CNN —
Electric vehicles, with their need for lots of expensive batteries, have often trended towards luxury. Electric cars from Porsche, Mercedes, and Audi have all hit the market in recent years. BMW has come out with its own electric cars like the iX and i4 and now the new i7, a battery-powered take on the brand’s new most expensive sedan.
While BMW is probably better known for its smaller 3 Series and 4 Series cars, the 7 Series is the brand’s showpiece for luxury and technology. The i7 is the electric version of a new generation of the BMW 7 Series flagship unveiled on Wednesday.
With a starting price of $119,300, the all-wheel-drive 536 horsepower i7 xDrive60 will be able to go 300 miles on a full charge, which is less than the competing Mercedes EQS or Lucid Air. It will also offer a V8-powered gasoline version, the 760i X-drive, with the same horsepower output and a starting price that’s $300 less. It will look almost identical. A gas-powered version with a 6-cylinder engine will have a starting price of $93,300.
This new version also highlights BMW’s flexibility-first electric vehicle strategy, which is different from that of luxury competitors like Mercedes-Benz and Audi. While those other luxury brands’ electric vehicles are based on dedicated EV chassis with little relationship to their gas-powered models, BMW emphasizes adaptable engineering as its edge.
Source: edition.cnn.com
