ID.3, Ariya, iX, iX1, bz4x, Funky Cat

Gosh, that title sounds like it was put together by an Enigma machine.

I'm just back from a trip to Britain. We stopped in Dubai for a couple of days on the way there, and in Bangkok for a couple of days on the way back. It was another chance for a look at some EVs that aren't in Australia yet. My nephew and daughter both love looking at cars, so taking them to some showrooms was a good way to entertain them together too. They had a great time, and it was a good way for them to bond.

Sooo....

VW ID.3

I hired an ID.3 again. (I did so in June too, as described at Rented an EV, and got driven around in a few others. | PriusChat).

And again, it was good, but frustrating. It's so close to being a very good car. But the plastics are cheap. And the window thing is still stupid. What is wrong with four switches for four windows? And the speed limit recognition is still a mess. Once again, if I had adaptive cruise on, it would auto-detect a 55mph limit (there are no 55mph limits in Britain) at motorway junctions when it misread the chevrons as 55s. Also, on the road from Blackpool to St Annes (one I drive on a lot when I'm in Britain), there's a 30mph limit, and speed cameras. But at one point on the road, it always accelerated to 40. I think it's misreading a "no u-turn" sign as a 40 sign. At least they have updated the navigation now to show charging stations instead of petrol stations.

What was cool was visiting my aunt and uncle in Scotland. In Scotland, if you get the Charge Scotland app, there are loads of charge points - 22kW and 50kW - that are free! This appealed to my inner tightwad Scot.

If I was in the car on my own, I'd get 250 miles from a charge, exactly what the WLTP range for this 58kWh ID.3 is supposed to be. With my daughter, my mum, my dad and luggage, with a lot of 70-80mph driving, we'd get around 200 miles. So, not bad.

Once again, it was quiet, comfortable, roomy, and easy to drive. A great advert for EVs and a bad advert for VWs.

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And then there were the showroom visits.

Nissan Ariya

These are not available yet in Australia, so I thought I'd go and have a look.

There's a lot of room for what is a fairly small SUV. It seems to have the footprint of a BMW X1 but more room than a BMW X3. Seats were really comfortable. Interior design and quality were in a different league to Nissans I've looked at in the past. Design was lovely - clean but interesting. And the materials were of a very high quality, and felt nice, and seemed well put together. The boot was big.

It's around the same price as the Ioniq 5 and EV6 in Britain, and the interior felt more expensive and classy than either of them. I was impressed. I think given the choice between the three, I'd choose the Nissan, which I didn't expect.

BMW (i)X1

I have an X3 at the moment and I like it. I had an iX3 as a courtesy car a while back, and I loved it. But it's 2WD, and it's expensive. So I thought the iX1 could be an option.

The new petrol X1 was launched in Britain while I was there. The iX1 will be pretty much identical, other than having a smaller boot, so I thought I'd have a look.

In terms of size, it was good. They've grown it over the generations, and it's now almost as a big inside as my last-generation X3. Plastics have improved too: the old X1 felt cheap, but this didn't - it felt more like a last-generation X3. It was a nice place to be.

It's not a purpose-built EV - the platform was designed to work for ICE, hybrid and EV models. So you don't get the space benefits of a dedicated EV.

But it's going to be expensive - the Nissan Ariya will be £40-50,000, and the iX1 will be close to £60,000. It didn't feel worth it: it was not as nice inside as the Nissan.

BMW iX

I'd looked at this before, but we were in the showroom.

I think it's about the size of an X5. But it's a purpose-built EV, so there is loads more space. I don't understand why there is no frunk, and the boot is small. But space in the back seat is fantastic. The materials are weird - different to anything I've seen in other cars - but really nice. It's a lot more expensive than the iX1 - pushing £90,000 for the base model - but it felt better value than the iX1 because it is so much nicer.

Toyota bz4x

This is a long way from being launched in Australia, but it is on sale in Britain. It costs about the same as the Ariya / Ioniq 5 / EV6.

The one we looked at was one of the ones that still had the wheels attached, which I understand is unusual.

Honestly, I was pretty shocked by this car. On the outside, with all the plastic cladding, it looked like a 2000s cheap Chinese knock-off of a cheap Ssangyong SUV. On the inside, it was worse. Horrible shiny plastics, and hard matte plastic on regular-touch areas like door panels. Even the steering wheel felt cheap. Controls were like a 2000s French car, with clicky, fragile-feeling stalks. Quality and design were a long way behind my old Gen II Prius.

Knee room in the back was OK, but there wasn't much foot space. One weird thing that I noticed from the back was the panoramic sunroof. It didn't move, but there was a support bar halfway along the roof. This was interior only, and sat about an inch below the glass. I assume it was structural. Normally if there's a support bar, it's because the front half of the roof opens, but it didn't in this case. It was just a piece of metal holding the car together. The last time I saw something like that was in an old Khodro Paykan taxi in Shiraz which had been crashed previously, and they'd welded a steel girder between the B-pillars to hold them together so they could keep driving it. You had to put your feet on top of the girder when you were in the back seat.

Ora Funky Cat

This isn't on sale yet in Britain. But it is in Thailand. My daughter and I were walking through a shopping district when we saw a Great Wall Motors showroom (Ora is Great Wall's EV sub-brand), so we popped in for a look.

In Thailand, like in China, it is called the Good Cat, but it will be the Funky Cat in Britain.

It's pretty much exactly the same size as an ID.3, and has the same range. It will be about £5,000 cheaper than the ID.3 when it comes out in Britain in the next couple of months.

On the outside, it's an awkward-looking thing. The front and back seem to have been designed by people who never spoke to each other. The back looks like a rounded Nissan Cube, and the front looks like a cartoon Porsche 356.

Inside, though, it is lovely. The design is fresh and interesting. I particularly liked the piano keys for the climate controls, which felt nice, and meant you don't have to fight your way through menus on a screen to change the temperature or to demist the windows. The materials were great. It was all "vegan leather" (when did "vegan" become a synonym for "not"?), but it didn't feel plasticky - it felt as good as the not-leather you get in a good BMW or Mercedes. In terms of perceived quality, it felt nicer than the X1. Switchgear felt solid. Software was easy to use (although it would be even easier for me if it were not in Thai, I suspect). The driving position was great.

The boot is smaller than an ID.3, but there is more space in the back seat. There was a good panoramic sunroof, so it was light inside. Even the interior colours were nice.

Like I said, it's going to be £5,000 cheaper than the ID.3, but it feels like it should be the other way round. This felt like a much, much more expensive car than the VW.

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So there you have it. A cheap-feeling, overpriced, and apparently-poor-quality Toyota. A badly-thought-out Volkswagen. A stylish Nissan. A really lovely Chinese car. A Chinese car and a Nissan with nicer interiors than a BMW. All our preconceptions demolished.

Thank goodness the BMWs were still overpriced. There are still some things we can rely on.

 

Oh, and I got a couple of Model 3 Ubers in Dubai. In a town with so many spectacular tall buildings, that Model 3 panoramic roof is brilliant for sightseeing from the back seat.

 

The British spec one I went in had power seats. But the Toyota dealer had let the battery go flat, so I couldn't adjust the seat to find a decent driving position. Or open the boot. It's almost like they don't want to sell it.

The lack of HUD might not actually be such an issue. Like in some Peugeots, the instrument cluster actually sits above the steering wheel, so it's close to the windscreen. You're kind of halfway between a traditional instrument cluster and an HUD.

As for the glovebox, there was quite a lot of storage in a deep centre console, so you could probably get away with it.

I didn't know about the 100kW charging limit. That's a bit of a pain. Especially if range is only 367km. (Although is that on the US EPA measurement rather than WLTP? If so then I suppose it's not so bad.)

That's interesting about the pricing. It certainly doesn't feel like a car that should be competing directly on price with the EV6 or ID.4. The Niro is a lot smaller than an ID.4 / EV6 / bz4x, but I would imagine it's nicer inside than a bz4x, so I suppose it makes sense to compare them.

I did have a look at some ID.4s and ID.5s while I was waiting to drop off the ID.3 at the end of the hire period as the hire guy had gone out for lunch. (The ID.3 was rented from a VW dealership.) Both felt a lot more solid and confidently-built, if you get what I mean, than the ID.3. Of course they were bigger, but they also felt better.

The 58kWh battery works well for the ID.3. But I think it's too small for the ID.4 and 5, because they're a lot heavier and more wind-resistant. So range is fine in the ID.3 at 400ish km WLTP, but I think it drops to 350 or so in the 58kWh ID.4 and 5.

 

Ah, right. That's good to know. In that case, the range doesn't seem terrible.

... I'd always thought NRCAN was just what you'd take for an opioid overdose.

I do like the glove drawer in the Ioniq 5. It's huge, and it's easy to find stuff in it.

 

That's surprising - it's a feature they've promoted hard in other markets.

I agree with @Trollbait here - given the time and the price, the Leaf was the best that it could be. And it paved the way for the much, much better EVs, from Nissan and other companies, that we have now.

What if you're a burglar who doesn't want to leave fingerprints?

This is an important demographic, because EVs are silent and stealthy.