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Post by Alanović on May 10, 2024 7:33:34 GMT
Spill the beans, Dubya.
I'll open the guessing with an iX. Can't be anything else, can it?
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Post by EspadaIII on May 10, 2024 8:17:02 GMT
Yes we need to know...
I have started on the search for the I5 replacement (unlesss I extend the lease by 12 months). Going to inspect a Ford Explorer EV at some point. It's a little smaller than the I5 but may well suit me. Think it is better than the VAG group models it shares parts of its platform with.
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Post by Alanović on May 10, 2024 8:20:02 GMT
Surprised to hear those are smaller than an I5. And I didn't know it was a VAG joint venture thing. Is it an ID4/5 in disguise then, or a new platform?
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Post by EspadaIII on May 10, 2024 8:48:04 GMT
From what I read yesterday, it is an ID4/5 in disguise but built in Europe and will different battery packs so the range is longer than originally expected. If I recall, I think it sits between the ID3 and ID4 and based upon 99% of my usage, that would be perfect for me, especially if the WLTP range was up at 330 miles rather than the 280 of my I5. I need to have a crawl over it.. Waiting for a call from the dealer (in truth they rang me yesterday twice but I was examining so couldn't take the call).
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Post by Alanović on May 10, 2024 9:08:23 GMT
Interesting. Maybe Ford is going to come good on EV. Hopefully they'll make one which isn't an SUV, but I won't hold my breath.
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WDB
Full Member
Posts: 7,352
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Post by WDB on May 10, 2024 10:06:48 GMT
Spill the beans, Dubya. I'll open the guessing with an iX. Can't be anything else, can it? Yes, all right. It’s an iX40. Sport, not M Sport because M Sport costs £3k and adds nothing of value. Silver-grey outside, animal-free blue fabric inside (including the dashboard on the passenger side), motorised towbar for the bike carrier and no other options. No fancy glass roof (a big £3k so-what in the demo car) and — good reason for buying new — plain rear glass, not the ugly-kids kind. That, with the Sport’s pale roof lining (black in the M Sport) should give us all the interior lightness we need. Standard 21in wheels look better to my eye than than demo’s 22s and should be marginally more energy-efficient. This means doing without memory seats, which is a little galling in an expensive car, but that feature comes only in a ‘Comfort Pack’ that includes things we actually found uncomfortable in the demo car and adds over £2k to the price. We don’t fight over the comparatively crude stepped manual seat adjustment in the i3, so we ought to cope with stepless electric adjustment in this, especially since we’ll be changing drivers less often. But the iX comes so well equipped that there’s very little else we’d have thought of including. It has no 360° view but has enough parking aids to help, and can reverse its last 50m of forward travel automatically. (There’s a Park Assist Pro that extends this to 200m and includes changes of direction and the 360° view — but it’s another four-digit option.) No B&W audio because the standard HK is more than adequate. And no 22kW AC charger, which I considered but discarded because I couldn’t see when we’d take the 2500 kWh of 22kW DC we’d need for it to work out cheaper than an occasional rapid charge. I suppose my reasoning was to take all the things that make the iX exceptional — a pure-EV design, flat floor, space for five, long-distance comfort, sheer distinctiveness outside and in — and to add just enough to make it properly ours: the silver paint that shows off the shape (and that MrsB1 likes) and the interior finish that shows off its from-the-future quality. Entirely rational decision? Of course not; rational is Enyaq-shaped. But by the time both are fully paid for (and even with Škoda’s 0% PCP against BMW’s below-base rate) I calculate the difference at £10-13k, not allowing for any difference in long-term residual value. That, then, is the cost of something that brings the CLS’s waftiness and sybarite-factor (and frameless windows; I like frameless windows) but without its appetite for fossils or its dieselly grumble at low speeds. Would I have preferred it in estate car form? Of course — but the only viable estate car option is the i5 Touring, which is even longer than the iX and doesn’t have anything like the passsenger space. And wouldn’t have got me a 20 percent discount, not this year anyway. Vić will have to trust me on this but despite the dimensions, the iX feels less like a mummywagon SUV than the smaller iX3. And — not irrelevantly — this one is built in Germany, not in China. It’ll be ready in July.
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Post by Alanović on May 10, 2024 10:27:03 GMT
Congratulations, I wish you all the best with it and hope you enjoy it. I'd have ordered it in brown though.
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WDB
Full Member
Posts: 7,352
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Post by WDB on May 10, 2024 11:33:57 GMT
Of course you would, Vić, but thank you. I haven’t told Boy1 yet, who’ll probably be appalled. What he doesn’t know is that it’s getting him off the books this summer that will make it possible to afford this out of income rather than delving too deep into savings. Early July is when we’re going on holiday to the wilds of North Yorkshire for a week, so I’m guessing we’ll do that in the CLS and take delivery when we get back. It will mean that the two graduation trips — the short one to Southampton and the three-nighter to York — will be done in the new bus. Appropriate, in that York has been my benchmark long drive for assessing EVs, and it was the surprise trip there in the i3 in March that straightened out my ideas of what was possible and necessary. BMW kindly knocked up a whole set of renderings for me. There are animated versions too, but here are an exterior and the all-important interior to give you the idea. (I’m not expecting it to come with a Munich number plate, though. Nor for it to have the magic windscreen that shows a view of what appears to be Hong Kong while the nav screen has the car on the edge of Hyde Park.)
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Post by Alanović on May 10, 2024 11:36:59 GMT
Does look a bit brown.
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WDB
Full Member
Posts: 7,352
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Post by WDB on May 10, 2024 11:39:53 GMT
In certain lights, yes it does. I think I mentioned that it reminds me of a shade that Saab used to offer that picked up the light in a similar way.
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Post by EspadaIII on May 10, 2024 12:11:09 GMT
From what I read yesterday, it is an ID4/5 in disguise but built in Europe and will different battery packs so the range is longer than originally expected. If I recall, I think it sits between the ID3 and ID4 and based upon 99% of my usage, that would be perfect for me, especially if the WLTP range was up at 330 miles rather than the 280 of my I5. I need to have a crawl over it.. Waiting for a call from the dealer (in truth they rang me yesterday twice but I was examining so couldn't take the call). Dealer called me as I hit the Post button... None in the country until October at the earliest so no chance of having a proper mooch, much less a test drive. But there will be plenty of time to make a decision after I get behind the wheel. In the meantime, I am looking for other options. As much as the iX looks great and Dubya got a great deal, I just don't need a car that big any more. I think I can count on the fingers of two hands the times I really needed all the space in the E350, and yesterday was I think the first time in the whole two years I have had the I5 that I put the back seats down (went to the tip). If Hyundai or Kia upped the charging speed in the Niro or Kona from 72Kw to over 125kW it would make a difference, but 72kW these days is too slow when I have seen 175kW+ in the I5.
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Post by Humph on May 10, 2024 13:42:49 GMT
Hope you enjoy it WDB. On the not needing an estate thing though, every time I convince myself that I don’t, something crops up that reminds me that I do. I must decide to shift more things more often than is “normal” I guess. In other news, I managed to fall (actually it was more of a short flight than a fall) off my bike fairly spectacularly again this morning. Went down bloody hard on my “bad” side. Arm bruised but fine thank goodness, can’t say the same for my ribs though… 😬
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Post by Alanović on May 10, 2024 14:05:26 GMT
Oh blimey Humph. Get well soon. Just as I was about to go out on a 20 mile bike BSO ride tomorrow morning.
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Post by Humph on May 10, 2024 14:28:30 GMT
Yeah well, if you avoid steep fast muddy descents with 10’ jumps over gullies at the end, you’ll probs be fine… 😉
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Post by Alanović on May 10, 2024 14:36:07 GMT
None of them on my route, it's the Amazon delivery vans, SUV mums from Henley, and souped up Corsas from the wrong end of Maidenhead that I'm more worried about.
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