The Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars podcast – Ep # 136 – The BMW iX3 Episode

[00:00:01] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars with Stephen Fenech and Trevor Long. Thanks to NRMA Insurance and Uniden. Helping Australians protect what matters most. NRMA Insurance for over 100 years doing their best to keep the dream alive. And one of Australia’s largest insurers of electric vehicles as well. And Uniden smart dashcams. Get yourself a dashcam front and rear to protect the car that you have from stories that are little fibs. You know, a bit of peace of mind about what happened on the road around you. Stephen, g’day.

[00:00:31] Stephen Fenech: G’day there. How are you?

[00:00:33] Trevor Long: I’m very well. We’ve had a busy few weeks driving cars and we’ll talk about those over the weeks ahead. And we are going to talk pretty much a lot today about a particular car. We’re going to have an interview with Brendo from BMW. We’re calling him Brendo because that’s what he calls himself. So just to get ahead of that, that’s not us being nicknamy. That’s Brendo. We’ve spoken to him on the show before.

[00:00:55] Stephen Fenech: Yes, we have.

[00:00:55] Trevor Long: We have had him on the show before.

[00:00:56] Stephen Fenech: Second appearance is correct.

[00:00:58] Trevor Long: I don’t know if PR people are, you know, chalking up their appearances, but I think that might be a KPI.

[00:01:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you think they might?

[00:01:05] Trevor Long: Yeah. All right, well, in the meantime, and we do want to give you our thoughts on the BMW iX3, which we drove recently. But before we do that, let’s do the normal thing and get your calls. 0477 657 657. We’d love to hear from you. Send us a text or a WhatsApp message and we’ll get you on the show. And Gary’s on the line. G’day, Gary.

Gary — Long-time listener, iX3 owner upgrading to the new Neue Klasse iX3

[00:01:25] Gary: G’day Trevor. G’day Stephen.

[00:01:26] Trevor Long: Mate, tell us now, you first and foremost, your text message to us was quite detailed and we need to address the elephant in the room, which is you suggesting that this show is your idea.

[00:01:39] Gary: Yeah, there may have been a discreet DM to you both back in about 2023 suggesting it, I think.

[00:01:46] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. And then 6 months later, boom, boom, there’s a show.

[00:01:50] Trevor Long: I don’t read my DMs. What platform? I mean, you reckon?

[00:01:55] Stephen Fenech: What?

[00:01:56] Trevor Long: What? Because you were sick of us talking about electric cars on our other shows. That we say.

[00:02:00] Gary: Yeah, I was out for a walk one Saturday morning and I was listening to— I’m not sure if it was the regular show or the private feed. And you were gibbering on about EVs as usual. And I mean, I was quite interested.

[00:02:12] Stephen Fenech: Sounds about right. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah.

[00:02:15] Gary: And I thought these guys should just do a podcast on EVs. Like, you needed another one like a hole in the head, I think was my comment at the time. But I thought it was a good idea.

[00:02:24] Stephen Fenech: I actually recall that now that you’ve said that, the hole in the head. Yeah, well, just say no, mate. The cheque’s in the mail.

[00:02:29] Gary: Okay.

[00:02:29] Trevor Long: Yeah, I was going to say, keep it on the mail. If you’re waiting on some sort of royalty, good luck.

[00:02:35] Gary: Yeah, I keep looking for the TBTT entry in the bank account each week.

[00:02:41] Trevor Long: Mate, you know what you should do? You should look every day just to drive yourself really insane. But Gary, tell us about your EV journey though, mate. What are you driving and what have you driven?

[00:02:50] Gary: Yes, I’ve got, got the older generation iX3, which we, we got in July 2024. I’ve been interested in EVs for a while, probably mainly thanks to you guys. And when I test drove that, my wife was sort of not totally on board. And as soon as she sat in and put her foot down, she was sold. She’s a bit of a lead foot. Yeah, from way back. And she loved it. And we, we bought it right there and then. Picked it up about 6 months later and yeah, we’ve loved it ever since.

[00:03:24] Stephen Fenech: Were you always a Beamer guy, Gary, or is this—

[00:03:27] Gary: was that your first? No, this is our first. We’ve had Japanese cars basically all our lives and we thought this, you know, we’re in our 60s and we thought it’s time to, you know, to treat ourselves to something, something nice. Yeah. And yeah, so we, we looked at the BMW, we looked at the, the Mercedes. I think it was the EQA or EQB at the time as well. But we just liked the of the styling and the finish of the BMW and it just ticked all the boxes.

[00:03:58] Stephen Fenech: And that’s, that’s still your— you’re still driving that now. You’ve only had it since 2024, so 2 years you’ve had it and you’re still loving it.

[00:04:05] Gary: Yeah, still, still love it. My wife mainly drives it, but I get it a couple of days a week. But I’ve got an old 2016 Prado that I’m still sort of driving at the moment. But, but yeah, I get, get a drive of the BMW whenever I can.

[00:04:17] Trevor Long: And what I mean, what would be the biggest learning in those couple of years? Obviously you still love it and it’s a great car and everything, but what’s the thing that I think you came into the EV world not knowing and, and probably the thing that you pass on to people when they ask you about EVs?

[00:04:33] Gary: It’s probably what you guys talk about a lot, the planning your trips, planning your charging, that sort of thing. We took it, we picked it up in July ’24, took it up to the Gold Coast in November of that year and Yeah, we planned it all out and that was a bit of an exercise, but it all worked really well. But it’s something you don’t sort of think about driving an ICE car. And that’s, that’s probably the biggest change, just, just planning your trips and thinking about when you’re charging and that type of thing.

[00:05:03] Stephen Fenech: Speaking of charging, what’s your situation there? Do you have a wall charger at home? Are you a trickle charger man or public charging?

[00:05:10] Gary: Yeah, yeah, I’ve got a wallbox charger. On 3-phase and we generally charge that over the weekend. We get free charging between 12 and 2 on the weekend. So we generally take advantage of that and, you know, trickle charge during the week if it needs it. But my wife doesn’t do a lot of driving, so, so there’s not a lot there to, to charge really.

[00:05:35] Trevor Long: Well, what are your thoughts on the Neue Klasse iX3, given you’ve, you’ve got the, the last generation?

[00:05:43] Gary: Yeah, well, I’ve actually test-driven that and placed an order for one of those. There we go. I’m hoping Yeah. Hoping to get delivery in November, December.

[00:05:51] Trevor Long: So two BMWs or you’re replacing the Prado?

[00:05:56] Gary: I’m keeping the Prado just for a bit of a towing vehicle. And if I go to site or out in the bush or something, it’ll take that rather than the iX3. But yeah, that’s going to become my daily driver pretty much. And yeah, I was blown away by it when I went to a launch event in Sydney back in May, had a sit-in and and that type of thing, but drove it a few weeks ago and yeah, it was great. The, you know, getting out of the parking spot in the car dealer’s, it was pretty tightly parked in and the dealer said, just let me press a few buttons and let me get it out of the parking spot for you. And he said, take your hands off the wheel and your foot off the brake, which was pretty daunting given I just signed a thing saying that if I damaged it, it was my fault. And yeah, and it just got itself out of the park parking spot. It was unbelievable just to watch that happen. And, um, yeah, and then drove off. And only a short test drive, but, um, yeah, really good to drive. Um, loved the panoramic display across the bottom of the window. Um, I was concerned— I think it was your comments, Stephen, after your US trip a couple years ago, um, about wearing it with prescription sunglasses, uh, polarizing sunglasses. Sorry.

[00:07:16] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:07:17] Gary: But that wasn’t, that wasn’t a problem. It works fine.

[00:07:19] Stephen Fenech: Works fine even with polarized glasses. Yeah, that’s impressive.

[00:07:22] Gary: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was really good. I was sort of concerned that how I go having no instrument cluster or that in front of me, but didn’t really even notice that you sort of eyes are fixed on the, the panoramic display and the head-up as well.

[00:07:36] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, head-up display too. Yeah, that’s right.

[00:07:38] Gary: Head-up as well. Yeah, that, that does get affected a little bit still by the polarized glasses, but, but the current iX3 I’ve got does as well. So that’s not a big deal.

[00:07:46] Gary: But yeah.

[00:07:48] Gary: Yeah, it’s great to drive. I was concerned about the glass roof as well, but didn’t even notice that. Like I drove the day I test drove it, it was pretty sunny and didn’t notice any issues with that.

[00:08:00] Stephen Fenech: UV protection, all that through it, UVB and UVA, all kinds of protection. You’re not going to get, you’re not going to get sunburnt in the car, that’s for sure. But so you also ordered the new iX3 and it’s going to be alongside your, your wife’s iX3, is that right? Or you’d use it. I say you have two.

[00:08:16] Stephen Fenech: Nice.

[00:08:17] Gary: Can have two.

[00:08:18] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:08:18] Gary: Yeah. So we’ll go from two Toyotas to two BMWs.

[00:08:21] Stephen Fenech: And you still— but you’re still hanging on to the Prado as well.

[00:08:25] Gary: Yeah, just, just for a towing vehicle and that sort of thing.

[00:08:28] Stephen Fenech: Fun car.

[00:08:28] Trevor Long: Wow. What a garage.

[00:08:30] Gary: Yeah, that’s right.

[00:08:31] Trevor Long: Yeah. Well, I mean, just, just a final thing on that. Do you— I mean, are you— as Stephen kind of mentioned early on, are you just eyes blinkered on BMW or like, could you have been swayed by something else?

[00:08:44] Gary: Um, yeah, look, there probably wasn’t anything that really attracted me apart from that one. I think, you know, there’d been so much publicity and so much anticipation about the new model coming out that I was probably, probably was possibly a bit blinkered. But I sort of, I listened to, to the podcast each week and listen to the Zeekas and the Julies and that sort of thing. And yeah, nothing sort of really interested me more than this one at the moment.

[00:09:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s right.

[00:09:11] Trevor Long: Mate, you’re on a winner. We’ll—

[00:09:14] Gary: well, you can hope so.

[00:09:15] Trevor Long: Yeah, sit back and enjoy a conversation with Brendo from BMW shortly and we’ll then share our thoughts on the iX3 at the end of the show. But, you know, tip, we both love the car. I tried very hard, Gary, over the recent weeks to convince Stephen, but he’s a little blinkered to Mercedes.

[00:09:33] Gary: I got that impression.

[00:09:35] Stephen Fenech: You know, it is what it is, mate. It is what it is.

[00:09:39] Trevor Long: Yeah. Lovely to hear from the creator of this show. Okay, thanks, Gary. You know, it’s on the record.

[00:09:45] Stephen Fenech: In the mailbox, mate.

[00:09:46] Trevor Long: We didn’t sign any contract. We didn’t agree to anythings, but you can take credit if you can. I don’t know what platform you’re DM’d on, but just find that DM and resend it. I want to see it. Yeah, proof of concept. Then I’ll believe you. Okay. All right, Gary. Good to hear from you, mate.

[00:10:04] Gary: I’m glad you started and really enjoy your other podcast. Us as well, guys. Thanks.

[00:10:08] Trevor Long: Thanks so much, Gary. Good on you. Good to hear from you. Thanks, mate. There you go. The founder of the show.

[00:10:14] Stephen Fenech: Another, another listener putting, taunting me the fact that I’m not, didn’t go, didn’t pull the trigger on the Beamer.

[00:10:21] Trevor Long: Well, you know what? It won’t just be listeners because coming after this, we’re going to talk to Brendon from BMW. Great to have your company. 0477 657 657. If you want to be part of the show like Gary was, Gary, as you’ve just heard, BMW iX3 owner, also upgrading to a BMW iX4.

[00:10:51] Stephen Fenech: He’s all in on BMW.

[00:10:52] Trevor Long: Did he say he’s going to end up having two then?

[00:10:54] Stephen Fenech: Yes, I did see this.

[00:10:55] Trevor Long: He’s doing very well, Gary. He’s going to be a great—

[00:10:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, he doesn’t need our royalty checks, that’s for sure.

[00:11:00] Trevor Long: Our next guest is going to be a big fan of Gary. We’re not big fans of Gary because Gary takes credit for this show apparently. But let’s Leaving that aside, Brendan Michel is the head of product and market planning at BMW Australia. It’s his second time on the show and it’s his first time joining us via video call. Brendan, great to be with you, mate.

Brendan Michel (BMW Australia) — Neue Klasse platform & BMW iX3 deep dive

[00:11:19] Brendan Michel: Steve, good to be back on the show.

[00:11:21] Trevor Long: Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, we just had a caller literally who has old model iX3, got invited to, I think, a drive day or a showroom exhibit up in Sydney and loved it, put his money down. He’s all in. It was a great event. They convinced him to buy another BMW.

[00:11:38] Stephen Fenech: W, like, how good are they going?

[00:11:39] Trevor Long: They did a self-parking demo. They got him over the line. Don’t you worry about that. We’ll get to the iX3 specifically in a minute. But let’s just, let’s just recap the journey, which, you know, I’m really excited. We’ve been on this journey ourselves for a long time because it, it has a heavy tech bent in it. You know, the, the Neue Klasse concept has been taken through CES and many other things. But we were at the, at the launch of the iX3 recently and you, you reflected on the history of Neue Klasse and why today is a very similar time in terms of society, let alone the market generally, for this new, new platform for BMW.

[00:12:18] Brendan Michel: Yeah, that’s right, Trevor. We are, we are showing a lot of our heritage in this new, new iX3. For those who need a history lesson, if you look back in, back in the late ’50s, back in Germany, car industry was struggling a lot. And BMW was also almost taken over by another brand, which I won’t mention their name, but there was an 11th-hour bid for a takeover of BMW in the late ’50s. And our CEO, or the head of our board at the time, got a group of investors together to bring the company out of the doldrums in the late ’50s. And that spurred the launch of our new Neue Klasse in the early ’60s. So they went through this development phase. And produced a new Neue Klasse back then. And, and that is what really carried the company through to producing great models such as the 3 Series, which flowed on to the 5 Series, and everything really flowed on from that point, point of time back in the late ’50s.

[00:13:19] Stephen Fenech: So we find ourselves though at a similar crossroads here with sort of electrification, EVs now moving up in the market. And BMW, of course, again well placed to, to take us forward.

[00:13:33] Brendan Michel: Yes, exactly. We’re in a very strong position at the moment, especially with all these new Neue Klasse models that we will be launching over the next couple of years. But the most important thing that I can probably say now is we’ve, we’ve just launched a midsize SUV under this new amazing platform that the, that the men and women over in Munich have developed and designed and engineered for us. And why is that important? Well, simply because the mid-size SUV is booming, is one of the highest-selling segments in the— around the world at the moment.

[00:14:04] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:14:05] Brendan Michel: Not only on top of that, we’re launching with the long-range variant, which is 805 kilometers on the WLTP cycle. So very, very nice range that we’re seeing with the first new generation Neue Klasse.

[00:14:17] Trevor Long: When we talk about Neue Klasse, new class in, I guess if you translate it, but Neue Klasse is the way it’s being sold. For the average person who’s not a car nut, and you know, we have people who are of all walks of life in terms of their interest in cars, people that just want to get from A to B and want to save money on fuel and those kind of things, what do we mean by a new platform? Because when I think about the Neue Klasse, I’m only thinking, to be honest, about the in-car experience, the technology, which we’ll talk about in a minute, the panoramic view and the, and the new infotainment, things like that. But as a platform, how big a deal is it to develop a brand new platform And how does that allow you to make many new cars, not just one?

[00:14:56] Brendan Michel: Well, that’s a pretty good question there, Trevor, because this platform, I mean, we spent a small fortune on it. The development costs were over €10 billion to do this. Jump on the exchange rate now, it’s $17,000 or $18,000 million or billion Australian dollars. What this new platform has enabled us, it’s not just the iX3, there are many many new models which will be announced and discussed over the next couple of years. But this one platform can be very diverse. You can have multiple different battery sizes. You can have xDrive or rear-wheel drive. You can also have not just SUVs, but, you know, Munich’s already announced there’ll be a new i3 sedan off this platform as well. So it’s a, it’s a new platform which supports many different models within our portfolio.

[00:15:45] Gary: Right.

[00:15:45] Brendan Michel: That’s a good little summary for you.

[00:15:47] Stephen Fenech: And not just the new platform, but also we’re tech blokes. So the tech inside the car, even the new XOS as well. So there’s not only the new platform, but also a new, a new platform, a new software in the car among all the new tech as well, which will carry across every model.

[00:16:06] Brendan Michel: Yeah, correct. So two things I can talk about now. We’ve got that amazing new Panoramic Vision, which I know you guys have seen and are very impressed by it, but you’ve essentially got a A-pillar to A-pillar projection in front of you, which you can pick and choose what type of information you want to show up there. So it’s just below the windscreen, so you don’t have to take your eyes far off the road to view that. And I think the other big thing in this, we’ve now got our new generation of our own internal operating system in the car, which is Operating System X. So X in the Roman numerals is 10. And this is the 10th generation of our own in-house developed iDrive system. So I remember back 25, 26 years ago when we first saw that in the 7 Series, you know, our flagship back then. But this is something we’ve, we’ve improved over the years. And, and now this, this new operating system will flow into the rest of the range in due course.

[00:17:05] Trevor Long: Let’s talk about that panoramic view a little bit. It’s I gotta tell you, and we’d seen samples of it, we were at the kind of launch of it in Stuttgart, in Spartanburg. We’ve seen it, we’ve seen a lot of it, but then to sit in a car with it was quite something different because we describe it as A-pillar to A-pillar. So it’s across the entire windscreen. And I say every windscreen, if you look in any car, you look down the bottom, there’s a bunch of glass that you’re not seeing through. It’s just behind the bonnet or it’s the waste there. So you’ve taken that essentially dead space, you’ve made it, black, but it’s not a screen. It’s still a reflection like a head-up display. But Brendo, oh mate, it is such good quality. It is crisp. It is like it’s an OLED screen. I was, I literally, you know, while you weren’t there, I put my head right through, right into the windscreen to try and see whether it really was a reflective display or not. It is such high quality. What is the intent behind that? Because the driver doesn’t need to see what’s happening on the screen over there. What’s, what’s the intent behind the panoramic view?

[00:18:05] Brendan Michel: Well, the intent is to show information and important information in a very safe way. I think I mentioned it before, if you’ve got your eye level looking at the road, you don’t have to drop your eye level that much far to actually see this important information. The way the guys have designed it, it’s essentially a projection which comes up from behind the dash. You get in there, it is razor sharp, like you said, the vision of it, and it does look like a massive LED, screen right across from A-pillar to A-pillar, but it is actually a projection and it’s gone one step further than what we’ve seen in the past with our traditional head-up display where I’m sure you all know you’ve got your head-up display which only the driver can normally see. Yeah, but this is now information that everyone else in the car can see. Doesn’t matter if you’re sitting in the back, it’s so razor sharp and so crystal clear you can even see it from the back.

[00:19:01] Stephen Fenech: And you know, I like it. I do love the fact that it’s also— you can customize it too. You can drag stuff up into the panoramic vision as well as all the different modes of the car. So if you want to go in sport mode, eco mode, it adjusts accordingly at the same time. So yeah, no lack of information. And the screen, let’s talk about the screen, which is like a— it’s been designed so it’s not just a boring— yeah, not just a boring square in the middle of the car rectangle. It has actually got a shape to it and that too. Again, driven by the, the X platform. Really, everything’s at your fingertips, literally at your fingertips, even on the wheel to those shortcuts as well.

[00:19:45] Brendan Michel: Yeah, that’s right. So it’s, we’ve moved into a very large landscape size screen in our, in our infotainment system. And I think you mentioned that there, it actually has come out further from the dash. So the idea is you’ve got your hands on the steering wheel, you don’t have to move your hands that far to actually engage with the screen anymore. Okay. Where beforehand they were recessed far back within the dash and now it’s up a lot closer, up much closer to where your hands are on the steering wheel.

[00:20:16] Trevor Long: Look, let’s talk about specifically the iX3, which we drove, which is the launch vehicle for Neue Klasse. The way you describe some of the engineering behind this vehicle, its dynamics, it’s quite fascinating because there’s some quirky little things that I don’t think people would have given any thought to, like how a car performs over a speed bump, let alone the general driving dynamics. There’s, you know, $10 billion, a lot of money to spend, but it kind of like, it bears fruit when you get behind the wheel of a car like this.

[00:20:49] Brendan Michel: Yes, and I think that’s where a bulk of the development costs have gone into, the actual drivetrain on this vehicle. Where we started a strong campaign about our Heart of Joy, which is our new control system, all developed in-house by the very clever men and women over in Munich. Essentially, yes, a lot of the brains has gone into controlling what the electric motors do. Not so much from an acceleration point of view, but also from a traction control system. And also this cool feature, which is my favorite part about this car, it actually has a feature which we call internally soft stop, where it uses the electric motor on the rear to help you brake and help you come to the most smoothest, calmest stop.

[00:21:34] Trevor Long: Have you ever tried to do that in any car? It’s one of my one of the challenges in every car is to try and stop at a set of lights. Just, yeah, just, it’s bloody hard to do it.

[00:21:42] Stephen Fenech: Anything I did notice when we were driving the iX3, it really did dampen that, that, you know, when you come to a stop, you normally, yeah, do a little bit of a head jerk, but that took it away.

[00:21:51] Trevor Long: But it’s the simple things, Brendo.

[00:21:53] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:21:53] Brendan Michel: Yeah, it is. And I, I like to call myself a pretty good driver, but somehow my, my wife and kids are always, it’s always shotting wide at that, at that final moment. This car does it all for you. Yeah. So it eliminates that and it really is the most calmest move to stop I’ve ever experienced in any vehicle before.

[00:22:11] Stephen Fenech: I’d like to talk about the range. Quite impressive. Like, obviously, if you listen to this show, range is something we talk about quite often. And 805 kilometer range, that’s a game changer. And I think for, for a lot of drivers on the fence who have that range anxiety, wow, doesn’t that put them at ease? 800— over 800K range.

[00:22:34] Brendan Michel: It’s absolutely amazing on this car. And we’ve done our own in-house development of our battery cells. We’ve built our next generation or Generation 6 battery technology into these vehicles. We’ve built a battery cell and a battery pack which goes with our Neue Klasse platform. The ranges we’re seeing at the moment are quite remarkable. You can go through the sport modes, the Eco Pro. A cool one to do if you ever get behind the steering wheel of the car and just hit Max E range and see what it shows to your, to your range. It makes the throttle response a little bit more smoother and more calmer, a lot more efficient with your, with your throttle response in the car. And that’s one of the key reasons we see such high range in this vehicle.

[00:23:22] Trevor Long: And I think you would hear that from people in dealerships, wouldn’t you? You know, you’ve got so many cars that people can choose from. I’m sure there’s people coming to dealerships considering an electric car but walking out with a petrol or hybrid because of many factors, and I’m assuming range becomes one of the top ones. So if you can just tick that off, it becomes a no-brainer for people.

[00:23:43] Brendan Michel: Yeah, exactly, Trevor. I mean, we live in a country that’s very large. Sometimes I see map overviews on some German presentations which show all of Europe fitting into Australia almost. But we are a very large country. We love to get away on the weekend. Ends. With this new iX3, I live in Melbourne. I can go Melbourne to Echuca, not worrying about where I need to charge the car and make it back to Melbourne on one single charge. That’s, that’s the difference now. Melbourne to the Murray River and back.

[00:24:13] Stephen Fenech: Mate, can I ask, with BMW, just can you give us a bit of an insight into how you’ve obviously got some loyal customers being with the brand for a long time? Are you seeing this migration now to EVs? Is that sort of now become the progression for your customers?

[00:24:30] Brendan Michel: Yeah, we’re starting to see a big growth. We already have quite a large order bank on this new iX3. They are repeat customers, but we’re also starting to conquest other customers from other competitors. I think if you look at our customers, the reason they keep coming back is because you get typical BMW driving dynamics, and that’s no difference here in this this electric iX3. To be honest, I think it’s more BMW than any BMW beforehand. Wow. And everyone that’s coming in for a test drive is, is really, really impressed.

[00:25:05] Stephen Fenech: There’s the quote. There’s our quote.

[00:25:07] Trevor Long: Yeah. And I’ve told the story many a time about the first time I test drove a BMW 318 and the dealer—

[00:25:15] Stephen Fenech: you put your money down straight away.

[00:25:17] Trevor Long: He was in the car and my mum was in the back. I was in Perth and we were heading towards a roundabout. He looked at me and said, “Drive it like you want to.” And I did. I drove it like I wanted to drive a roundabout because it was safe and clear. And it gave me that feeling of that, what you used to call sheer driving pleasure. And it was all about the 50/50 weight distribution, the way the dynamics of the car. But a battery in a car gives you so much more because you’ve got the center of gravity moved, plus you’ve got your almost 50/50 distribution. My biggest challenge though, Brendo, and I would never be a good product planner because I’d make decisions based on my own personal likes. Like, I’d be like, I want that one because of this. And I think I would get it wrong a lot of the times. That car that you guys have had at— you had it at CES last year. It’s traveled around. It’s a sedan. It was the kind of poster for the Neue Klasse for a little while. Mate, it looks like an old Holden Torana. It’s the coolest looking little— it’s like small sedan. Please tell me that’s coming.

[00:26:13] Brendan Michel: I think you’re referring to the Vision Dynamics concept.

[00:26:19] Trevor Long: Call it whatever you want. It’s the concept for this car. Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:23] Brendan Michel: Sedan shape.

[00:26:24] Trevor Long: Sedan shape. Little Tarana-shaped. Not a big sedan, just a medium-sized sedan. Mate, the design of that thing is sick.

[00:26:33] Brendan Michel: Yeah, it’s impressive.

[00:26:34] Gary: Well, that—

[00:26:34] Brendan Michel: well, that design is essentially the concept vehicle of our new i3 sedan.

[00:26:42] Gary: Right.

[00:26:42] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:26:42] Brendan Michel: So So that was where we first started to show some of that Neue Klasse tech coming through into this new range. Munich have already announced the i3 sedan, which we will be launching early next year here in Australia. The range on that car, being a sedan, a little bit more aerodynamic, it’s got a 1-inch smaller wheel, we’re quoting over 900 kilometers of range.

[00:27:04] Gary: Wow. Wow.

[00:27:05] Trevor Long: That’s amazing.

[00:27:06] Brendan Michel: A lot of this stuff, my German colleagues like to show in these concept vehicles, and it eventually flows through through into an actual production car.

[00:27:15] Stephen Fenech: Perfect for Australia, that long range. As you said, it’s a big country.

[00:27:18] Trevor Long: I’m just looking at the video on the BMW website. I might have to check with the least details of my current vehicles. It could be drama.

[00:27:27] Stephen Fenech: Tempted.

[00:27:28] Trevor Long: There could be drama. This could be a second midlife crisis for me, Brendo.

[00:27:33] Brendan Michel: Yes, good. There’s nothing wrong with a midlife crisis.

[00:27:36] Stephen Fenech: As long as they buy BMW, though.

[00:27:37] Trevor Long: Spoken like a A true car man in the car industry. There’d be no other industry, motorbikes, but the cars that would benefit from midlife crisis more than, more than the car industry. Mate, it’s a beautiful car. We’re going to talk more about it in a minute, but it’s an absolute credit to the team back in Munich and, you know, credit to the local team for getting it launched the way you have. I understand demand is exceptional, so it’s not like people can walk into a dealer and get one today. You’re going to need to queue up, but that’s a good sign.

[00:28:07] Brendan Michel: Yes, yes, we often see this when we launch a new vehicle, but I can honestly say we haven’t seen this type of take-up ever before in a vehicle in my time with BMW Group, and I’ve been here for a little while.

[00:28:21] Stephen Fenech: Wow, the Brendo touch, eh? That’s pretty good.

[00:28:24] Trevor Long: Thank you, mate. Great to have you on the show, and we’ll talk again soon.

[00:28:29] Brendan Michel: Thanks, guys.

[00:28:29] Stephen Fenech: See you, mate.

[00:28:29] Trevor Long: Cheers, Brendo. Great stuff. Yeah, there you go. The iX3. You can read our reviews at techguide.com.au and eftm.com and obviously look up all the details at BMW as well. More after this. This is Two Blokes Talking BMW iX3. This is not a sponsored podcast. It is absolutely worked out that way. I genuinely want to tell you folks sheer luck. We had Brendan organized to talk on this show, and we’ve disclosed earlier that we are banking shows, recording shows in advance. So yes, you know, I’ve got a little rundown, and I just— when people say yes, I can come in, I put them in this show. And Gary was just sheer luck. Yes, I swear to God, that was sheer luck. He was an iX3 man fully.

[00:29:17] Stephen Fenech: He was all in on the Beamers.

[00:29:18] Trevor Long: And it’s also sheer luck that we haven’t yet brought you our full thoughts on the iX3. So that is the plan right now, Stephen. I mean, this was— it was a lovely launch. It was— we started at Byron. We flew into Ballina, we went to Byron Bay, stayed with them, had a lovely dinner, got a great briefing on the car from Brendo. And then we got to drive the cars for essentially— Yeah, they had enough cars.

[00:29:40] Stephen Fenech: You on your own and I was on my own. We had our own cars. It was great. You didn’t have to sit next to me.

[00:29:44] Trevor Long: I told them I didn’t want to sit with him. That’s not what I heard. Excuse me. I can imagine that every other motoring journo didn’t want to be with me. Yes, that’s right. But I was just— I was stoked that we got to drive our own cars. So it was good because it was a It was a good experience to have your own system going on.

[00:29:59] Stephen Fenech: Trying to keep up with Trev was a bit hard, you know, but he was having a crack.

[00:30:03] Trevor Long: This was genuinely a beautiful car to drive. Immediately from the get-go, when you put your hands on 9 and 3 and you’re like, this wheel has been completely redesigned from the ground up. It’s a steering wheel that felt different.

[00:30:19] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. And of course, the panoramic vision and the new center screen, it was a remarkable experience from the get-go. The minute you like the feel of the road and everything, it was you. You were connected to the road.

[00:30:34] Trevor Long: Acknowledge my B-roll and connected to the car.

[00:30:36] Stephen Fenech: Oh my God. There we go.

[00:30:39] Trevor Long: Okay. Don’t get high expectations, folks. Okay. The production levels are slowly ramping up here.

[00:30:45] Stephen Fenech: That’s not us driving.

[00:30:46] Trevor Long: That’s the B-roll supplied by Byron.

[00:30:49] Stephen Fenech: Well, that is Byron, hey?

[00:30:50] Trevor Long: We were in the vicinity. They would have filmed this.

[00:30:53] Gary: Yeah.

[00:30:53] Trevor Long: So what they do, these car companies, is they take all these cars to a place, they invite all the journos, but then over one day they also take it out and film the heck out of it like this. Look at that. Yeah. So this is all B-roll. Fantastic. But yeah, so we talked to Brendan about it. It is dynamically— you got to understand that, and it’s no disrespect to a Chinese, Korean, Japanese, but the Germans, they engineer a car in a specific way. Totally. They have a way that they want it to feel on the road. And for BMW, I remember from my first experience, which I talked about earlier, the 50/50 weight distribution, the way it corners. There’s a lot of things about it.

[00:31:29] Stephen Fenech: The way it dampens the the bumps and speed bumps matter to them. And honestly, mate, it’s the detail they go to and the precision. It’s precision engineering. That’s what Germans are renowned for, amazing engineering.

[00:31:42] Trevor Long: This is an SUV, right? Let’s be real. This is not a— this is not a designed sports car. It’s not what you would typically think of as a sports car. It’s not what you typically think of as something you would take through the twisty windy bits of a country road. Yeah, but I can handle it. It’s a gorgeous— look Like, just talk about the design for a minute. Yeah, there’s something— so I often look at cars and I go, do I want a bubbly car or a sharp edge car? My Cupra, it’s very sharp edges, right?

[00:32:06] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:32:06] Trevor Long: Bubbly cars like the Geely EX2, which we’ll talk about in a few weeks, it’s a little bubbly for me and I worry that the design will date. Oh, there’s sound on that as well.

[00:32:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:32:14] Trevor Long: There’s the interior. Now we should talk about this while it’s on the screen.

[00:32:16] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:32:17] Trevor Long: The panoramic, that’s what we talked about with Brennan on the top of the dashboard.

[00:32:20] Stephen Fenech: That’s you with your Metaglasses, you did this, did you?

[00:32:22] Trevor Long: No, this is the B-roll.

[00:32:23] Stephen Fenech: Oh, this is the B-roll. Okay, I thought it was your own.

[00:32:25] Trevor Long: No, no.

[00:32:25] Stephen Fenech: Because I did a bit of Meto filming in this.

[00:32:28] Trevor Long: All BMW’s vision.

[00:32:28] Stephen Fenech: I won’t be sharing it because the speed limit goes up a bit.

[00:32:31] Trevor Long: Let’s talk about the panoramic view. That’s— you can see there, it’s gone now. Yeah. Anyway, at the bottom of the windscreen is this full view where you get all this projected and looks like it’s under the bonnet.

[00:32:43] Stephen Fenech: You look like you’re looking at a little portion just under the level of the bonnet. Yeah, there’s a special screen there, but it’s a projection.

[00:32:49] Trevor Long: So much information. This vision is all in a higher frame rate, so it’s coming through as like slow-mo.

[00:32:54] Stephen Fenech: No, that’s why I told you.

[00:32:55] Gary: Oh, okay, really?

[00:32:55] Stephen Fenech: I’m thinking, mate, put your foot down.

[00:32:57] Trevor Long: Yeah, mate, get, get, have a crack. Put something into it, mate. Have a crack. But you know, this is literally from the ground up, inside and out, redesigned. Like there’s no other BMW that looks like this.

[00:33:07] Stephen Fenech: So they’ve got dedicated new EV platform.

[00:33:09] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:33:09] Stephen Fenech: So adjustable battery sizes. It also has not only that platform, but inside the car, as we spoke with Brendo, is the new X platform as well. The X software.

[00:33:19] Trevor Long: The X or software system.

[00:33:21] Stephen Fenech: So they’ve really, from top to bottom, this is fresh. The Neue Klasse, it is fairly, it is very new.

[00:33:29] Trevor Long: I do love the look of it. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, I’m not, the kidney grille is very narrow. That’s a nod to the original Neue Klasse going back to the old 2000. They’re not going to get rid of that. No, but it’s very narrow. It’s been quite wider in other cars.

[00:33:42] Gary: Okay.

[00:33:43] Trevor Long: But I did have a look at the i3 that Brendo mentioned, which is the sedan, and that’s got this really wide, very different looking, distinct front end.

[00:33:49] Stephen Fenech: So it’s a nice looking car. Lovely colours too. I love the colours also. Nice choice of colours.

[00:33:54] Gary: I just felt that on the road road, it was planted.

[00:33:58] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s what I thought.

[00:33:59] Stephen Fenech: You’re connected, you’re connected to the road. Yeah, absolutely. And, um, and the range— God, the range. 805, that’s what WLTP, uh, figure, which— and look, we drove them for hours and we, we— there was still plenty left in the tank, in the battery.

[00:34:15] Trevor Long: Oh mate, we didn’t even— and it was— that was what was fascinating. It wasn’t, uh, set up for us to be stopping at charging locations.

[00:34:21] Stephen Fenech: One time do we need to charge it?

[00:34:23] Trevor Long: No. Yeah, they, they— and they didn’t like— it didn’t feel like they were worried about them overnight or anything. They were just all sitting and they’re ready to go. So, you know, the design of this thing, the— like, this is a premium vehicle. This is a $100,000 car, right? It’s $91,000 plus, right? It’s not a cheap car.

[00:34:39] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but it’s like— it’s selling like hotcakes.

[00:34:43] Gary: Yeah.

[00:34:43] Stephen Fenech: Amazing. Well, I think the response to it is no doubt. Look, you know, take one look at it and you— and the first— the minute you— like we did, the first minute we drove it, we thought, wow, this is amazing. Really beautifully finished. The tech is right there at your fingertips. There’s the— Brendo mentioned the fact that the screen is a bit closer to the— because do you find on some EVs that you’re sort of reaching, you’re really reaching to interact with the screen?

[00:35:06] Trevor Long: That’s what he said, they brought it closer to the driver.

[00:35:09] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s smart.

[00:35:10] Trevor Long: And leaned it forward. They brought it forward and leaned it towards the driver.

[00:35:13] Stephen Fenech: And it’s not just your boring rectangle either. It’s got a shape to it, which is quite nice.

[00:35:18] Trevor Long: Yeah. I will say also there is a lovely artificial sound to it. It’s, it’s pure Jetsons. It’s not meant to be racy. It’s not meant to be anything other than, you know, an artificial sound for an electric vehicle. But, um, yeah, I mean, I thought it was, uh, was really impressive. I’ll give you one last look at that interior shot because it, um, yeah, it comes up after this. But it’s, um, just that interior that drives. So there you can see the infotainment that leans towards you. It comes out at you. You can see it’s got Apple CarPlay and those those bottom of the windscreen options are all customizable. You can choose what you want that to be and what you want it to display.

[00:35:54] Stephen Fenech: Killer, as they say. And the wheel too, I love how left hand, right hand, there’s access to all the most often used features. Like you can do auto park and control your media. It’s really very cleverly put together.

[00:36:09] Trevor Long: I love the car, genuinely. I love the car so much I kept telling you to buy one. Like I was nagging you, wasn’t I?

[00:36:14] Stephen Fenech: They got close. There has been, I can confirm there has been a discussion, but yeah, not quite over the line.

[00:36:22] Trevor Long: Close, but not close enough.

[00:36:24] Stephen Fenech: Close, but no cigar. Yeah.

[00:36:26] Trevor Long: And look, let’s be honest, it was the demand. Yeah, I reckon. Let me put it this way.

[00:36:30] Gary: Yeah.

[00:36:31] Trevor Long: If a BMW dealer said to you, I could get you one in September or October. Yes. You would be on the fence.

[00:36:37] Stephen Fenech: I would be making phone calls. Yeah, I’d be making phone calls.

[00:36:40] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah. It’s amazing. And that’s a position a lot of people are in because you’ve got a timeframe around things. We’re lucky enough that we can fill a gap with press cars. You know, Stephen’s got a little gap between his EQE and the CLA coming, so we can fill that with different cars to drive. The average person, when they’re getting out of one car into another, they might be trading in and doing a handover, but at the end of lease and stuff like that, which is going to happen to a lot of people that are on these novated leases at the moment, you’re going to need to fill the gap. And so if you have to wait wait 5 months, it’s not going to be very handy.

[00:37:07] Stephen Fenech: That’s a story for another day, how you can, you can go out of one into the other, how long you have to wait. I’m sure we’ve had plenty of callers with their own experiences as well.

[00:37:16] Trevor Long: We’d love to hear from you and your experiences. That’s our favorite part of the week, is talking to you. And next week we’re going to start driving cars with you. We’re going to jump into the cars, we’re going to be talking to you from the car, not just sitting here at the desk. Talk about production values. Wow.

[00:37:30] Stephen Fenech: I mean, serious, still impressed with the B-roll, mate.

[00:37:32] Trevor Long: That’s Incredible. I mean, yeah, it’s the simple things in life. Great job. Anyway, we’d love to hear from you. Tell us what you think about the car you’re driving or the car you’re interested in. We’ll help you go shopping. We’ll spend your money for you. That’s one of our favorite things to do.

[00:37:45] Stephen Fenech: But people have asked us though, they said, look, can you help me choose? We’ve had people saying, look, I’m going to narrow it down. And I think they want us to validate their choice as well. So happy to do that.

[00:37:56] Trevor Long: We’ve been doing that for years. When it comes to big TVs and phones, happy to spend way more of your money on a car. Uh, 0477657657 is the number to text or WhatsApp. We’ll get you on the show, Stephen. We’ll do it all again next week.

[00:38:09] Stephen Fenech: I’ll be here.

[00:38:10] Trevor Long: See you then, mate.

[00:38:10] Stephen Fenech: Bye-bye.