Nearly all of vehicle design is an exercise in compromise. Do you want sportier handling? That’s gonna reduce ride comfort. You want more interior room? That’s gonna necessitate a bigger, heavier car, and all the drawbacks that come with that. Every design decision takes away from something else, and the art and skill of it comes with striking a balance that makes for a compelling product. Alternatively, you can cast cost concerns by the wayside, throw a ton of elaborate engineering at those design dilemmas, and try to eliminate compromise altogether, as seen in the 2024 BMW X7 M60i xDrive.
The relatively young and large X7 caps off the increasingly impressive seriatim of BMW SUVs I’ve reviewed this year. It’s been a hit since its launch in 2019, building on the already fabulous X5 to make for a very successful full-size SUV, for those that need/want the extra cargo space and/or a more usable third row seat than the X5’s optional bench. It’s also been adorned with more upright, stately styling than its less statured siblings, which was refreshed just last year with the same striking new nose on the new 7 Series sedan. It looks like the flagship luxury vehicle that it is.
Our X7 M60i test vehicle seeks to defy the conundrum of compromise. It simultaneously straddles both sides of the scales of balance, being a large, practical, resplendently comfortable three-row luxury SUV, and also a ridiculously fast vehicle that handles itself impressively and drives ridiculously well all of the time — when it’s not just driving itself ridiculously well.
One of the standout features of this X7 is BMW’s Driving Assistant Professional, which adds semi-autonomous driving to its already accomplished adaptive cruise and lane-centering tech. Its means of activation is possibly the slickest thing I’ve ever seen: get on a highway, set the adaptive cruise, and when it feels ready (it pretty much always does), it’ll say “Drive Assist Ready,” at which point you take your hands away, and let Bavarian Jesus take the wheel.
Bavarian Jesus clearly telegraphs when they’re working with green lights on the steering wheel, which will turn yellow and softly flash, accompanied by a bong and a message that they’re losing faith and need your guiding hand — usually not for more than a few seconds at a time. Bavarian Jesus also demands your undivided attention, and will not tolerate you looking away from the sermon about the magic of technology for more than a few seconds at a time. This feature on its own sets it very clearly apart from its competitors, and it doesn’t stop there.
The conundrum of body control versus comfort is handled by means of adaptive air suspension and active sway bars, the former of which can raise, lower, soften, or stiffen to handle any situation, and the latter of which can effectively decouple in a straight line for greatly enhanced ability to absorb aberrations in the road, and re-couple under cornering load to flatten handling and foster confidence. The additional length of the X7 is masked by four wheel steering, which improves manoeuvrability both on the road and in tight parking confines.
All this Teutonic trickery makes for what is not only very handily the best handling full-size SUV you can buy, but a surprisingly fun and agile vehicle, regardless of class. Driver controls are typical BMW; on the lighter side, not as touchy-feely as they used to be, but sharp, linear, and satisfying. In the same vein, everything feels effortless; the X7 never feels big, and when you’re not looking for excitement, it’s able to tone down and glide over the road, with an abundance of sounding deadening and double-paned glass making the driving experience totally serene.
Adding to that serenity is a bevy of bourgeoisie bells and whistles, including a Bowers & Wilkins Diamond sound system that is pretty close to perfection, and its furnished with super soft Merino leather seats, which are heated, vented, massaging, and near-as-makes-no-difference infinitely adjustable. The second row of seats gets captain’s chairs, parked under a panoramic moonroof, and the front row of our tester was capped with crystalline controls and trimmed with glossy carbon fiber, as this is the velocitous version of the X7.
Said velocity comes courtesy of BMW’s S68 twin turbocharged V8, as deployed in the other x60i models. It produces an advertised 523 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque, with a 48-volt mild hybrid system smoothing over the stop-start functionality and improving fuel economy to an impressive average of 13.4 L/100 km. The mild hybrid further eschews compromise by also augmenting outright performance, with an additional 147 lb-ft of twist off the line — from which the X7 will sprint from zero to 100 km/h in just about four seconds.
So, the 2024 BMW X7 M60i is big, practical, immensely comfortable, and reasonably efficient. At the same time, it’s genuinely fast, both in a straight line and through the twisties, and surprisingly engaging to hustle. Something capable of this speed shouldn’t be this serene, and something this luxurious shouldn’t be this lascivious to drive, and a three-row SUV shouldn’t be capable of any of this. Yet here we are, through the virtue of engineering witchcraft, and of course, money — $156,900 as-tested, to be exact — but if you want a vehicle with zero compromises, a vehicle that’s a big family hauler and an accomplished athlete all in one, that’s what it’s gonna cost you to overrule the dilemma of design.
