225e Luxury Auto Hybrid 2022

BMW should stick to designing cars, not smart phones on wheels!

This review is of a BMW 225e (Luxury) plug-in hybrid with the new corporate plug-ugly face like a guppy, and what is still (as at 20 October 024) the latest BMW touchscreen-only operating system.
The good bits:
• The hybrid drive system seems to work well, and the transition from electric to internal combustion drive seems to be seamless. Although it doesn’t offer “fast charge” it only seems to take a couple of hours from flat with my home 20watt charger. That claims to give 55 miles electric drive, which seems about right for most of the year even with the air con running. On petrol alone it gets about 55-60 mpg. Given that my driving is mostly short local trips, interspersed with longer runs of some 200m each way (when I don’t bother with public chargers,) the overall fuel consumption shows a meaningless 300+mpg.
• The extra battery weight males it a bit bumpy at low speed, but once on the move it feels fine, and the regenerative braking isn’t intrusive. Just as well, as I can’t find any way of adjusting it in the maze of menus.
• It seemed well put together and rattle free. There is the usual BMW quality feel inside and all-round visibility is good. However….
There is always a however:
• In common with many “after thought” hybrids, drive setup seems to make it difficult to manoeuvre and brake smoothly at low speeds; the throttle is very sudden, as is the low speed braking. (The proximity sensors are very conservative and slam the brakes on amid much beeping if it thinks it’s getting too close to something - like my rather tight garage entrance. )
• The main dashboard in the driver’s eyeline is an ergonomic nightmare. Lots of options for pretty multicoloured disco lights designed by an over-enthusiastic teenager, but no way of getting the simple, clear, easy-to-read white on black displays that made previous generations of BMWs such a delight to drive – or any other uncluttered layout.
• Although it has lots of driver aids, a lot of them are downloads on a subscription. Most, I have tried - and not renewed. Maybe, now that I’m more used to the thing, I’ll reinstall the clever cruise control, as without it the speed limiter that I rely on to keep my licence is clunky and not easy to use. All the aids have warning beeps – so you have to take your eyes off the road to find out what it’s telling you. By the time you’ve discovered that Nanny is telling you that speed limit is changing, you’re in the hedge…. How difficult would it be to adopt aircraft technology and have it say “Overspeed” or “Lane Warning” or whatever?
• The centre display is just hateful. EVERYTHING is changed from an “app”, of which there are many, tiled across the home screen- except the aircon, which only requires 2 presses to show the temperature change display. You can’t do any of it without looking, so it’s effectively unusable on the move, and BMW makes a big thing of it all being voice-controllable. They lie.
I think my voice and accent are fairly neutral standard English. A year on, it keeps telling me it’s sorry it doesn’t understand me, that it will have to learn the commands I use, and offering me a screen full of tiny writing with example commands. At 70mph on a motorway? I’ve tried it with French and German, without success. Swahili, perhaps?
In summary, every previous BMW I’ve owned or driven – back to the 1980s - has been ergonomically better – and probably safer.
What a shame.

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