Having options is a great thing. Succession or Ted Lasso tonight? Nikes or Skechers to the office today? French fries or a side salad with lunch? BMW is now offering buyers of its all-new max-luxe 7-series sedan an intriguing choice: Gas or electric? With either, the rest of the menu is the same.
BMW isn't the only carmaker building internal-combustion and battery-powered vehicles on the same platform; Ford, Genesis, and Volvo are doing it too. BMW is, however, the first in the upper-crust luxury-sedan space to try it.
The 7-series competes with the Mercedes-Benz S-class, but BMW's rival puts its lozenge-shaped EQS EV on bespoke underpinnings. BMW's twofer strategy offers the opportunity for a different kind of comparison test: pitting a car against itself. We gathered the gas-fired 760i xDrive and the electric i7 xDrive60 and drove them back to back in hopes of revealing whether one of those propulsion systems better supports the 7-series' luxury mission.
The 760i and the i7 are a natural match for this platform comparison for one simple reason: power. The 760i's S68 twin-turbo 4.4-liter V-8 and the i7's pair of current-excited AC synchronous motors spin up an identical 536 horses. (The other gas model in the 7-series lineup, the six-cylinder 740i, puts out 375 horsepower.) Torque output is within four pound-feet of each other too. Serendipity.
This story is from the September 2023 edition of Car and Driver.
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This story is from the September 2023 edition of Car and Driver.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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