Driving across the American West in techno-excess with the BMW XM

Enlarge / Big power, big cactus, mostly big price tag. (credit: Roberto Baldwin)

I’m barreling down Interstate 10 in Arizona toward California in the BMW XM, the latest luxury performance SUV from the German automaker. A dagger of extravagance, the black-on-black SUV is all about more. But it’s more than just a vehicle you stand next to while posing for social media shots; it’s a bold expression from BMW that it can merge luxury with the latest technology.

The drive

With a starting price of $160,000, the BMW XM is actually quite a deal when you look at its closest competitor, the Lamborghini Urus. I’ve driven both over long distances, and the XM delivers on a long road trip while saving the person behind the wheel about $75,000—that’s less than the price of the 2023 BMW i4 M50. So you get your showoff car and, well, another showoff car that’s an electric vehicle.

The XM is a plug-in hybrid, so you could spend most of your time behind the wheel in electric mode. It has an electric-only range of about 30 miles, so trips to Whole Foods and back could be far cleaner than what the Urus offers, as it’s a gas-only proposition. But driving cross-country, I burned through the range within the first 30 minutes. Efficiency-wise, plug-in hybrids lose most of their appeal on a long road trip. I could have tried to find a level 2 charger along the way, but it would have been a waste of my time, and I would have been the jerk who’s stopping someone with an EV from charging.