2023 BMW i7

BRIAN WONG: Ha ha ha. Now, go away. I'm busy. Stuck in traffic, again. Glamorous, I know. What I'm in today, is perhaps the best thing to brave an LA commute in, whether you're driving or being driven, and that's the 2023 BMW i7. The i7 is BMW's first take on an electrified, full size, flagship luxury sedan. And what they've done is they've taken a 7 series and, basically, ripped out the engine, put a big battery underneath me, and made it electric. The i7 has serious luxury and technology features, in an opulent cabin. It's kind of like a first class seat on an airplane, but even better. Today we're going to go over four Different categories in the i7 that will either make or break a daily commute: comfort, cabin technology and features, safety technology, and, of course, my favorite, the wild card. Oh, and, of course, there will also be snacks. SPEAKER 1: Oh, no more snacks. BRIAN WONG: What do you mean, no more snacks? As you might expect in a $150,000 plus luxury sedan, things are quite comfortable. These seats are nicer than my bed at home and have a ridiculous number of adjustments, so it's really easy to find sort of a perfect driving position. Even the steering wheel, here, also has powered adjustments and has some really long telescoping range, so it's very easy to set up right where you want to drive. But then to also put the steering wheel in a place where it's very easy to see this very nice instrument cluster. As easy as it is to find a good driving position, setting it up can take some time, because to get to many of the seat's different adjustments, you do have to go through the screen. And that will become a recurring theme in this video. Cabin materials in here are impeccable. There's just leather and wood, everywhere. These two tone seats are actually a combination of smoked white Merino leather on top and then cashmere on the bottom. Cashmere, cash- I can't even say that word normally, cashmere. I mean, sitting in this cabin, I feel under dressed, and that's something weird to feel in a car. Climate control does a pretty good job of both heating and cooling down the cabin rather quickly. Though, up front here, it's kind of weird. You don't get traditional air vents. They've actually been hidden behind this sort of ambient light bar. And to change the direction, you use these little kind of knobs here. So it can be a little bit difficult to get them pointed exactly where you want, because you can't really see where the fans are. And you don't get quite as much direct air blowing on you, but the fans do feel powerful enough. And, again, the cabin changes temperature pretty quickly, as you'd expect in a luxury vehicle. Also, if you want to close a vent you can't really do that normally, either. You have to kind of go in this bar and there's this little green sort of light and then you can go to 0 to turn them off and one to turn them on. I would just like a switch. Perhaps my favorite overall thing about the i7 is the ride quality. So this car actually has a camera that looks out in front of you and scans the road and prepares the suspension if there are any potholes or any other road imperfections, and then it just kind of glides over them. And with that big battery sitting down here, giving this car a low center of gravity, it just feels super composed at all times. It's really so, so good. This is probably the best riding car that I've ever tested, and that helps keep the interior ultra, ultra quiet. This is basically, a leather lined isolation chamber on wheels. So even though I'm on the freeway and all these things are happening, or not really happening around me, because I'm in traffic, I don't really notice. I'm just in my own little world. Our test vehicle also has the rear executive lounge seating option box checked, which means that as this front passenger seat moves up and out of the way, that back seat can recline, nearly all the way. Actually, that sounds really good, so I'm going to go ahead and hop back there while my producer slash butler drives. Jeeves. SPEAKER 1: Wait, what? BRIAN WONG: Here in the back seat, things are pretty fantastic. Full size luxury sedan means you get tons of head room, tons of leg room, tons of everything room. And the nice thing about this vehicle is that these rear seats, on the outside at least, you get the same functions that you're getting all the front seats. So that means you're getting heating, you're getting ventilation, and you're getting massage. Now, as I mentioned, this seat is too is also nice because you can recline it all the way. So I've pushed the passenger seat all the way forward to, give myself maximum room. And this seat is going to pull up this little rest here for my legs, a little foot rest too, and I am in a state of great relaxation. Now, on each door, you also get these little screens built in here, and these are how you can control all the back seat functions. So the seat functions, I can change with the climate control. And, of course, I can control the audio system from back here, as well. Now, this is actually kind of a better place to be in traffic, because I'm not even driving. I'm being driven. And if I don't want to see it, I can even use this screen to close all of these sunshades. SPEAKER 1: Must be nice. BRIAN WONG: It's very nice. The i7 is a rolling technology powerhouse. So up front, here, we have a pair of screens, a 12.3in one for the instrument cluster, a 14.9in touchscreen for the infotainment system, as well as a pretty large HUD, so lots of things for me to see up here. Spread throughout the cabin, there are charging ports galore, and there are even wireless chargers for your, phone both up front and for the back seat. Powering the system is BMW's iDrive 8 and that also comes along with wireless connectivity, for both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Now, it's a common feature for cars to have these days, but what we particularly like about BMW's integration is that both of them take over this whole screen and they look very big and beautiful. They make the icons really big and easy to press, as well. And the other thing we like is that BMW mirrors the maps view from the screen to the instrument cluster. So a lot of other automakers, when they integrate Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, will just show you turn by turn directions. But Google will actually show you the whole map view, here, in the cluster, and that frees up the screen to also be used for other things. This system is very powerful. But in a car like this, that's overflowing with features, it can be overwhelming. I mean, take a look at this. I hit the Menu button and just look at all these different icons. Finding what you want can be really tough, and it also takes your eyes off the road for an extended period of time. And that's one of the big drawbacks of this system, that we found. Like things that you would normally find maybe on a button on the steering wheel, you kind of have to dive into the screen to find. So, for example, if I want to change the follow distance for the adaptive cruise control or turn on these ventilated seats, those are things I have to do through the screen. And in many other vehicles, it's just a simple button that you can press. What ends up being the system saving grace is that the BMW voice control system is so good. So beyond basic things like inputting a navigation destination or calling someone, it can also be used to control the vehicle's functions. So, for example, if I want to turn on those ventilated seats, I can just go, hey, BMW, turn on the front ventilated seats to three. SPEAKER 2: OK. I will activate the seat cooling for the front seats. BRIAN WONG: And now, everyone's butt is cool. BMW's native navigation system, it's fine. I still kind of prefer the experience you get in Google Maps, so most of the time, I do end up using that through Android Auto. If the system has one weakness, for me, it's kind of how you'd find charging stations. So if you buy a new i7, you actually get three free years of fast charging on the Electrify America network. But if we look at the charging stations on the screen here, and I want to kind of search for those quickly, it just shows me a list of all the EV charging stations near me. So I don't even have a way to sort them by provider or how fast they are. I just get everything near me. The nice thing is I can sort based on the route that I'm traveling or where my destination will be, but it would be just really nice to be able to sort between the different providers or even the different charging speeds, rather than just getting a big dump of all these stations. One of the other things I like about the screen is that it's placed perfectly. Even though it's pretty big and wide, I can reach the edge easily from the driver's seat. But if I don't want to do that, I can also use this knob here, and that sort of gives a little highlight, and then I can navigate through the menus that way. There are two cup holders here, and they're fine. This vehicle also comes outfitted with the optional Bowers and Wilkins stereo, and it is fantastic. Super clear highs and lows, one of my favorite audio systems that I've ever tested. And though it's really overqualified for this, it makes calls sound pretty good as well. Now, those of you familiar with the 7 Series might be expecting me to mention one more technology feature, but we do have to say something for the wild card, right? As you might expect, the i7 also comes well stocked when it comes to safety features. It's got automatic parking systems, tons of camera views, even something that remembers the path you drove into a tight fitting space, and it will just back you out along the same path. That's very cool, but not very helpful in traffic. You also get the usual suspects, like lane keep assist, and blind spot warnings, yada, yada, yada. But in traffic, here, the system that's going to be the most important to us is the adaptive cruise control. And on top of that, BMW layers something called assist plus, which is a hands free driving system. So assist plus is made of a few different systems, that all have different names. This is kind of complicated, so I'm sorry in advance. But most of BMW's other vehicles only come with what's called traffic jam assistant, and that only works hands free up to about 40 miles an hour. What this vehicle has, that's also featured in the iX, the XM, the X5, X6, and the forthcoming 5 series, is called Highway assistant. And that bumps up the speed limit on that system from 40 to 85 miles an hour and makes it a lot more useful. Although we won't be able to really show you that today because, obviously. So we're going to put it in the hands free mode right now. There we go. I can tell it's on because we have these nice, green lights on the steering wheel. I, of course, have to look at the road, because a camera is watching me. Now, BMW says that this increase in speed is made possible by the use of highly precise navigation maps, more accurate location determination, and intelligent camera and radar sensors, in conjunction with more powerful computer processing. So basically, they had to upgrade everything. The system does a pretty good job of doing everything smoothly, both stopping and starting, and it does a very good job of keeping you centered within the lane. And one of the differences that we found between this system and the BlueCruise system that we tested earlier, in our long term F-150 Lightning, is that we get a lot less random shut offs. So this system does a pretty good job of staying on. It's been on here for about the last five minutes or so, without interruption, even as we went past an interchange. Something that front seat me forgot to mention about the assist plus system, that we really like, is that when you're in traffic, if you stop for an extended period of time, it'll still resume on its own automatically. Most of these other systems will shut off after about 5 seconds, and you'll have to hit a button or the throttle to get going again. But assist plus stays paying attention and stays on for a good, long while. The cameras that are watching where my eyes are, are also not too sensitive. You can look away for a little bit and be OK, and they don't really bark at you unless you're really doing something wrong. One problem is, though, because the menus are so complicated with this system, that if you do have to dig through it to go find something, you're going to have to look away from the road for too long, and it will kind of bark at you. So let's say I go to the menu, I got to look for something. And then there you go. And that's really how the system should behave. I'm looking away for that long. It should let me know. And it's not super offensive. It's just kind of a little chime, so I don't mind it too much. The system also does automatic lane changes. So as I'm driving along, if I just bump the stock, it'll move me one lane over. And that's something that I would love to show you, but it's a little bit too trafficky right now for that to work. And now we come to the wild card, which for this vehicle, wasn't really hard to figure out, at all. As you'll notice, I'm in the back seat here, and that means it's going to give me a perfect view of this. Is what BMW calls a theater screen. This is a 31 inch 8-k display that basically takes up the entire field of view, here, from the back seat. The screen is breathtakingly sharp, and it drops down from the ceiling, like it's being lowered from a helicopter. It really makes for an immersive experience. And if you want to get even cozier back here, you can put up all the rear sunshades, and it sort of feels like you're in your own, personal theater. The screen is powered by Amazon Fire, and it streams via data connection and you've got to pay for a data plan with BMW to use it. But there's also an HDMI port, so you can plug-in a game console or a laptop, to really use the screen. There's only one problem with that. The HDMI port is right here. So you're going to have to run a cable up there from somewhere. Not a really elegant solution. They should have probably put that down here, on the center console. The one drawback to the screen, though, is that the driver can't actually see anything out of the mirror anymore, with this thing down. All you see is the back of the screen. So it's sort of a setup that would cries out for a rear view camera mirror, though surprisingly, BMW doesn't offer one. Now, go away. I'm busy. Now that we've covered most of the things that the i7 has to offer, it's time to see where it ends up on the soon to be famous, Edmunds traffic hate-o-meter. And I would say that the i7 makes me hate traffic a lot less, which at this price, it really should. If getting a massage on a cooled seat, on a hot day, while the car drives me down the 10 Freeway, doesn't make me hate traffic a lot less, than its me. Hi. I'm the problem. Wait. So if I'm not driving, that means I can have snacks, right? SPEAKER 1: Yeah, I think. BRIAN WONG: Did we bring any? SPEAKER 1: No. BRIAN WONG: Oh. SPEAKER 1: I can get you a Happy Meal. BRIAN WONG: Happy Meal. SPEAKER 1: Look at this guy. Who do you think you are, sir? BRIAN WONG: Rich guy.