BMW iX v Audi e-tron v Mercedes EQC review & RANGE TEST!

which is the best electric suv between the new bmw ix the mercedes eqc or audi e-tron well in this video i'm going to find out and to do that i'm going to compare what they're like to drive and their efficiency in three key driving conditions on a twisty road on the motorway or in town i'm also going to compare their designs their interiors see how practical they are try their technology and of course i'm going to launch them to time them over the sunny quarter mile and from north to 60 because i'm at watson and you're watching car wow buying a new car then head to car wow and my team will help you find your next car at a fair price car wow your one-stop car buying comparison site let's start this video by talking about all the battery stuff rather me just list out a load of numbers which you'll forget i'm going to show them as graphics on the screen okay so for these very cars i've got here these are their battery capacities these are their claimed ranges these are their fastest charging rates on dc and these are how long they're going to take you to charge on a seven kilowatt wall charger at home you got that okay let's carry on with the video what i'm gonna do now is port those range claims to the test so i'm going to drive each car at 70 miles an hour on the motorway and see what their energy consumption is like and then work out the real world range if you're driving them on the motorway let's start off in this mercedes eqc tell you what though driving at 70 miles an hour in this eq see it's pretty relaxing a little bit of wind noise just a little bit but it's very nice and it's comfy over bumps it just like wafts along nicely starting price one of these sixty seven thousand pounds that you can save two thousand six hundred pounds off on on average through car wow in fact if you're thinking about changing your car then click on the pop out banner up there for the link in the description below to go to car wow you can actually sell your old car through us so we'll get ideas to bid on your car to make sure you get a good price for it and then you can make sure that you're getting a good price for the car you're buying as well through us now if you want to do that at a later date simply google wow me car wow and we will wow you i'm going to reset the trip computer and we'll see just how efficient this eqc is reset while i'm doing this test i have actually got the car's ventilation system on but i've got it set to what i'd normally have it so it's at 22 degrees for me right now which is nice that does affect the battery a little bit but not too much as long as you don't have the heater blasting away your heat seats and stuff on and i haven't got the one i just want to say a big thank you to virtue mercedes who have loaned us this car virtue is one of our trusted car wow partners if you're looking for mercedes you can go check them out one thing i've noticed while driving speed in this car is the fact that while the suspension feels nice and soft because this surface is a little bit bumpy you can feel a slight fidget in this car suspension it's not like a comfy or anything like that it's just that you can feel the car moving a little bit beneath you we are coming up to the four mile mark what will be the average consumption 2.3 miles per kilowatt hour so this car has a battery capacity of 80 kilowatts that means the real world range will be 184 miles let's do the next car i've jumped into the bmw into the same thing again i've got the cruise control set to 70 miles an hour i've got the temperature 22 no heated seats on i'm going to reset the trip computer and see what this thing does when you're cruising at 70 miles an hour so here comes the starting point now reset let's do this so the first thing i notice when driving this compared to that mercedes is that it feels just as comfy yeah it's not quite so fidgety over the minor imperfections there's not much in it though also there's not much in the difference in noise levels i think this is probably ever so slightly quieter overall wind noise is a bit less though there is a bit more wind noise from just around here than in the mercedes once again though the differences are marginal and really you've got to be a motoring journalist trying to do his job to justify his existence to spot the difference so let me tell you about this bmw ix it starts from 70 000 pounds for the ix40 whereas this ix50 starts from 94 000 pounds what you're paying for more power and a bigger battery so with 105 kilowatt hour capacity it should give you a good range but what is the real world range we're going to find out in a moment oh here we go it's going to flip over now it's going to flip over now what we got we've got 2.2 miles per kilowatt hour now when you times that about the battery capacity of 105 kilowatts the range would be 231 miles so slightly less efficient at speed than the mercedes but that bigger battery just does the job in the end finally then i've jumped into the aud now the ad e-tron has a low starting price it kicks off at just over 60 000 pounds now that's for the normal one if you want the sportback it's about a thousand pounds more obviously this is the s so it's got tri motors and the 87 kilowatt hour battery in it rather than normal 65 as a result it's more expensive 90 000 pounds thankfully you can save a decent amount of money through car wires the normal e-tron you can save an average of 5 000 pounds with the sport back the average saving across the range through car wow is around 3 000 pounds so if you're thinking about buying one of these make sure you check out car wow for the latest offers also i want to say a big thank you to the guys at lucas audi they're one of our trusted car wow dealers and they've lent me this car to film today very kind of them so why is this howdy each one like to drive when are you cruising along the motorway well it's quiet the best car for wind noise as in it has the least amount of wind noise though i am noticing a bit of tyre noise but maybe that's because it's the sporty s version with some chunkier meteor tires and they're nice and comfy the suspension is slightly firmer than the other two cars but that's once again because it's the s versus got sportier suspension but it's not uncomfy real good quality air suspension it's so nip and top between the three cars i think overall though the bmw does just about take the edge in the comfort stakes then the mercedes is a bit more comfortable than this but only because it is the s version i think when you've got the normal non-s e-tron it's just as comfortable as that mercedes is this as efficient on the motorway as the mercedes we're gonna find out now so here we go four miles 2.1 miles per kilowatt hour oh dear could that be to do with the tri-motors i don't know but anyway when you multiply that by the car's battery capacity of 87 kilowatt hours the actual true range when driving on the motorway in this car is 183 miles now this is how all the cars compare on the motorway in terms of energy consumption and range i hope you enjoyed that now let's talk about these cars designs and let's start with the audi and it's dead simple really regardless of whether you go for this swoopy sportback model or the standard each rod this is a good looking car the mercedes they've been a bit lazy with it's just another suv they're like oh everyone put a light buttons in front and that will make it look really cool but no it doesn't it's yeah it sort of blends in a bit too much can't say that about the bmw it's like their design is just we're completely berserk and just designed everything however it's a little bit like a prostate exam that you know makes you wince up first but then you do eventually get used to it now i'm going to compare these three electric cars round a city course what i'm going to do is drive around this course stop for things like stop signs and pedestrian crossings just see how they feel to drive i'm also going to check their efficiency while driving in such an environment so i'm going to reset the trip computer on this e-tron and it's getting away here comes the first stop i'm going to put regen into max mode see what it's up for one pedal driving so i'm lifting off the accelerator now and it's really hardly slowing at all had to use the brakes i thought i was gonna be able to stop that is probably the least regen of the regions that i've had from any electric car it just feels like a normal internal combustion engine automatic when you lift off really obviously it doesn't feel like one to drive when you're just tooting around town because it's super quiet the turning circle is 12.2 meters which is okay but not exactly great the steering it's not overly light it's not overly heavy it's fine now let's go over a speed hump it's a common place in town so let's see what it's like that was good it dealt with it well and because there's been a sportier version the suspension's a bit firmer so they didn't dive because sometimes when you get big wafty cars go over a speedo they just ground their nose out because the suspensions are still wallowing and stuff not with this okay now we're coming up to an abrupt bump let's try it over there see what it's like dealt with that well as well and hardly any of that suspension noise entered the cabin it's really really quite quiet this car one more pedestrian crossing this one i'm going to brake for quite abruptly here we go brakes feel firm and very natural which is good so we come to the end here the stop and we'll see what the energy consumption is 2.2 miles per kilowatt hour so that means that when you multiply it by the battery range of 87 kilowatt hours in town if you're driving non-stop this thing would do 191 miles let's get the next car now jumped into the bmw so i'm going to reset the trip computer so i'm going to go into b mode for max regen braking so i can one pedal drive steering nice and light that's good the fact that the dash is really low you get a great view forward out of this car it's really really nice these players are thick big blind spot but the out the back window that's good what's also good is the regen braking look i can definitely one pedal drive and stop just lift off the accelerator it comes to a complete stop allows you full control of your car what also gives you full control of this car is the fact that this one is fitted with the optional rear wheel steering so when you're getting at lower speeds the back wheel is turning the opposite direction to the front make it turn tighter and you kind of want that with this because as standard without the rear wheel steering the turning circle is 13 meters which means if you've got to do a u-turn you're probably going to end up having to do a three-point turn because 30 meter turning cycle is quite large another thing this car is fitted with is air suspension so the 50 gets it as standard it's so good okay coming up to the is there a crossing heart ah socked again using regen i haven't touched the brakes yet not once pickup's nice and smooth but is it gonna be smooth over this sharp bump oh that's good so dealt with that bump really well and i didn't hear much suspension noise entering the cabin either final zebra crossing and i'm going to use the brakes here to feel what they're like they're strong but they don't feel grubby so you don't notice the transition between regen braking and friction braking because that's good i wonder how much energy we've put back into the battery so we've averaged 2.2 miles oh no it's just clicked over 2.3 miles per kilowatt hour so if you're driving around town based on the fact this has 105 kilowatt hour battery you'll be able to drive around town for 242 miles that will be very boring indeed it's quite impressive finally then the eqc so i'm just going to reset the trip computer and off we go so i am going to put the drive mode into maximum regen so i can do one pedal driving here comes a stop sign so just back off that's it let the regen do its thing recouping energy while slowing down though look it's actually stopping it i do have to just touch the brake for that final stop it's a bit annoying one more thing about this car the steering is really nice and light it is so easy to maneuver it really does just make for effortless turning and the turning circle is the tightest of all the cars well the ones i'm testing 11.8 meters good visibility is generally good though this pillar is quite fat and the view at the back is not great now let's go to the speed dump so it deals with that no problem it did bomb out a little bit so because you've got that soft floated suspension you know you hit speed up too quickly you will get a grinding noise here comes the abrupt bump what's this like it's okay what you do get is quite a bit of suspension noise though which does just intrude somewhat and just spoils the overall feeling of refinement and luxuriousness that's my luxurious booth okay here comes the last ever crossing laser breaks they feel smooth they're not grabby like on some electric cars anyway what are the scores let's find out so that route it averaged 2.4 miles per kilowatt hour so that works out to a range if you're just driving in town of 192 miles here's how the cars compare for stats in town now i'm going to compare these cos interior designs and even though the eqc is based on the glc it feels suitably more interesting the dash design is just a bit more curved this ledge that you have here and the vents are more futuristic there's these kind of slots that you can play like that and you've got these big screens as well with some special eq displays an infotainment system is nice and easy to use though mercedes hasn't gone and put the climate controls through there alone you can also use the climate control with these physical buttons which is easy to do when you're driving yeah it's nice in here feels high quality as well do you know what i think i prefer this etron's interior even more than that mercedes the material quality is better still and the design is slightly cooler especially like this gear selector here and this storage area it's all nice very well thought out though what's not so well thought out is the fact that you can only control the climate using this touchscreen and you have to really take your eyes off the road to do it or operate it's all down here the infotainment itself isn't quite as good as in the mercedes and i prefer the way that you have the screen higher up in the eqc can't fault the digital drivers display in this car though it is very clear and gives you all the information you need as with the aud the bmw doesn't have any physical buttons for the climate control so you have to use the touchscreen speaking of which this is a glorious screen where it's curved it's high def the problem is that bmw's latest user interface is it's so confusing it's like a blooming puzzle oh my gosh in terms of the interior quality generally it's really nice the materials in here and you can upgrade it with things like look crystal bits for the controller for the volume knob for the starter button the drive mode and selector and all of that kind of thing however in places scratchy is scratchy that's a bit of a shame because other than that this definitely feels like the most special interior it's so futuristic so bespoke but maybe that's because this car is built on its own electric car chassis it's not an internal combustion engine chassis that's been developed to actually take an electric power train as a result look at all the space you've got here it just feels so roomy so modern so fresh in here i like the seats as well they're sort of like the seats you'd have in your lounge right now let's see how much fun these electric suvs can be on a twisty road i'm going to start off with the bmw so i've got in sports mode i'm going to just reset the trick computer as well so we can measure the efficiency actually feels pretty good you know the stick is really really responsive it's got good weighting to it it feels quite sporty it does add to it put in sports mode because it just stiffens up the suspension and i've got the stability control in a slightly looser setting so it might give me some slip though i don't want to slip too much because there's only so much you can do really with these kind of cars because they are heavy all of them weighing about two and a half tons that weight is low down though so they don't lean too much in the bench and this is staying pretty flat and the responsiveness of the motors is really good it's great for putting the power down look whoa there we go oh the grip you get accelerating out of the turns is really quite impressive and the instant throttle response you can control it so well this is way more fun than i imagined but i'm going to be laughing at the energy consumption there we go 1.5 miles per kilowatt hour so that will give you a range of 158 miles hooning it down a country road okay now i've jumped into the eqc once again i'm just going to reset my trip computer so what i'm going to do is put the regen mode into coast so it's not actually going to region when i lift off because i think that gives you too much motor breaking which upsets the balance of the car if you want to have fun in some corners sometimes you want to be able to just roll through the corners and say it's better when you do it in coasty mode do you know what for every vehicle and one that's quite softly suspended it goes on corners all right it does start to push on a bit if you get a bit too carried away and the abs will kick in if you suddenly have to stamp on the brakes it's doing the right job one thing i can't complain about though is the traction you get when you put your foot down and it picks up nicely well and then it tells you off again for going too quickly right okay so what did we get we averaged 1.6 miles per kilowatt hour so that equates to 128 miles oh finally then the audi let's see what you got around this country road so i'll reset the trick computer and off we go yeah it feels sporty in the other two just in the way that it dries just feels more solid the steering though isn't quite as nice as in the bmw or even the mercedes it's weighty but it's just a bit computer gamey as in you can't really feel what the front wheels are doing much but this thing does hold on to the road well you know for a big heavy electric suv you can absolutely hustle it along quite surprisingly so i'm driving around here maybe a little bit quicker than any other cars just gives you the confidence to do that the normal lead trial is actually somewhere i think between the bmw and the mercedes with the mercedes obviously being the more relaxed and chilled of the group right come out this corner let's floor it yeah it picks up really nice puts his power down well doesn't seem to just rock it off like the bmw the throttle response of that bmw is is almost neck snapping this tends to bleed the power in a bit more just feels a bit more natural rather than uncomfortable but here we go we come to the end oh actually when you're driving quickly i've got 1.7 miles per kilowatt hour that's interesting so it's been less efficient so far but drive it quickly and it loves it so a 1.7 miles per kilowatt hour times by an 87 kilowatt hour battery capacity means the range on a twisted road driving like a 148 miles now what i'm going to do is just flash up the comparisons for the three cars in this environment so you can compare them at your leisure okay your leisure time is now over let's continue with this video i've decided to jump into the back seats of the audi to see what it's like for practicality so knee room is really good and you can stretch out underneath the seat in front head room that's decent as well considering this is the sport back with the sloping roof line there's even more headroom if you have the standard car it's spacious back here and there's not much of a hump in the floor looks pretty much flat that floor so plenty of room for everyone's feet if you need to carry three people in the back at once i'm quite impressed by this the mercedes is roomy enough in the back for most people but it doesn't feel quite how can i help you can help by not interrupting me when i'm trying to talk to camera miss voice commands cancel now i'm sorry can you say that again please off i'm sorry but i can't help you with it right now had the same result anyhow yeah it's roomy enough but not as spacious as the audi for instance knee room isn't quite as good neither is foot space you've also got this big hump in the floor which would be annoying if you're the central passenger because you'll have to straddle it the only way this car is better than that audi is headroom but that's because that's a sportback model finally then the bmw and i've definitely saved the best till last this is just on another level in terms of space look at the amount in the room you may have headroom it's insane now these rear seats they are slightly lower than in the other cars but that doesn't really matter because there's just so much room to stretch out and it's it's palatial darling it's lovely oh do you know what if you want to compare different electric cars and see all the latest offers on them you need to check out the car wow electric car hub page now to do that click on the pop-out button up there or follow the link in the description below alternatively just simply google wow me car wow and you can go there in future now i'm going to compare the car's boots so with the ix you have 500 liters of space that includes some storage under here where you can put your cables i like the fact that you can fold down the rear seats like that just by pulling on those buttons it's good now the mercedes also has a big capacity of 500 liters and it's a very useful space under there that's actually better i think than in the bmw and like with the bmw you can fold down the seats like that there we go electrically flat load bay that's good finally then we come to the iod so it has the biggest boot 650 liters in fact if you have the normally tron it's 660 liters massive but if you want to fall down the seats you have to reach in this doesn't feel quite as good and the seats don't lie quite as flat as in the other cars i forgot to show you the underfloor storage i've been storing my pet dog under there come on barney come out that's it i told you i didn't want you chewing and slobbering all over the interior i'm sorry about that now this card does have a little bit of a load lip which is a little bit more tricky for barney to hop out get up barney you're right i think barney might be quite ill before we go any further i want to point something out which annoys me about some of these electric suvs look at the charge port cover it's massive on this ix so like an air brake i'm not a fan of that at all mercedes doesn't really bother to do anything with the one on this eqc it's just the same as on the glc they just put the electrical charging ports in there lazy that's not the case with audi though look what a beautiful mechanism for the e-tron's charge port cover and you actually have two ac charging ports on this car one on each side which is handy although the dc is just over on the right hand side the entry-level audi e-tron produces 313 horsepower from its two electric motors but this s model has three electric motors and combined they produce 503 horsepower and 973 newton meters of torque not 60 is supposed to take four and a half seconds but let's see what i get with my specialist timing gear here let's launch it let's go lots of noise as things fly around takes off well something happened there it just like died 5.33 to 60 but then it's like the power was cut immediately and the quarter mile is odd this is not right 14.56 don't understand what happened there i'm gonna just try it again it's like it just lost its mind and cut all power as soon as it hit 60 miles an hour let's go again what's wrong with that let's launch let's not let me do it so hard try again this is launch [Music] no it's cut the power don't know what's going on how odd right it's only given me 75 power i'm gonna do a break test anyway from 70 miles an hour so let's get to 70 and i'll break here we go full emergency stop uh from 17 154 feet and this is the number in meters well i don't know what this car's doing very odd well that's your chance dash then howdy let's see if the other cars can beat you now i've jumped into the eqc so on paper it's slower naught to 16 5.1 seconds but if it works as it should do unlike the audi it'll probably end up being quicker than the aod actually managed to do so this thing it has two electric motors and combined they put out 408 horsepower and 760 newton meters of torque okay let's see what this mercedes has got then hold on the brake release the brake come on this one's working perfectly not 60 4.9 seconds take that audi what's the quarter mile you feel the acceleration tailing off at the top end 13.9 seconds for the quarter mile right now i'm gonna do a break test from 70 miles an hour see how long it takes to stop can you beat the idea that as well remember the audi's got sporty brakes on it there we go full emergency stop no what'd it do 173 feet so didn't stop in as short distance as the aud this this worked perfectly finally then the bmw ix so the entry-level ix-40 has 323 horsepower but this ix-50 has 523 horsepower 765 newton meters north of 60 is supposed to take 5.2 seconds but let's find out the truth hold on the break launch it go go go go go go go what we're going to do 60 it's going to be faster i'm telling you 4.69 it's the winner and it's pulling harder than the other two especially the audi of course but it keeps on building its speed this is impressive 12.94 for the quarter mile all right that's that's good let's see the brake test then see how long it takes to stop fall emergency stop from 70 miles an hour yep what we got what we got what we got oh what's the number 141 feet it's that in meters it's best best for performance best for braking [Music] so then what's my final verdict well both the audi e-tron and mercedes eqc are very good if you buy one you won't be disappointed but even though this is the ugliest car most likely as with many bmw designs it will grow on you and then what you have here is what sounds like an amazing v12 engine sod the electric cars i want one of those actually no back to this yeah not the best looking thing could grow on you but what you do have is the best electric suv it's the best to drive it's got the best tech it's the comfiest and it's got the biggest battery so you can go the furthest on a charge and that's why it wins this test i hope you enjoyed the video if you did give it a like now can you guess which car that v12 engine noise came from that just interrupted me we put a pin comment so you can guess in there right i'll be looking at it anyway if you wanna watch some more videos click on those windows there and if you click on that box there you can go to the car wow electric car home page

Channel: carwow

Views: 751,957

Keywords: carwow, mat watson, car review, new car review, car review 2022, bmw, bmw iX, bmw ix review, new bmw ix, new bmw ix review, bmw ix review 2022, audi, audi e-tron, audi e-tron s, audi e-tron s sportback, audi e-tron s sportback review, audi e-tron sportback, audi e-tron sportback review 2022, audi e-tron sportback review, mercedes, mercedes eqc, eqc, mercedes eqc 400, mercedes eqc review 2022, best electric suv, best electric suv 2022, best ev car 2022, best ev family car

Id: PjpGEXxIugk

Length: 27min 27sec (1647 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 08 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/psykedeliq]

TLDw summary please?

[u/kenvsryu]

that ix interior. wish the xdrive40 was available in the us.

[u/RedditFauxGold]

We were trying to hold out for the iX but it wasn’t looking good and went Audi. We love the etron a lot but will give the iX a hard look in another couple of years. Just hard to get past that front end…

[u/StoneColdAM]

Feels like Europe is getting way more EVs than the US. I get not having brands like Skoda in the US, but ix3, EQC, EQA, or Lexus NX EVs seem odd.

[u/DavidBoss2022]

Only if IX was cheaper…

[u/KingKontinuum]

I want an iX so badly

[u/tech01x]

His range test methodology is piss poor.

[u/upL8N8]

The dog... :-D

The iX is the e-tron, EQC, and Taycan all over again.... TONS of unjustified hate from initial reviewers, writers, and commenters; except this time it's due to looks and cargo room, whereas the other cars were criticized for their range.

After spending more time digesting this vehicle, it seems the reviews are starting to sway more towards the positive. Even Mat's jibes at the car's looks were qualified with "the styling will grow on you", because a lot of reviewers have claimed they like the looks more over time. I personally hated the looks initially, but watching loads of reviews of the vehicle on the road with darker paint, I think it looks pretty good / unique. I never thought the front end looked terrible tbh; moreso the back quarter looking at the car from the front-side.

IMO, it's the best overall vehicle of these three and maybe the best overall vehicle in the segment, including the model X. It's right up there in best overall value, but hard to quantify this with the lower priced EQC and e-tron. To each their own.

Too bad they didn't include the last gen model X in this test since they just included it in the BEV SUV drag race a couple of weeks ago.

The new gen model X will certainly have the best overall performance, range, cargo room, and charging speed, plus the only 6-7 seat option (albeit expensive), but it'll likely be weaker in the luxury categories, and WAY more expensive. They haven't even listed the price of the thing in most European countries yet; and it likely won't be available for another year or so across the Atlantic anyways. Even in the US, ordering a base X now has a delivery date estimate of January 2023 - May 2023.

Some solid competition in this segment thus far between all four vehicles.

While I personally think the iX is the best value for money right now, the mid-cycle refresh of the e-tron with longer range could definitely turn the tide in its favor.

EQC is behind the pack, but looks like a nice vehicle for the price.

BMW definitely needs to do something with that charging door and overall weight of the vehicle; although I think the only way they can cut significant weight would be to improve their battery energy density.