Another week, another formerly attractive BMW model was officially revealed as a next-generation or LCI (Life Cycle Impulse – or, as everyone else calls it, a facelift). However, I can't help but rant about it.
Excuse me for calling out BMW's designers because they are standing tall in a crowd yet again. If you ask me, it's the wrong one, but it seems the Bavarians have decided that bad publicity is always better than no publicity. Hence their recent string of gloriously hideous, quirky, or laughable presentations.
When I come to think about it, probably everything started with the iX that no one really understands – not even the stars that were paid to endorse it. Then the 4 Series plus the M3 and M4 brought us the stupidest interpretation of the classically vertical kidney grille in the form of a double coffin, as one of my wisecracking colleagues joked.
And you know what? For the sake of the mighty 3.0-liter inline-six engine, I was willing to put up with any jokes and decided that if I had the money, I would snatch a BMW M3 Touring in an instant. Oh, and don't get me started on the latest M2 because its Minecraft-like design is umpteen times preferable to the hideous looks exhibited by the 7 Series, i7, X7 LCI, or the BMW XM Label Red.
These are just examples from the back of my head with no additional research – I'm afraid to open their online portals these days for fear of another controversial model jumping at me out of the bloom. Well, now add the 2024 BMW X2 and iX2 to the list of potential scares. Frankly, I never understood the need for coupe-SUV models ever since the BMW X6 launched this idea as the fashionable item of the year across the automotive industry.
Since then, BMW has done a lot of related things like the Gran Coupe coupe-sedan models or the X2, X4, and X6 SACs (Sports Activity Coupe) – and I know diehard fans would instead send me to impending doom than admitting that the Bavarians have an issue with their designs. It's like they lock in a vault with no outside communication with every team working on a new or facelifted model and ask them to come up with their most outrageous ideas – and they don't even care that model series have nothing in common across the board.
Photo: BMW
Oh, well, as I said, there's one BMW I would buy with my eyes closed and never think about my friends and family's jokes about its design – the M3 Touring. On the other hand, the 2024 BMW X2 is the opposite of that. It's a lot less practical, marginally uglier from the front, and a lot more hideous from the rear, and it only has two options in America - X2 xDrive28i with 241 hp and M35i xDrive packing 312 hp. As opposed to that, Europe's X2 series gets diesel and gas options plus the iX2. And that's the one I want to talk about a little bit more.
It's not outlined as an arrival in America, even though it has good technical credentials - 64.8-kWh battery, 308 horsepower for flagship duties (European M35i xDrive X2s are limited to 296 hp instead of 312 like in America), and a range estimate of 417 – 449 kilometers (259 – 279 miles). Sure, the latter is based on the milder WLTP cycle, so it wouldn't stand a chance against the Tesla boogeyman: Model Y or even the Model 3. Of course, the latter are marginally larger than the iX2, but that also makes them a lot more practical to begin with.
And I think the main reason why BMW is not bringing the iX2 to America, at least for now, is the Tesla pricing wars. Everyone involved with the EV sector in the United States now needs to heed that – from Kia to Genesis and from Ford to Honda and Volvo. In fact, BMW might be scared not just of the mighty Tesla models but also of Volvo's China-built EX30 – they're in the same subcompact luxury crossover SUV segment, and starting at just $34,950, the Swedish-Chinese EV undercuts not just Tesla but even the Volvo XC40 Recharge!
By the way, if you want to know some of BMW's expectations about the all-new X2, you should know they're not small at all – at least judging by Australia's pricing strategy. Over in the Land Down Under, the Bavarians want no less than AUD75,900 ($48,695) and AUD92,900 ($59,600) for the xDrive20i and M35i xDrive versions of the new-gen X2, respectively. That's a lot of greenbacks, no matter how you look at it, and the iX2 pricing wasn't even revealed to try and calm the shock. So, in conclusion, the iX2 is little and impractical, not so cute, and probably way more expensive than anyone wants to admit – yeah, now I understand why BMW decided to refrain from bringing it to the US market!
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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