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.