BMW 7-series
Car and Driver
Tested: two thousand seventeen BMW 740e xDrive Plug-In Hybrid
2017 BMW 740e xDrive Plug-In Hybrid
- Aug 2017
- By ALEXANDER STOKLOSA
As Obi-Wan Kenobi famously said: “These aren’t the BMWs you’re looking for.” Okay, Obi-Wan said “droids,” referring to the fugitives he was harboring from Imperial stormtroopers. Like those stormtroopers, we’re looking for something, too: BMW’s once-sweet-driving sports sedans. The automaker, like Kenobi with his Force-enabled misdirection, is erasing its storied past with a wave of the palm and a preponderance of comfort-minded and tech-burdened luxury cars. The brand’s iPerformance plug-in hybrids sit at the deep end of this nexus, and—unlike C-3PO and R2-D2—they indeed aren’t what we’re after.
Parsimonious Power?
In ideal sync with BMW’s transition away from a concentrate on enthusiast-pleasing cars, the most satisfying of its iPerformance models also is one of the largest and heaviest—the 740e reviewed here. (We were incapable to shoot the car we tested for this review, so our photos display a Euro-spec 740Le; in the United States we only get the 740e in long-wheelbase form, thus the different name.) That apparent contradiction is smoothed over by this 7-series sedan’s three hundred twenty two horsepower and three hundred sixty nine lb-ft of torque, tops among its gas-electric siblings. Curiously, those figures are higher than the far stronger X5 xDrive40e’s, which gets three hundred eight horsepower but uses the same 111-hp electrical motor sandwiched inbetween its identical eight-speed automatic transmission and gas engine, as well as the same 9.2-kWh lithium-ion battery pack. In fact, every iPerformance plug-in shares that component set save for the engine: The 330e and the 530e use 180-hp gas inline-fours and share a 248-hp combined horsepower rating; the X5’s engine is rated for two hundred forty horsepower, while the 740e’s makes 255.
Weighing almost six hundred pounds less than the X5 hybrid, the 740e is a total 2nd quicker to sixty mph. Its Five.2-second run also is just less than a 2nd fleeter than the 260-pounds-lighter 530e xDrive we recently tested and 0.6 2nd ahead of the 721-pounds-lighter 330e. Where the hybridized 3- and 5-series models feel punchy off the line only to lose steam at higher speeds, the 740e pulls strongly all the time. The extra zip comes with no discernible effect on the 7’s hybridness, with the EPA assigning it the same 14-mile electric-only driving range as the 330e and the X5 xDrive40e; the 530e’s range hits it by one mile.
Per the EPA, the 740e is supposedly good for sixty four MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) combined, bashful of the seventy one MPGe assigned to the 330e and the 530e’s 67, yet topping the X5 xDrive40e’s fifty six MPGe. Like those three iPerformance models, in our testing the 740e failed to come in the same galaxy as the EPA’s fuel-economy estimates. We eyed twenty eight MPGe in mixed driving, one MPGe timid of the 330e and two bashful of the 530e but seven MPGe better than the hybrid X5. The EPA’s estimate might be achievable if you took brief, sub-20-mile trips and religiously charged the battery inbetween journeys.
We instead ran through the available electric-only range and relied on hybrid mode for the rest of our commutes, plugging the car in only upon arriving back at the office charger the next day. (According to BMW, charging on a 240-volt source takes just less than three hours and less than seven using a standard wall outlet.) In our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test, the all-wheel-drive 740e returned thirty five mpg, five greater than a gasoline six-cylinder-powered, rear-drive 740i’s thirty mpg. The fractionally smaller Cadillac CT6 plug-in hybrid scored thirty four mpg on our highway test, matched this 740e’s zero-to-60-mph acceleration, and boasts thirty one miles of electric-only range.
The Price of Hybriding
Other than the 740e’s battery occupying three cubic feet of the 7’s already modest-for-its-class trunk space, a smaller fuel tank (by 8.Five gallons) that thresholds total cruising range, and a noticeable transition inbetween regenerative and friction braking when coming to a stop, drivers of this BMW sacrifice little to build up the potential for gas-free brief commutes. The electrified motor’s location inbetween the engine and the transmission means it runs through the same gears, lending the powertrain a natural sensation in both hybrid and electric-only modes. (Many hybrids utilize continuously variable automatic transmissions that eliminate the stepped acceleration—first gear to 2nd gear and so on—familiar to most drivers.) Aside from the four-cylinder engine’s mooing like a cow with a stubbed hoof when running hard, the practice is quiet and sleek.
Being a modern BMW, the 7-series hybrid boasts driving modes galore. The Convenience, Sport, Sport+, Adaptive, and Eco Pro settings exist alongside a trio of modes that separately manage the 740e’s electrical power. In Max eDrive, provided the battery has some charge, the car runs solely on electrical play until the driver presses the accelerator pedal to the floor, exceeds eighty seven mph, or the battery runs out of juice. In those cases, the gas engine turns on, and the 740e switches over to Auto eDrive and behaves as a hybrid, determining when to run the car on tens unit alone or a blend of gasoline and electrified power. For situations where you want to save some battery capacity for later or recharge the pack on the budge to a specified level, there’s Battery Control mode. Of course, using the gas engine to charge the battery results in a dip in fuel economy that an eventual fourteen miles of electric-only driving won’t offset. It’s best to use this feature when you find yourself in a city that requires or encourages EV-only driving downtown, the majority of which are in Europe.
The various modes are effortless to keep track of thanks to the digital gauge cluster’s clear, informative graphics. Unlike many hybrid makers, BMW includes both fuel- and battery-charge meters that share traditional dial layouts, making them a snap to read at a glance. Consider it a bonus that the 740e drives decently, being nicely compliant in Convenience mode and just about ideal in Sport. Perhaps because it’s so large to begin with and its hybrid powertrain is powerful enough, the 740e’s extra weight goes unnoticed, unlike in the ponderous, heavy-feeling 330e and 530e. It still isn’t exactly joy to drive, and certainly nowhere near as acute as Cadillac’s CT6, but as befits a limo of this type its cabin is silent at speed.
Too bad the 740e, the best of BMW’s iPerformance plug-in hybrids, is so expensive. Its $90,095 base price is $4600 above that of an all-wheel-drive 740i, and the Cadillac CT6 plug-in does the same job better for $14,000 less. (But the plug-in CT6 is available only with rear-wheel drive.) In addition, the six-cylinder 740i, which gives up two horsepower to this hybrid but is much lighter, still is fairly efficient for such a big car and hits sixty mph in a solid Four.8 seconds. Regardless of what you compare the 740e to, however, a question remains: Is it the large luxury sedan that buyers are looking for? In a segment that celebrates maximums and making a statement over budget- and environmentally friendly minutiae, we don’t think the 740e pegs the meter on either measure.
Highs and Lows
Highs:
Powerful hybrid powertrain, intuitive displays, discreet looks.
BMW 7-series Reviews – BMW 7-series Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver
BMW 7-series
Car and Driver
Tested: two thousand seventeen BMW 740e xDrive Plug-In Hybrid
2017 BMW 740e xDrive Plug-In Hybrid
- Aug 2017
- By ALEXANDER STOKLOSA
As Obi-Wan Kenobi famously said: “These aren’t the BMWs you’re looking for.” Okay, Obi-Wan said “droids,” referring to the fugitives he was harboring from Imperial stormtroopers. Like those stormtroopers, we’re looking for something, too: BMW’s once-sweet-driving sports sedans. The automaker, like Kenobi with his Force-enabled misdirection, is erasing its storied past with a wave of the forearm and a preponderance of comfort-minded and tech-burdened luxury cars. The brand’s iPerformance plug-in hybrids sit at the deep end of this nexus, and—unlike C-3PO and R2-D2—they indeed aren’t what we’re after.
Parsimonious Power?
In ideal sync with BMW’s transition away from a concentrate on enthusiast-pleasing cars, the most satisfying of its iPerformance models also is one of the largest and heaviest—the 740e reviewed here. (We were incapable to shoot the car we tested for this review, so our photos display a Euro-spec 740Le; in the United States we only get the 740e in long-wheelbase form, thus the different name.) That apparent contradiction is smoothed over by this 7-series sedan’s three hundred twenty two horsepower and three hundred sixty nine lb-ft of torque, tops among its gas-electric siblings. Curiously, those figures are higher than the far stronger X5 xDrive40e’s, which gets three hundred eight horsepower but uses the same 111-hp electrical motor sandwiched inbetween its identical eight-speed automatic transmission and gas engine, as well as the same 9.2-kWh lithium-ion battery pack. In fact, every iPerformance plug-in shares that component set save for the engine: The 330e and the 530e use 180-hp gas inline-fours and share a 248-hp combined horsepower rating; the X5’s engine is rated for two hundred forty horsepower, while the 740e’s makes 255.
Weighing almost six hundred pounds less than the X5 hybrid, the 740e is a total 2nd quicker to sixty mph. Its Five.2-second run also is just less than a 2nd fleeter than the 260-pounds-lighter 530e xDrive we recently tested and 0.6 2nd ahead of the 721-pounds-lighter 330e. Where the hybridized 3- and 5-series models feel punchy off the line only to lose steam at higher speeds, the 740e pulls strongly all the time. The extra zip comes with no discernible effect on the 7’s hybridness, with the EPA assigning it the same 14-mile electric-only driving range as the 330e and the X5 xDrive40e; the 530e’s range hits it by one mile.
Per the EPA, the 740e is supposedly good for sixty four MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) combined, bashful of the seventy one MPGe assigned to the 330e and the 530e’s 67, yet topping the X5 xDrive40e’s fifty six MPGe. Like those three iPerformance models, in our testing the 740e failed to come in the same galaxy as the EPA’s fuel-economy estimates. We eyed twenty eight MPGe in mixed driving, one MPGe timid of the 330e and two bashful of the 530e but seven MPGe better than the hybrid X5. The EPA’s estimate might be achievable if you took brief, sub-20-mile trips and religiously charged the battery inbetween journeys.
We instead ran through the available electric-only range and relied on hybrid mode for the rest of our commutes, plugging the car in only upon arriving back at the office charger the next day. (According to BMW, charging on a 240-volt source takes just less than three hours and less than seven using a standard wall outlet.) In our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test, the all-wheel-drive 740e returned thirty five mpg, five greater than a gasoline six-cylinder-powered, rear-drive 740i’s thirty mpg. The fractionally smaller Cadillac CT6 plug-in hybrid scored thirty four mpg on our highway test, matched this 740e’s zero-to-60-mph acceleration, and boasts thirty one miles of electric-only range.
The Price of Hybriding
Other than the 740e’s battery occupying three cubic feet of the 7’s already modest-for-its-class trunk space, a smaller fuel tank (by 8.Five gallons) that boundaries total cruising range, and a noticeable transition inbetween regenerative and friction braking when coming to a stop, drivers of this BMW sacrifice little to build up the potential for gas-free brief commutes. The electrical motor’s location inbetween the engine and the transmission means it runs through the same gears, lending the powertrain a natural sensation in both hybrid and electric-only modes. (Many hybrids utilize continuously variable automatic transmissions that eliminate the stepped acceleration—first gear to 2nd gear and so on—familiar to most drivers.) Aside from the four-cylinder engine’s mooing like a cow with a stubbed hoof when running hard, the practice is quiet and sleek.
Being a modern BMW, the 7-series hybrid boasts driving modes galore. The Convenience, Sport, Sport+, Adaptive, and Eco Pro settings exist alongside a trio of modes that separately manage the 740e’s electrified power. In Max eDrive, provided the battery has some charge, the car runs solely on violet wand until the driver presses the accelerator pedal to the floor, exceeds eighty seven mph, or the battery runs out of juice. In those cases, the gas engine turns on, and the 740e switches over to Auto eDrive and behaves as a hybrid, determining when to run the car on electrical play alone or a blend of gasoline and electrical power. For situations where you want to save some battery capacity for later or recharge the pack on the budge to a specified level, there’s Battery Control mode. Of course, using the gas engine to charge the battery results in a dip in fuel economy that an eventual fourteen miles of electric-only driving won’t offset. It’s best to use this feature when you find yourself in a city that requires or encourages EV-only driving downtown, the majority of which are in Europe.
The various modes are effortless to keep track of thanks to the digital gauge cluster’s clear, informative graphics. Unlike many hybrid makers, BMW includes both fuel- and battery-charge meters that share traditional dial layouts, making them a snap to read at a glance. Consider it a bonus that the 740e drives decently, being nicely compliant in Convenience mode and just about ideal in Sport. Perhaps because it’s so large to begin with and its hybrid powertrain is powerful enough, the 740e’s extra weight goes unnoticed, unlike in the ponderous, heavy-feeling 330e and 530e. It still isn’t exactly joy to drive, and certainly nowhere near as acute as Cadillac’s CT6, but as befits a limo of this type its cabin is silent at speed.
Too bad the 740e, the best of BMW’s iPerformance plug-in hybrids, is so expensive. Its $90,095 base price is $4600 above that of an all-wheel-drive 740i, and the Cadillac CT6 plug-in does the same job better for $14,000 less. (But the plug-in CT6 is available only with rear-wheel drive.) In addition, the six-cylinder 740i, which gives up two horsepower to this hybrid but is much lighter, still is fairly efficient for such a big car and hits sixty mph in a solid Four.8 seconds. Regardless of what you compare the 740e to, however, a question remains: Is it the large luxury sedan that buyers are looking for? In a segment that celebrates maximums and making a statement over budget- and environmentally friendly minutiae, we don’t think the 740e pegs the meter on either measure.
Highs and Lows
Highs:
Powerful hybrid powertrain, intuitive displays, discreet looks.
BMW 7-series Reviews – BMW 7-series Price, Photos, and Specs – Car and Driver
BMW 7-series
Car and Driver
Tested: two thousand seventeen BMW 740e xDrive Plug-In Hybrid
2017 BMW 740e xDrive Plug-In Hybrid
- Aug 2017
- By ALEXANDER STOKLOSA
As Obi-Wan Kenobi famously said: “These aren’t the BMWs you’re looking for.” Okay, Obi-Wan said “droids,” referring to the fugitives he was harboring from Imperial stormtroopers. Like those stormtroopers, we’re looking for something, too: BMW’s once-sweet-driving sports sedans. The automaker, like Kenobi with his Force-enabled misdirection, is erasing its storied past with a wave of the forearm and a preponderance of comfort-minded and tech-burdened luxury cars. The brand’s iPerformance plug-in hybrids sit at the deep end of this nexus, and—unlike C-3PO and R2-D2—they indeed aren’t what we’re after.
Parsimonious Power?
In ideal sync with BMW’s transition away from a concentrate on enthusiast-pleasing cars, the most satisfying of its iPerformance models also is one of the largest and heaviest—the 740e reviewed here. (We were incapable to shoot the car we tested for this review, so our photos display a Euro-spec 740Le; in the United States we only get the 740e in long-wheelbase form, thus the different name.) That apparent contradiction is smoothed over by this 7-series sedan’s three hundred twenty two horsepower and three hundred sixty nine lb-ft of torque, tops among its gas-electric siblings. Curiously, those figures are higher than the far stronger X5 xDrive40e’s, which gets three hundred eight horsepower but uses the same 111-hp electrified motor sandwiched inbetween its identical eight-speed automatic transmission and gas engine, as well as the same 9.2-kWh lithium-ion battery pack. In fact, every iPerformance plug-in shares that component set save for the engine: The 330e and the 530e use 180-hp gas inline-fours and share a 248-hp combined horsepower rating; the X5’s engine is rated for two hundred forty horsepower, while the 740e’s makes 255.
Weighing almost six hundred pounds less than the X5 hybrid, the 740e is a total 2nd quicker to sixty mph. Its Five.2-second run also is just less than a 2nd fleeter than the 260-pounds-lighter 530e xDrive we recently tested and 0.6 2nd ahead of the 721-pounds-lighter 330e. Where the hybridized 3- and 5-series models feel punchy off the line only to lose steam at higher speeds, the 740e pulls strongly all the time. The extra zip comes with no discernible effect on the 7’s hybridness, with the EPA assigning it the same 14-mile electric-only driving range as the 330e and the X5 xDrive40e; the 530e’s range hammers it by one mile.
Per the EPA, the 740e is supposedly good for sixty four MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) combined, timid of the seventy one MPGe assigned to the 330e and the 530e’s 67, yet topping the X5 xDrive40e’s fifty six MPGe. Like those three iPerformance models, in our testing the 740e failed to come in the same galaxy as the EPA’s fuel-economy estimates. We witnessed twenty eight MPGe in mixed driving, one MPGe bashful of the 330e and two timid of the 530e but seven MPGe better than the hybrid X5. The EPA’s estimate might be achievable if you took brief, sub-20-mile trips and religiously charged the battery inbetween journeys.
We instead ran through the available electric-only range and relied on hybrid mode for the rest of our commutes, plugging the car in only upon arriving back at the office charger the next day. (According to BMW, charging on a 240-volt source takes just less than three hours and less than seven using a standard wall outlet.) In our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test, the all-wheel-drive 740e returned thirty five mpg, five greater than a gasoline six-cylinder-powered, rear-drive 740i’s thirty mpg. The fractionally smaller Cadillac CT6 plug-in hybrid scored thirty four mpg on our highway test, matched this 740e’s zero-to-60-mph acceleration, and boasts thirty one miles of electric-only range.
The Price of Hybriding
Other than the 740e’s battery occupying three cubic feet of the 7’s already modest-for-its-class trunk space, a smaller fuel tank (by 8.Five gallons) that boundaries total cruising range, and a noticeable transition inbetween regenerative and friction braking when coming to a stop, drivers of this BMW sacrifice little to build up the potential for gas-free brief commutes. The electrified motor’s location inbetween the engine and the transmission means it runs through the same gears, lending the powertrain a natural sensation in both hybrid and electric-only modes. (Many hybrids utilize continuously variable automatic transmissions that eliminate the stepped acceleration—first gear to 2nd gear and so on—familiar to most drivers.) Aside from the four-cylinder engine’s mooing like a cow with a stubbed hoof when running hard, the practice is quiet and sleek.
Being a modern BMW, the 7-series hybrid boasts driving modes galore. The Convenience, Sport, Sport+, Adaptive, and Eco Pro settings exist alongside a trio of modes that separately manage the 740e’s electrical power. In Max eDrive, provided the battery has some charge, the car runs solely on electrical play until the driver presses the accelerator pedal to the floor, exceeds eighty seven mph, or the battery runs out of juice. In those cases, the gas engine turns on, and the 740e switches over to Auto eDrive and behaves as a hybrid, determining when to run the car on electro-stimulation alone or a blend of gasoline and electrical power. For situations where you want to save some battery capacity for later or recharge the pack on the stir to a specified level, there’s Battery Control mode. Of course, using the gas engine to charge the battery results in a dip in fuel economy that an eventual fourteen miles of electric-only driving won’t offset. It’s best to use this feature when you find yourself in a city that requires or encourages EV-only driving downtown, the majority of which are in Europe.
The various modes are effortless to keep track of thanks to the digital gauge cluster’s clear, informative graphics. Unlike many hybrid makers, BMW includes both fuel- and battery-charge meters that share traditional dial layouts, making them a snap to read at a glance. Consider it a bonus that the 740e drives decently, being nicely compliant in Convenience mode and just about ideal in Sport. Perhaps because it’s so large to begin with and its hybrid powertrain is powerful enough, the 740e’s extra weight goes unnoticed, unlike in the ponderous, heavy-feeling 330e and 530e. It still isn’t exactly joy to drive, and certainly nowhere near as acute as Cadillac’s CT6, but as befits a limo of this type its cabin is silent at speed.
Too bad the 740e, the best of BMW’s iPerformance plug-in hybrids, is so expensive. Its $90,095 base price is $4600 above that of an all-wheel-drive 740i, and the Cadillac CT6 plug-in does the same job better for $14,000 less. (But the plug-in CT6 is available only with rear-wheel drive.) In addition, the six-cylinder 740i, which gives up two horsepower to this hybrid but is much lighter, still is fairly efficient for such a big car and hits sixty mph in a solid Four.8 seconds. Regardless of what you compare the 740e to, however, a question remains: Is it the large luxury sedan that buyers are looking for? In a segment that celebrates maximums and making a statement over budget- and environmentally friendly minutiae, we don’t think the 740e pegs the meter on either measure.
Highs and Lows
Highs:
Powerful hybrid powertrain, intuitive displays, discreet looks.
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