It’s hard to believe the owner of a 7 Series would ever take the large luxury sedan around a track but BMW South Korea did it anyway. Not just any version of the flagship model, but the purely electric i7. If you’re wondering where the unexpected hot lap took place, it happened at the company’s Driving Center. Before performing the time attack, the automaker’s regional division strapped a few cameras onto the luxobarge’s body as well as inside to create a more immersive experience.
When a car is nearly 5.4 meters (over 212 inches) long and 2,640 kilograms (5,820 pounds), you know from the get-go it’s not going to take down any lap records even if Max Verstappen is driving it. Nevertheless, the first electric 7 Series performed admirably as BMW South Korea managed to perfectly match the lap time of an M240i, a far smaller, lighter, and nimbler sports coupe. Indeed, both cars completed the course in 1 minute and 31.02 seconds, making them among the fastest tested at that track.
How did other models fare? The i4 M50 – BMW’s best-selling car from M in 2022 – was unsurprisingly faster, completing the run in 1:28.22 while the M4 Coupe took 1:25.06. The i7 xDrive was faster than the following vehicles: iX xDrive50 (1:33.14), i4 eDrive40 (1:34.22), iX3 (1:35.23), and the 420i Convertible (1:39.10). BMW South Korea also tested the previous-generation 7 Series a while back, a plug-in hybrid 745Le that did the job in 1:35.17.
Unveiled last week at the Auto Shanghai 2023 in China, the i7 M70 should prove to be even faster considering it packs considerably more punch. With 650 horsepower and 1,100 Newton-meters of torque, the M Performance electric 7 Series rockets to 62 mph (100 km/h) in 3.7 seconds before topping out at an electronically capped 155 mph (250 km/h).
Although the i7 xDrive60 is now the base version of the electric 7 Series in most parts of the world, China has a lesser rear-wheel-drive eDrive50L with a single motor.
Source: BMW Korea / YouTube
