- Overview
- What is it?
- How powerful is the XM?
- Why does the XM look so aggressive?
- What's the verdict?
- Audi RSQ8
- Aston Martin DBX
- Bentley Bentayga
- Driving
- What is it like to drive?
- I’ll buy an iX if I want an EV. What about the engine?
- Is the XM fast?
- How’s the handling? Truly M car worthy?
- What about comfort?
- Interior
- What is it like on the inside?
- Buying
- What should I be paying?
Overview
What is it?
The most expensive BMW money can buy, the most powerful M car ever made, and only the second ever M-only model, after the M1 supercar of the 1970s.
As you can see however, this is no supercar. It’s an enormous SUV, as BMW seeks to splice the success of its best-selling X cars with M Division power like never before. Sounds a bit like those diet plans which claim you can eat all the cake and chips you want and still end up shredded enough to turn in an Oscar-winning performance as a comic book superhero.
In fairness, BMW has pulled off the ‘have your tall, compromised SUV cake and eat it’ trick before, with the original X5 and then the X6. Those cars uprooted the goalposts for what was expected of how a big, heavy, high-riding car handled, and didn’t do BMW’s bottom line any harm either. Which is why there’s now a bijou X1, an enormous X7 and every number in between is covered. There’s even an electric-only crossover: the iX.
So why isn’t the XM called, say, the X8? BMW’s engineers say it’s because simply giving it the next number up underplays how much oomph and extravagance the XM offers (and calling it the X93,421 would’ve looked a bit messy).
This is also the car that moves the M Division into the plug-in hybrid universe – set to expand rapidly in the next model cycle as the M5 and replacements for the X5M and X6M morph into petrol-electric mutants with dizzying power outputs.
How powerful is the XM?
If you’re buying a car that declares ‘get out of my way’ quite as threateningly as the XM, you’d expect a big lump of power. And you get it. Lurking behind those enormous LED-illuminated nostrils is M’s twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8, developing 482bhp. It’s boosted by a gearbox-nestled electric motor, for a total of 644bhp and 590lb ft. That’s sufficient to punt your 2,710kg declaration of deep personal insecurity from 0-62mph in 4.3 seconds and keep on galloping all the way to 174mph.
It’s improbable you’d need a faster super-SUV, but BMW’s built one anyway. Just in case. Not an XM Competition, but an XM ‘Label Red’. It develops 745 horsepower.
Why does the XM look so aggressive?
Because the biggest market for this car will be the USA, followed by China. Catch a news bulletin lately and you’d imagine those nations have little to nothing in common, opinion-wise. But they do at least agree on 4×4 design: no grille is too engorged, no bodywork too musclebound, no alloy wheel too vast.
BMW insists the XM has a coupe-ish roofline and doffs its cap to the M1 with the twin roundel badges etched into the rear window, but that’s like claiming the Burj Khalifa pays homage to the pyramids of Egypt because they’re both pointy at the top.
This is very possibly the most obnoxious looking car ever devised, and while you could call that brave or daring, there’s no getting away from the fact that the XM invites people to judge you. It dares anyone who claps eyes on it to respond with hate.
At a time when the planet is once again crisis-ridden and divided, would you choose to transport your beloved family in a vehicle that invites such scorn?
What's the verdict?
“Usually, we end up grudgingly respecting the engineering that lies beneath. The XM is the first X car not to enjoy that reprieve”
The XM predisposes everyone to dislike it because it looks villainous. But BMW has form for bolshy-looking SUVs that then woo you with sports saloon-handling and mature cabins. What’s surprising about the XM is that it lacks the raw talent to earn its forgiveness. There’s a sense this car’s been asked to do too much – to ensnare too many different customer groups in a board meeting somewhere in Munich.
It’s too stiff to be a luxury car, and too compromised to be a benchmark performance car. M cars used to be defined by high-revving motorsport-derived engines, and latterly by innate chassis balance and huge configurability. The XM isn’t just clumsy to look at: it also drives with a ham-fisted heavy hand.
A X5M is a superior car to drive, an iX is infinitely preferable to travel in, and if you want a plug-in hybrid super-SUV Porsche’s ageing Cayenne Turbo S e-Hybrid (set for a big update and range boost in summer 2023) is a much more rounded device. Each costs considerably less than the XM.
Apparently order books are already bulging, which will be all the justification BMW needs to say it’s got the pitch for the XM spot on. And it’s far from alone: Purosangue, Urus, Bentayga, Cullinan… super-SUVs are money printers. Even if the hopelessly vulgar image seems woefully out of step with the cars the world really needs right now.
Usually, we end up grudgingly respecting the engineering that lies beneath. The XM is the first X car not to enjoy that reprieve. BMW’s engineers have done their best, but the more you fiddle with the XM’s modes and try to unlock its potential, the more you might suspect the people who brought us the stunning M5 CS and superb M3 Touring have been sold down the river by the greed of the marketing department on this one.
Audi RSQ8
Aston Martin DBX
Bentley Bentayga
£133,100 – £203,080
Continue reading: Driving
Driving
What is it like to drive?
It’s an odd moment. You climb aboard this evil-looking machine, which appears to be styled to look like some sort of robotic warthog. You know there’s a latent V8 under the bonnet. There’s M logos smattered around the cabin. So you prod the blood red starter button and… nothing. An electronic whoosh sound, and the screens come alive. The XM is ready to drive, but it’s rather an anti-climax.
This is of course because the XM is a plug-in hybrid, so it always sets off under electric drive. Within the eight-speed automatic gearbox lives a 197bhp, 206lb ft electric motor. That’s a whole Mk5 Golf GTI’s worth of power, but because the XM weighs more than 2.7 tonnes, it’s decidedly un-spritely under e-drive. Quiet, though. Freakishly so. Road roar from those massive tyres (base spec gets 21s, or you could have 22- or 23-inch rims) is impressively dampened out, and at town speeds it’s near silent. Only as you head past 50mph or so do you start to notice the fussy M mirrors generate a colossal amount of wind noise.
I’ll buy an iX if I want an EV. What about the engine?
Handily, BMW has provided a V8 to drown this irritation out. Probably overkill, but arousing the 4.4-litre twin-turbo powerplant certainly puts the XM’s corpulent weight to the back of your mind. Now you’ve got 644bhp at your mercy, and 590lb ft (or 800Nm) of torque. Healthy numbers, but somehow in a world of 700bhp Aston Martin DBXs and 1,000bhp Tesla Model Xs, BMW’s very-fast-car-with-X-in-the-name isn’t outrageously powerful. Then again, the V8’s deeply unstressed, pumping out ‘just’ 482bhp. It can go much, much higher…
Is the XM fast?
Where the XM feels stupidly rapid is getting off the line. Squeeze throttle and brake together and the car tenses, as ‘eLaunch active’ pops up on the screen. Release the brake and for the first ten metres, it feels like a full-bore launch in a potent EV – all instant torque. That’s the electric motor doing the business as the turbos spool up. Right on cue, the V8 bellows into life and the surge continues. 62mph is passed in 4.3 seconds, 100mph not long after. It’s a relentless sensation, but would have more sense of occasion if the V8 wasn’t so strained and reedy-sounding. This is one M car where the dubbed-over engine noise autotune is actually welcome.
The powertrain suffers another quirk. We’re used to plug-in hybrids with imperceptible engine/electric handover by now. The XM isn’t so polite. BMW’s engineers say it’s a deliberate choice: V8s aren’t long for this world and they want to celebrate the moment it churns into life. Cute idea, but in real life driving it just feels clumsy. Peel out of a roundabout on part throttle and the e-motor whirrs you along quite happily. Then the V8 snorts into life and there’s a small but nonetheless irritating clunk in your momentum. It’s equally tricky to come to a stop smoothly: the brake feel is fine, but just as the wheels roll to standstill, there’s a shunt.
BMW launched the XM in the USA, where it felt like a tiny pipsqueak between all the chrome-laden GMCs and Super Dutys. Trundling across a grid-pattern city with a stop light every quarter-mile quickly becomes tiresome when a car is this difficult to drive smoothly. It’s a strange flaw, given non-M BMW PHEVs are unimpeachably well-mannered when juggling battery and petrol propulsion.
How’s the handling? Truly M car worthy?
The XM certainly doesn’t want for hardware. It’s had the whole kitchen sink, downstairs toilet and walk-in bathtub thrown at it: rear-wheel steering, 48-volt anti-roll stabilisation suspension bushings from the M5 all feature.
And if you break down how the car goes round a corner, then the XM stacks up: it’s reasonably agile, there’s no scrabbling from the unloaded wheels losing traction, and it does indeed remain uncannily level. The cornering speeds at your disposal are beyond impressive: they’re terrifying.
But as with so many cars which deploy space-race amounts of tech to cheat physics, there’s a remoteness to the overall experience that isn’t worthy of the M car that BMW repeatedly insists this car is. The steering’s indistinct just off centre – likely a result of the rear-steering counteracting any early inputs as it works to keep the car stable. It’s also lacking the outrageousness of an X5 M – an often-forgotten super-SUV which uses BMW’s rear-biased xDrive 4×4 system to spectacular effect.
In the XM, there’s a sense that all the right bits are present, but it just doesn’t gel into an entertaining car – not as ruthless at conquering a road as a Bentayga or an Urus, and not as flamboyant and entertaining as a DBX707 or BMW’s half-a-tonne-lighter X5M.
What about comfort?
This is where the XM really struggles to make a case for its own existence. When you’ve finished being a clown in pretty much any of the other super-SUVs that £150,000 will buy, they settle into a new-age high-riding GT car mood, cosseting you from the outside world. The XM is far too firm to offer the same bandwidth. Even out of the Sport and Sport Plus modes, in the default Comfort setting, it’s simply too stiff.
Partly this is BMW managing a huge amount of hybrid drivetrain mass in an already hefty car, but usually having 48-volt stabilisation stops a deluxe SUV from rolling over in the corners and lets it settle down on the straights. It’s as though the marketing department insisted the XM felt sporty all the time, so buyers would be constantly aware it’s an M car, not say, an ‘X8’. The result is a very fast SUV that’s not especially enjoyable to drive fast, clunky to pilot slowly, and not comfortable enough to succeed as a luxury express.
Previous: Overview
Continue reading: Interior
Interior
What is it like on the inside?
The XM is a five-door five-seater. Up front feels familiar from recent BMWs: same steering wheel with M1 and M2 shortcut settings for your favoured driving modes, same twin screen dashboard combining large driver’s information readout with a 14.9-inch touchscreen (also operable by the conventional iDrive clickwheel and buttons). Heater controls live in the touchscreen, and we’d prefer tactile buttons. Taking your eyes off the road and trying to accurately tap a pixel in such a hard-riding, heavy machine isn’t clever.
As you’d hope, it’s all well screwed together and despite the punishing ride, doesn’t rattle. While the tech’s all carryover stuff (same screens, same gear lever and mode buttons, besides the M Hybrid shortcut for choosing when to deploy your electricity) there’s a new steeply inclined leather dashboard, wacky illuminated headlining and pleasingly expensive fillets of metal inlaid into the doors.
When we drove an XM prototype in 2022, one of its engineers pointed to its class-leading rear legroom as one of the car’s defining traits, which was worrying. Now it’s finished, we’re told the car doesn’t just have back seats. Oh no. It has the ‘M Lounge’. What does this mean – pop-out tables and reclining chairs? A fold-down screen a la i7 limousine? Nope. Basically it equates to an illuminated textured headlining and slightly wraparound rear seats, like a Rolls-Royce. They’re exceedingly comfortable, which takes your mind off the ride.
The boot offers 527 litres, rising to a mighty 1,820 litres with the rear seats folded. However, there’s no underfloor stowage, which means the charging cable – which lives in a tailored Gucci-esque bag that comes as standard with every XM – eats up valuable cargo space.
Previous: Driving
Continue reading: Buying
Buying
What should I be paying?
The XM is priced from £148,000, making it the most expensive BMW to date. But it’s by no means short of rivals in the 650bhp+ super 4×4 sector: with just a few options on board it’s eye-to-eye with the Audi RSQ8, Aston Martin DBX, Bentley Bentayga S, Mercedes-AMG G63, Lamborghini Urus, while the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S (set for a big update shortly) undercuts it, until you enact Stuttgart’s infamous options list.
Of all the competition, only the Porsche currently offers a high-performance plug-in hybrid option: Bentley’s Bentayga PHEV only offers a miserable V6. But if the XM appeals because of potentially low running costs, then be warned – the usual plug-in hybrid caveats apply. On the lab test the XM averages out at 176mpg, but even with a fully charged battery our test drive saw fuel economy settle at around 25mpg. That’s around twenty per cent better than an X5M, despite the half-tonne weight penalty caused by the hybrid system.
CO2 emissions officially as low as 33g/km will allow the XM to dodge urban emission zones, where it’ll promptly get stuck in the width restrictors.
BMW claims an EV-only range of some 50 miles from the 29kWh battery, which recharges from flat in just over four hours, and isn’t compatible with a rapid charger (if you’re juicing a PHEV from a fast public charge point, you’re using it incorrectly). In temperate weather we saw around 42 miles of potential e-range, but this depletes rapidly when asked to help shift the XM’s considerable bulk. On the plus side, BMW continues to use a physical button and simple sub-menu to choose between fully EV, hybrid and charge-saving modes, which we massively approve of. Other PHEVs, take note.
Previous: Interior
Continue reading: Specs & Prices
Keyword: BMW XM review