Our 2024 BMW i4 xDrive40 Is All Charged Up

The 10Best-winning electric 4-series starts its 40,000-mile journey of discovery. Will we love it as much at the end of the test as at the beginning?

UPDATE 3/13/2024: We have revised this story since it was first published to incorporate new information about issues we experienced with the winter tires fitted to this long-term test car.

Introduction

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 won our 2022 Electric Vehicle of the Year award. But if the compact electric SUV with origami styling was that year's valedictorian, the BMW i4 Gran Coupe was surely the salutatorian. The i4 M50 that participated in EV of the Year '22 wowed us with its poise, power, and chest-compressing speed. Subsequent drives of the then-base-model eDrive40 convinced us that the i4 lineup embodies the same three core dynamic traits—supple suspension, talkative steering, and intuitive handling—that made the best BMWs of the past incandescent automobiles, ones we remember warmly. The i4 proved our initial impressions true by beating a host of impressive gasoline-powered cars to win a 2023 10Best award.

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Cars that get a 10Best medal hung on them are special enough to warrant a more in-depth look. That's even truer in the brave new world of EVs. Each new electric vehicle brings its own grab bag of pluses and minuses, any one of which could turn out to be a breakthrough or a fail. BMW gives buyers the choice of electric or gas propulsion in the same vehicle—the i4 is the electric doppelgänger of the gas-powered 4-series Gran Coupe—so we're eager to see how that strategy plays out in a 40,000-mile test.


MARC URBANO|CAR AND DRIVER

Going against our instinct to reach for the version with the most power, we ordered the second-most powerful model in the four-trim lineup: the 396-hp, twin-motor, all-wheel-drive xDrive40, which starts at $62,595. That was all the restraint we could muster, though. We couldn't resist the M Sport package (19-inch summer rubber, plus a racy steering wheel and aluminum cabin trim) or the Premium, Shadowline, Driving Assistance Pro, and Parking Assistance packages. We also sprang for adaptive LED headlamps, Oyster Vernasca leather, and a Harman/Kardon surround-sound system, then topped it all off with a special order of purplish Mora Metallic paint, bringing our test car's sticker to $77,920.

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Broken in with around 1200 miles on its odometer, the i4 was a sprightly performer at the test track, with a 60-mph time of 4.4 seconds and a quarter-mile zip of 12.9 seconds at 109 mph. It stuck to the skidpad at 0.89 g and stopped from 70 and 100 mph in 161 feet and 325 feet, respectively. At a DC fast-charger, the i4 replenished its 84.3-kWh battery from 10 to 90 percent in 38 minutes, with a peak charging rate of 208 kilowatts and an average of 104 kilowatts—a solid midpack result

Instrumented testing was the easy part; we've now started on the challenges posed by day-to-day living and, dare we say, a road trip or two. The miles that we've put on the i4 since it left the test track have reconfirmed our feeling that it's a finely honed driver's car. The M Sport package firms up the suspension a bit—but not too much—though we think the i4 would be almost as enjoyable to daily without the sportier chassis pieces or its summer tires.

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Its behavior on its first set of winter tires is another story, however. We replaced the Hankook Ventus S1 Evo3 summer rubber with a set of Michelin X-Ice Snow winter tires of the same size—245/40R-19 front, 255/40R-19 rear—just in time for a two-week blast of single-digit temperatures, snow, and icy roads to roar through our home state of Michigan. Unfortunately, though, the winter rubber caused the i4's confident dry-road handling to go south along with the milder temperatu

MARC URBANO|CAR AND DRIVER

Suddenly, this highly capable EV sedan started acting like something was amiss underneath. Since we fit all of our long-term vehicles with winter tires, we’re very familiar with the usual additional tread squirm and less crisp dynamics, but this was way more than that. It reacted to steering inputs sloppily and felt wobbly and unpredictable at the rear in brisk low-speed corners. At Interstate cruising speeds, merely nudging the ste side effects.