A week with a 2021 BMW X3e (hybrid)
Well, I said I would report on it after having some time in it, so here goes. Here’s the review.
This is my first in-depth time in any BMW product, so I’m largely not familiar with anything the brand has built since the late 90’s, as several of my friends have or had e36s which I’ve had some time with, and rather enjoy. We purchased the used X3e in hopes of finding me a new daily driver. My commute can be anywhere from 1-2 hours round trip, with up to 6 or so individual drives during the day. Part of the attraction was the ease in which making all those jaunts would be in a right-sized SUV with the additional ease of tight parking lots and always-traffic. I’m coming from a Ford F150, work-spec truck.
The X3e sold itself to us before we left the parking lot on the test drive. Visibility, low belt line, buttery low-speed steering, an over-abundance of creature comforts, and dead-silent ride were high wants and it met these in every way. We signed the paperwork and drove home.
Driving dynamics.
It’s a little hard to have fun with this car because it doesn’t come alive until you are out-driving acceptable traffic flow. The dynamics for a slightly raised SUV are the best of breed. Until you flog it, however, it’s bored and so are you. A lesser handling car can engage the driver sooner in managing the chassis and gravity. It wants to play, but it simply yawns until you are well-beyond where 7 people shake their fists at you. The hybrid struggles to communicate braking action well. I won’t say it’s any better or worse than Toyota’s system - BMW may have the advantage under aggressive braking, while the Toyota system is more dialed-in during normal-people stops. Acceleration is, as one would hope with a hybrid, ample and diesel-like in that it simply pulls and pulls and you look down and you’re 20 mph higher than you thought you would be. The 8 speed transmission is superb.
I need to state this again, I’ve never driven a vehicle with better engine/transmission tuning, other than a 328 I test drove a few years ago. I know the diehard bimmer crowd longs for the return of the sweet straight 6, but to this driver the 4 turbo is a refined and eager playmate on recess and plow horse on commute. “Don’t muzzle the ox while threshing…”
NVH.
The vehicle is quiet enough that you hear relays every time you mess with a seat heater, and things clicking in the back where big power sits. Mine had 19” wheels with Michelin pilot sport A/S, where the vehicle typically comes with RFTs. The wheels are heavy and you can tell. The X30e is heavy enough to control the unsprung mass, and they are rather softly dampened in my opinion, so you can feel the chassis working to control wheel upsets. I think a smaller wheel would increase its proclivity to play on imperfect roads, which we have plenty of here. Besides that, the little SUV leads in this class.
Seating.
I realize this is a point of contention with the brand. I found the seating comfort more consistent than the entry-level 3-series I’d tried out in the mid-teens. With those models, I drove a couple and just couldn’t do it. With the X, 3 adjustable back supports, adjustable bolsters, leg extension - I found a way to make the seat contour my profile *perfectly*. However, on drives more than an hour, I’d get sore, and then had to make adjustments to shift, but then couldn’t find a good way to sit. Perhaps with more time my body might get used to it, but I think 1-2 layers of medium-density padding would have been near ideal. As it was for the time we had it, I could not get it right for more than 45 minute stints. That said, the visibility, head height, minimal head-toss, excellent bolstering, made this a very driver-oriented vehicle. The seating design shines when one decides to throw it hard into a corner, because my body doesn’t have to compensate for the extra forces. It holds you in place, about perfectly. This is a purpose-designed car that seems to bias performance above the mundane commute.
Electronics.
The customization of the dashboard and interior features is the best I’ve seen. Interior lighting, dashboard displays, center display, all more customizable than any other brand I’ve known. It would also anticipate switching features depending on conditions. for example, if it sensed you were parking, the display would automatically switch to exterior markers (it would also do this in bumper-bumper traffic, which was a nuisance). It was a little loathe to “go back” to where I had it - like I listen heavily to podcasts, and if the vehicle interrupted that, it might return me to the general menu instead of CarPlay, and I’d have to click menu, dial the wheel, press, and then get back to where I was, when I didn’t want to leave that screen at all to begin with. At other times, it interrupts what I had up there thoughtfully, and gets me back to where I was (if it wasn’t CarPlay).
One sore spot - the steering wheel as the “speak” button, which calls up iDrive and lets you talk to it. I have an iPhone and do iPhone things with it. I could not in the BMW figure out a way to make a button activate Siri. Therefore if I wanted to verbally send a text while using any screen other than the text screen, I had to fumble through menus and press the touch screen or simply go the phone. This was a huge miss. My ford truck gets this right.
Electronics allowed me to set temperature setpoints for the heated seats and steering wheel. At first you’d think, “man this is great,” because it was. Until I realized you had to have that, because those features would not recall your last position if you turned the car off and back on. The toggle switch in my wife’s Toyota essentially does the same thing by remembering the last setting.
For night drives, my favorite setting was “OFF” for the big display. With just the instrument cluster, night driving was excellent. Otherwise there’s a ton of soft glowing things that want to catch your eye. This isn’t an aircraft on autopilot at 30,000 feet where you would find reality by instrumentation - I need to drive the car.
Switchgear - 2 critical buttons were already flaking out in this 2021… the primary “comfort mode” drive button and the central “menu” button for the entire display.
Driving modes. Best programmability I’ve seen. You can control battery management (to a degree, and for the 15 minutes you get to use the battery). You can adjust suspension and steering settings used if sport mode is activated. It will remember your settings but default back to “comfort” mode on restart. Or if you get out of the car to open the mailbox. If it senses you leave the car, it shuts off. You can’t easily “leave it idling” for your spouse with the heat on if you get out to walk into the store or the post office. It sees you gone, says, “goodbye” on the dash and goes dark, and then your wife gets cold and wonders why she can’t turn the radio on.” It’s telling her that it’s time to recharge the battery, and she would like the heat back on. Back to driving modes.
Hybrid. Mixed bag. Very mixed bag. I sprung for the hybrid because I’d hoped for a little independence from the pump. I read different experiences online about typical mpg with the X30e. It’s rated at fewer gas-only mpg than the gas-only models, but owners were claiming mid-30s while driving hard on gas only. If anything, this car induces range anxiety because the instrumentation is very effective at letting you try to manage the battery and gas tank, but you don’t have a lot of either. Hills eat up the hybrid battery, and the regen doesn’t accomplish as much as you’d want it to. You quickly exhaust your electric fuel tank, and then the gas motor kicks in and out, but then the small fuel tank (is 14Gallons) drops surprisingly quickly. It wants to be an electric car for the full duration of the battery pack, which it exhausts first, and then the gas kicks in and brings electric up to about 20%, and then it starts flipping back and forth. In this back and forth mode, if you are one who listens to the car, it’s unnerving. Engine on, engine off, engine on longer this time, engine off. Press the pedal any more and the engine comes on and the dashboard color changes. This time you can press it to 20%, last time it was 5%, engine on, dash changes color, engine off, it’s blue again. (How long is that clutch going to last???). This time it started smoothly, last time it sounded like a traditional starter (does it have one?). Same with throttle at first tip-in. On electric, there’s a moment where it would “unstick” and pop forward, but on gas, it was traditional. Except that it rarely idled. There was so much going on that it screamed through every throttle input, “you are driving a computer.”
And this is where BMW lost some of the connection with the road. The steering, braking, and throttle inputs are not raw to-the-ground controls. The steering weight is electronically proportional to speed - you can’t feel the ground through the wheel. The throttle pedal has never before felt more like a computer joystick than on this vehicle, and the brake pedal communicates and idea of stopping based on pressure. One had to learn to drive the electronics instead of driving the car. I could have gotten used to it and mastered it, but that’s a video game. I’m getting too old.
So anyway back to hybrid, between the smaller fuel tank, dubious gas-only mileage, and very limited electric only range, I think I could make it 4-5 days between fill-ups, assuming I gassed up at 1/4 tank, which is 6 trips to the gas station per month, with nightly recharging. That’s a lot. Especially since 1/8 of a tank can go by very quickly, leaving me wanting to fill up above 1/4 tank because I see on the display how quickly 1/4 tank can be consumed. Want to leave it outside tonight instead of tethered? That may send me to the gas station a day early. I hate that math, and “hate” is a poor word to encounter during the first week of ownership.
Sweet spot for efficiency was around 50-55 mph by my eye. It will get 32mpg on the “highway” at 50-55. At 70, it’s below 30, probably 27-28, including the use of regen. Electric only range was probably 16 on level ground at commute speeds of 45-70. 70 eats the pack quickly, you can watch the needle move like a timer. 35-45 was a sweet spot for electric only.
In the end: our dealer had a 10 day refund policy. This is by far the nicest vehicle I’ve owned, and we took it back. I’m sad to see it go, because the thought and engineering in the vehicle is superb, but I just couldn’t stomach the cost/complexity/living-with-what-it-wants with the shorter effective range.
We had kept my XL-spec F150. We climbed into it last night to fetch gasoline for the generator with the oncoming storm. It was cold, the interior creaked a little as we settled in. I have no hair and pulled my hat down tighter. I had no seat heat or wheel heat. There was some chain rattle on startup. The steering wheel spun freely without the weight algorithm. It shook as the tires worked out their flat spots. I could see over traffic again. “Hello, old friend.” We filled the gas cans and the truck, and I know I’ll get two weeks before stopping for gas again. And on the other hand, I’m in my 50s and would like to own a “nice car.” I am truly sad to let this one go.
Well, I said I would report on it after having some time in it, so here goes. Here’s the review.
This is my first in-depth time in any BMW product, so I’m largely not familiar with anything the brand has built since the late 90’s, as several of my friends have or had e36s which I’ve had some time with, and rather enjoy. We purchased the used X3e in hopes of finding me a new daily driver. My commute can be anywhere from 1-2 hours round trip, with up to 6 or so individual drives during the day. Part of the attraction was the ease in which making all those jaunts would be in a right-sized SUV with the additional ease of tight parking lots and always-traffic. I’m coming from a Ford F150, work-spec truck.
The X3e sold itself to us before we left the parking lot on the test drive. Visibility, low belt line, buttery low-speed steering, an over-abundance of creature comforts, and dead-silent ride were high wants and it met these in every way. We signed the paperwork and drove home.
Driving dynamics.
It’s a little hard to have fun with this car because it doesn’t come alive until you are out-driving acceptable traffic flow. The dynamics for a slightly raised SUV are the best of breed. Until you flog it, however, it’s bored and so are you. A lesser handling car can engage the driver sooner in managing the chassis and gravity. It wants to play, but it simply yawns until you are well-beyond where 7 people shake their fists at you. The hybrid struggles to communicate braking action well. I won’t say it’s any better or worse than Toyota’s system - BMW may have the advantage under aggressive braking, while the Toyota system is more dialed-in during normal-people stops. Acceleration is, as one would hope with a hybrid, ample and diesel-like in that it simply pulls and pulls and you look down and you’re 20 mph higher than you thought you would be. The 8 speed transmission is superb.
I need to state this again, I’ve never driven a vehicle with better engine/transmission tuning, other than a 328 I test drove a few years ago. I know the diehard bimmer crowd longs for the return of the sweet straight 6, but to this driver the 4 turbo is a refined and eager playmate on recess and plow horse on commute. “Don’t muzzle the ox while threshing…”
NVH.
The vehicle is quiet enough that you hear relays every time you mess with a seat heater, and things clicking in the back where big power sits. Mine had 19” wheels with Michelin pilot sport A/S, where the vehicle typically comes with RFTs. The wheels are heavy and you can tell. The X30e is heavy enough to control the unsprung mass, and they are rather softly dampened in my opinion, so you can feel the chassis working to control wheel upsets. I think a smaller wheel would increase its proclivity to play on imperfect roads, which we have plenty of here. Besides that, the little SUV leads in this class.
Seating.
I realize this is a point of contention with the brand. I found the seating comfort more consistent than the entry-level 3-series I’d tried out in the mid-teens. With those models, I drove a couple and just couldn’t do it. With the X, 3 adjustable back supports, adjustable bolsters, leg extension - I found a way to make the seat contour my profile *perfectly*. However, on drives more than an hour, I’d get sore, and then had to make adjustments to shift, but then couldn’t find a good way to sit. Perhaps with more time my body might get used to it, but I think 1-2 layers of medium-density padding would have been near ideal. As it was for the time we had it, I could not get it right for more than 45 minute stints. That said, the visibility, head height, minimal head-toss, excellent bolstering, made this a very driver-oriented vehicle. The seating design shines when one decides to throw it hard into a corner, because my body doesn’t have to compensate for the extra forces. It holds you in place, about perfectly. This is a purpose-designed car that seems to bias performance above the mundane commute.
Electronics.
The customization of the dashboard and interior features is the best I’ve seen. Interior lighting, dashboard displays, center display, all more customizable than any other brand I’ve known. It would also anticipate switching features depending on conditions. for example, if it sensed you were parking, the display would automatically switch to exterior markers (it would also do this in bumper-bumper traffic, which was a nuisance). It was a little loathe to “go back” to where I had it - like I listen heavily to podcasts, and if the vehicle interrupted that, it might return me to the general menu instead of CarPlay, and I’d have to click menu, dial the wheel, press, and then get back to where I was, when I didn’t want to leave that screen at all to begin with. At other times, it interrupts what I had up there thoughtfully, and gets me back to where I was (if it wasn’t CarPlay).
One sore spot - the steering wheel as the “speak” button, which calls up iDrive and lets you talk to it. I have an iPhone and do iPhone things with it. I could not in the BMW figure out a way to make a button activate Siri. Therefore if I wanted to verbally send a text while using any screen other than the text screen, I had to fumble through menus and press the touch screen or simply go the phone. This was a huge miss. My ford truck gets this right.
Electronics allowed me to set temperature setpoints for the heated seats and steering wheel. At first you’d think, “man this is great,” because it was. Until I realized you had to have that, because those features would not recall your last position if you turned the car off and back on. The toggle switch in my wife’s Toyota essentially does the same thing by remembering the last setting.
For night drives, my favorite setting was “OFF” for the big display. With just the instrument cluster, night driving was excellent. Otherwise there’s a ton of soft glowing things that want to catch your eye. This isn’t an aircraft on autopilot at 30,000 feet where you would find reality by instrumentation - I need to drive the car.
Switchgear - 2 critical buttons were already flaking out in this 2021… the primary “comfort mode” drive button and the central “menu” button for the entire display.
Driving modes. Best programmability I’ve seen. You can control battery management (to a degree, and for the 15 minutes you get to use the battery). You can adjust suspension and steering settings used if sport mode is activated. It will remember your settings but default back to “comfort” mode on restart. Or if you get out of the car to open the mailbox. If it senses you leave the car, it shuts off. You can’t easily “leave it idling” for your spouse with the heat on if you get out to walk into the store or the post office. It sees you gone, says, “goodbye” on the dash and goes dark, and then your wife gets cold and wonders why she can’t turn the radio on.” It’s telling her that it’s time to recharge the battery, and she would like the heat back on. Back to driving modes.
Hybrid. Mixed bag. Very mixed bag. I sprung for the hybrid because I’d hoped for a little independence from the pump. I read different experiences online about typical mpg with the X30e. It’s rated at fewer gas-only mpg than the gas-only models, but owners were claiming mid-30s while driving hard on gas only. If anything, this car induces range anxiety because the instrumentation is very effective at letting you try to manage the battery and gas tank, but you don’t have a lot of either. Hills eat up the hybrid battery, and the regen doesn’t accomplish as much as you’d want it to. You quickly exhaust your electric fuel tank, and then the gas motor kicks in and out, but then the small fuel tank (is 14Gallons) drops surprisingly quickly. It wants to be an electric car for the full duration of the battery pack, which it exhausts first, and then the gas kicks in and brings electric up to about 20%, and then it starts flipping back and forth. In this back and forth mode, if you are one who listens to the car, it’s unnerving. Engine on, engine off, engine on longer this time, engine off. Press the pedal any more and the engine comes on and the dashboard color changes. This time you can press it to 20%, last time it was 5%, engine on, dash changes color, engine off, it’s blue again. (How long is that clutch going to last???). This time it started smoothly, last time it sounded like a traditional starter (does it have one?). Same with throttle at first tip-in. On electric, there’s a moment where it would “unstick” and pop forward, but on gas, it was traditional. Except that it rarely idled. There was so much going on that it screamed through every throttle input, “you are driving a computer.”
And this is where BMW lost some of the connection with the road. The steering, braking, and throttle inputs are not raw to-the-ground controls. The steering weight is electronically proportional to speed - you can’t feel the ground through the wheel. The throttle pedal has never before felt more like a computer joystick than on this vehicle, and the brake pedal communicates and idea of stopping based on pressure. One had to learn to drive the electronics instead of driving the car. I could have gotten used to it and mastered it, but that’s a video game. I’m getting too old.
So anyway back to hybrid, between the smaller fuel tank, dubious gas-only mileage, and very limited electric only range, I think I could make it 4-5 days between fill-ups, assuming I gassed up at 1/4 tank, which is 6 trips to the gas station per month, with nightly recharging. That’s a lot. Especially since 1/8 of a tank can go by very quickly, leaving me wanting to fill up above 1/4 tank because I see on the display how quickly 1/4 tank can be consumed. Want to leave it outside tonight instead of tethered? That may send me to the gas station a day early. I hate that math, and “hate” is a poor word to encounter during the first week of ownership.
Sweet spot for efficiency was around 50-55 mph by my eye. It will get 32mpg on the “highway” at 50-55. At 70, it’s below 30, probably 27-28, including the use of regen. Electric only range was probably 16 on level ground at commute speeds of 45-70. 70 eats the pack quickly, you can watch the needle move like a timer. 35-45 was a sweet spot for electric only.
In the end: our dealer had a 10 day refund policy. This is by far the nicest vehicle I’ve owned, and we took it back. I’m sad to see it go, because the thought and engineering in the vehicle is superb, but I just couldn’t stomach the cost/complexity/living-with-what-it-wants with the shorter effective range.
We had kept my XL-spec F150. We climbed into it last night to fetch gasoline for the generator with the oncoming storm. It was cold, the interior creaked a little as we settled in. I have no hair and pulled my hat down tighter. I had no seat heat or wheel heat. There was some chain rattle on startup. The steering wheel spun freely without the weight algorithm. It shook as the tires worked out their flat spots. I could see over traffic again. “Hello, old friend.” We filled the gas cans and the truck, and I know I’ll get two weeks before stopping for gas again. And on the other hand, I’m in my 50s and would like to own a “nice car.” I am truly sad to let this one go.
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