-ft in 10-second bursts when Boost mode or launch control are activated. That's needed to achieve BMW's claimed 3.5-second 0-60-mph time—a figure that matches our test result of the two-sizes-smaller M3 Competition, remarkable considering the i7 M70 is more than one ton heavier.

But EVs are known to be quick—for this i7 to earn its stripes, it must handle, too, so M's magicians adapted the chassis' hardware and software. A new shear panel between the body's bulkhead and front suspension towers stiffens the structure where reduced-hydraulic-volume air springs mount. Specific programming for the adaptive steering and active anti-roll stabilization systems brings higher levels of control. Larger rotors clamped by M-badged calipers peek through aero-tuned wheels, which can be shod with summer tires for the first time on an i7.
Enough Range for the Autobahn?

Despite its higher power, the i7 M70 loses little range compared to the i7 xDrive60. When equipped with 21-inch alloys, range is rated by the EPA at 291 miles, while the lesser version covers 307 miles on identically sized rollers. Charging tops out at 195 kW on a Level 3 plug, a good if not leading rate that should allow the battery to get from 10 to 80 percent in slightly more than 30 minutes.

Driving BMW's Most Powerful EV

The i7 xDrive60 is somewhat unique among large luxury sedans; despite being first and foremost tremendously cosseting, it delivers a relatively communicative, driver-oriented feel—it is a BMW, after all—albeit with some languid body roll. To assess the i7 M70, BMW invited us to explore stunning roads perched on coastal mountainsides near Lisbon, Portugal. Here, the car showed subtle yet appreciable differences from its M-less equivalents.

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