The new electric Sports Activity Vehicle will be in AGMC showrooms in late 2021.
AGMC, the official importer of BMW Group vehicles for Dubai, Sharjah and the Northern Emirates, has announced that the new BMW iX xDrive40 and the new BMW iX xDrive50 will arrive in showrooms in late 2021.
The BMW iX heralds a new era in mobility. It combines pioneering design and modern luxury with the latest innovations in driving, operation, connectivity and highly automated digital services. The BMW Group’s new technology flagship focuses both on locally emission-free driving pleasure, combined with the brand’s trademark sporting capability, efficiency and compelling operating range, and on an integrated and unwavering approach to sustainability applied right from the start.
The BMW iX redefines the successful Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) concept. It is the first model based on a new modular and scalable toolkit on which the future of the BMW Group will be built. The development and production of the BMW iX follows a comprehensive sustainability approach that involves compliance with strict environmental and social standards in the extraction of raw materials, as well as the use of electricity from renewable sources and a high proportion of recycled materials in the mix. .
Ayhan Olcer, CEO of AGMC, says: “We are very excited about the arrival of the long-awaited BMW iX vehicles at the end of the year. They underline our vision for the brand, echoing the hallmarks of BMW with an eye toward innovation and the future of mobility.
“The BMW iX demonstrates how we can give new technologies a progressive and emotional design. The models will be 5G compatible, feature enhanced automated driving and parking functions and use the high-performance fifth generation of the BMW Group electric drive system.”
New design for a new driving experience
The BMW iX is leading the way for a future generation of cars with which the company is redefining sustainability, driving pleasure and what it means to be premium. This pioneering character is clearly expressed in the vehicle’s design, which has been developed from the inside out. Therefore, the BMW iX has been created to provide quality of life and well-being for drivers and passengers.
The clear and minimalist design of its exterior shows a new form of mobility oriented directly to the needs of the vehicle’s occupants. Its interior offers innovative onboard options to make the most of your time during a trip and enjoy relaxation, safety and a new form of luxury in the process.
Supervised production of raw materials, widespread green energy for manufacturing, high proportion of natural and recycled materials.
The BMW Group obtains the cobalt and lithium needed for high-voltage batteries from controlled sources in Australia and Morocco, before supplying them to battery cell manufacturers. As with the production of the entire vehicle at the BMW Group’s Dingolfing plant, the battery cells are manufactured using exclusively green energy from certified sources.
Since February 2021, the company has purchased aluminum made with electricity from solar power plants. The importance placed on resource conservation in the production of the BMW iX is highlighted by the high proportion of secondary aluminum and recycled plastic used.
The interior of the vehicle features FSC-certified wood, leather tanned with olive leaf extracts and other natural materials.
Electric motors: enhancing dynamism, reducing the use of critical materials
In addition, the electric motors of the BMW iX are characterized by a design that avoids the use of rare earths. They work on the principle of a current-excited synchronous motor. The excitation of the rotor in BMW iX engines is not induced by fixed permanent magnets, but by the injection of electrical energy.
This eliminates the need for critical materials used to manufacture magnets and the BMW Group is therefore not dependent on their availability.
This special design also has a positive effect on the performance characteristics of the engines. Precisely controlled excitation of the rotor by electrical energy allows maximum torque to be achieved immediately after starting.
Unlike conventionally designed electric motors, that torque is maintained over an extremely wide rev band.
The defining feature of the driving experience aboard the BMW iX is thus a power development that is not only incredibly fast but also unusually consistent, underlining the brand’s typical sporting excellence.
In the BMW iX xDrive50, the propulsion system, which has an electric motor on the front axle and another on the rear axle, produces a total power of more than 370 kW/500 HP and enables acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h. h. ) in less than 5.0 seconds.
The BMW iX xDrive40 has a power output of more than 240 kW/300 hp, enabling it to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in just 6.0 seconds.
Improved range
The electric motor, transmission and power electronics of the BMW iX come together as a highly integrated package within a single housing. This compact construction also benefits the efficiency of the propulsion system. Indeed, further driven by optimized aerodynamics and intelligent lightweight design, the BMW iX features outstanding efficiency in its segment. The result is an average electrical energy consumption in the WLTP cycle of less than 21 kWh per 100 kilometers (62 miles) for the BMW iX xDrive50 and less than 20 kWh per 100 kilometers (62 miles) for the BMW iX xDrive40. .
Like the electric motors, power electronics and charging technology of the BMW iX, its high-voltage batteries are also the product of fifth-generation BMW eDrive technology. They are located in the lower part of the floor of the vehicle as an integral part of the body. The gravimetric energy density of lithium-ion batteries has again increased by approximately 20 percent compared to the previous generation battery.
The battery cells are manufactured to precise BMW Group specifications and integrated into model-specific high-voltage batteries. The BMW iX xDrive50 is therefore equipped with a battery with a gross energy content of more than 100 kWh at the BMW Group plant in Dingolfing, while the battery unit of the BMW iX xDrive40 has a gross energy content of more than 70 kWh. This gives the BMW iX xDrive50 a range of more than 600 kilometers (373 miles) on the WLTP test cycle. The WLTP-calculated range of the BMW iX xDrive40 is more than 400 kilometers (249 miles).
The new charging technology of the BMW iX enables DC (direct current) fast charging with extremely high charging power. The BMW iX xDrive50 can recharge its high-voltage battery up to 200 kW, while the maximum charging capacity of the BMW iX xDrive40 is 150 kW.
All of which means that a ten-minute plug-in time provides enough power to add more than 120 kilometers (75 miles)/90 kilometers (56 miles) of range.
In both model variants, the high-voltage battery charge can be increased from 10 to 80 percent of its full capacity in less than 40 minutes.
The new set of technological tools also underpins further advances towards highly automated driving. Making its debut in the BMW iX, it also provides the platform for significant advances in the areas of highly automated driving and digital services. For example, the level of computing power has been developed to process 20 times the data volume of previous models. In this way, approximately twice as much data can be processed from the vehicle’s sensors as was previously possible.
Video: BMW iX “heralds a new era in mobility”
