BMW iX or X5 45e

[Borris-Bear]

I’m looking to change my current X5 40d and would like some electric capability as most of our journeys are local or commuting.

I’d initially decided upon the X5 45e which allows me to commute and do most journeys on electric but recently found the iX is significantly cheaper at the moment so now considering one of these.

I’m reasonable comfortable going full electric with only a few longer journeys a year (with occasional European jaunts). My concern is that when the 8 year/100k warranty on the battery expires the car would lose most of its value and be difficult to trade in or otherwise move on.

Anyone out there with a crystal ball 😂? Any experiences of either car as I need swaying one way or the other!

Thanks

[uktrailmonster]

If you are able to charge overnight at home then I would strongly favour the iX. Of course it will lose most of its value over 8 years, but they both will. The iX will however save you many thousands of £ on fuel over 100k miles. To give you some idea I currently save around £3k per annum on fuel per 12k miles.

However, if you are not able to charge overnight, then the hybrid might make more sense.

[Borris-Bear]

Thanks just to add this will be a used car likely a 22 or 23 year so will have 6 years or so left of warranty and I’ll likely keep for 5-6 years.

With the iX has it done most of its depreciation or will it continue to drop and be worth 50p when I come to change car again??

[flight147z]

uktrailmonster said:

If you are able to charge overnight at home then I would strongly favour the iX. Of course it will lose most of its value over 8 years, but they both will. The iX will however save you many thousands of £ on fuel over 100k miles. To give you some idea I currently save around £3k per annum on fuel per 12k miles.

However, if you are not able to charge overnight, then the hybrid might make more sense.

£3k per 12k miles seems overstated that puts your ICE comparative at 18mpg at 1.25/litre even before subtracting electricity costs

However id agree with your suggestion to go ix

[kambites]

Ultimately, I don't think anyone will be able to answer this with anything other than baseless speculation. The next six years will see an awful lot of change in the automotive market. I think all we can say with any confidence is that both will lose the majority of their remaining value between 2 and 8 years old.

[SDK]

Borris-Bear said:

Thanks just to add this will be a used car likely a 22 or 23 year so will have 6 years or so left of warranty and I ll likely keep for 5-6 years.

With the iX has it done most of its depreciation or will it continue to drop and be worth 50p when I come to change car again??

From March '23 the iX received the capability to run iDrive 8.5 which is much better than v8. So worth seeking out a '23 car

[raspy]

Borris-Bear said:

Thanks just to add this will be a used car likely a 22 or 23 year so will have 6 years or so left of warranty and I ll likely keep for 5-6 years.

With the iX has it done most of its depreciation or will it continue to drop and be worth 50p when I come to change car again??

As others have said, it's very challenging to accurately predict how much it would be worth in 2030.

There is so many factors that could impact how much it loses between now and 2030;
1. Economic conditions in the country worsen further so fewer people can afford to switch to used EVs, even older ones
2. iX is due to stop production in mid 2028 (no replacement model)
3. iX has just been facelifted, and despite genuine advancements in efficiency/range over the original models, UK dealers seem to be already advertising brand new ones with over 13% discount on the list price (is demand softening for the iX, as a brand new car?)
4. Neue Klasse platform launches in Sep 2025 with next generation of BMW EVs, starting with iX3, promising a big leap forward in batteries, charging, tech, adas (and less weight) and cost of those batteries will be 50% cheaper to produce than current gen of BMW batteries, and BMW allegedly wants to pass on those savings to customers in terms of the price of the cars
5. BMW plan to launch 40 new models between now and 2028 (updated versions of existing cars, plus new EVs like iX3, iX6, iX7 etc)
6. New entrants from China to UK market (including luxury EVs) that undercut European carmakers and outperform anything from Europe on range/efficiency/tech/charging, which puts further downward pressure on used EV prices of European EVs like the iX
7. EV technology advances faster than expected (solid state?) and cost to make them/batteries decreases faster than expected

Do bear in mind that there are already EV garages in this country that would assist in repairing/replacing a battery, should you have an issue outside of the warranty, and more garages will be popping up as they see more older EVs as a market opportunity.

Here is a used battery from a 2023 iX (and judging by the price, it's likely to be from an iX40) but it's up for £3,772 on ebay. So even if you bought a 2022 iX40 relatively cheap because it's got over 100k miles and thus battery warranty no longer valid, and even if it's £1k for labour to fit, that's under £5k to have a replacement used battery fitted

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/405874297714

If you want certainty about depreciation costs over the next 4 years, then I suggest leasing a brand new EV (iX or anything else)

If that's not an option, and it has to be a used EV, then I suggest waiting until the end of the year, as from what I've read, there will be a big jump in the number of used EVs coming to market this year, due to so many 3 year leases ending and hence, I feel that used iX prices may soften further over the next 6 months

If you can't wait, and want to switch to a used iX (or any other used EV) pretty quickly, then when it comes to depreciation costs over the next 5 years, expect the unexpected, and make sure you are mentally prepared for a potential scenario where your used iX loses much more value over 5 years than you originally anticipated.

As someone who has an iX (leased from new), when the lease is up, I'm going to lease another brand new EV.

Personally, I would not want to sink my own money into buying any EV at this time, new or used.

The EV market and the tech is evolving very rapidly, and I do believe that it's going to further impact depreciation in years to come.

[Not Ideal]

I was in the same place and plumped for the iX. It’s been great and I’m very happy with the decision.

[DMZ]

Borris-Bear said:

Thanks just to add this will be a used car likely a 22 or 23 year so will have 6 years or so left of warranty and I ll likely keep for 5-6 years.

With the iX has it done most of its depreciation or will it continue to drop and be worth 50p when I come to change car again??

No the iX is not done with depreciation. It might even depreciate faster from now on. If you’re worried about depreciation, get the PHEV. Obviously the X5 being a million times better looking makes the choice quite simple between those two anyhow and that will not change with age either.

[uktrailmonster]

flight147z said:

£3k per 12k miles seems overstated that puts your ICE comparative at 18mpg at 1.25/litre even before subtracting electricity costs

However id agree with your suggestion to go ix

My calculation was based on variable monthly fuel prices between £1.46 and £1.33 per litre. My mileage might have been closer to 15k though. I think it works out at around 30 mpg for the equivalent powered ICE SUV, which I don’t think is unreasonable.

[uktrailmonster]

DMZ said:

No the iX is not done with depreciation. It might even depreciate faster from now on. If you re worried about depreciation, get the PHEV. Obviously the X5 being a million times better looking makes the choice quite simple between those two anyhow and that will not change with age either.

It is extremely unlikely to lose more value over the next 2-3 years compared to the first 2 years. It will still depreciate of course, but the worst will already be over.

How much is an 8 year old X5 with 100k miles worth today? £20k ish private sale maybe?

[SWoll]

DMZ said:

No the iX is not done with depreciation. It might even depreciate faster from now on. If you re worried about depreciation, get the PHEV. Obviously the X5 being a million times better looking makes the choice quite simple between those two anyhow and that will not change with age either.

And is utterly subjective.

To depreciate faster a 2-3 year old iX would be worth zero in another 2-3 years time. Seems unlikely?

[JonPH]

Is keep what you have an option ?

iX has well documented drivetrain issues, which had ours stop dead on a motorway. Turning circle poor. That said, parts of it are super impressive .

Hybrid is a tax wheeze, and must be huge complexity when over 5 years old.

[DMZ]

SWoll said:

And is utterly subjective.

To depreciate faster a 2-3 year old iX would be worth zero in another 2-3 years time. Seems unlikely?

Yes but that subjective view is shared by many which will also impact its resell when it’s long past the hype and buyers are looking at a myriad of choice from much better new cars to a whole slew of used EVs where the iX will only stand out by being ugly. The X5 in the meantime will be as capable as when it was made and quite possibly better than new cars in the future. So the exact opposite of the iX. There is of course also the PHEV reliability risk but you’d hope that BMW has learnt their lessons on that by now.

Depreciation is usually measured in percentage. Obviously no car depreciates with the same or higher absolute amount over a period of time. Did I really need to spell that out?

[kiethton]

We've got a 45e, 2022. 90% of our miles have been done on electric, it's perfect for our needs

[uktrailmonster]

DMZ said:

Yes but that subjective view is shared by many which will also impact its resell when it s long past the hype and buyers are looking at a myriad of choice from much better new cars to a whole slew of used EVs where the iX will only stand out by being ugly. The X5 in the meantime will be as capable as when it was made and quite possibly better than new cars in the future. So the exact opposite of the iX. There is of course also the PHEV reliability risk but you d hope that BMW has learnt their lessons on that by now.

Depreciation is usually measured in percentage. Obviously no car depreciates with the same or higher absolute amount over a period of time. Did I really need to spell that out?

You could argue the polar opposite of this, which would be equally valid. In reality there will be a market for both these cars in that time frame and both will have lost most of their initial value.

OP might as well just buy the car they prefer right now and not try to overthink the future. Buying a 2-3 year old car is certain to avoid a huge initial loss from new.

[hantsxlg]

As mentioned 'fuel costs wise an x5 45e might be similar to ix daily trips are less than 40 miles. We have a q7 phev which does half distance of x5 on battery (25ish miles) but still in 3.5 years and 36k miles 70% of driving is on electric. Also if the battery in a phev was nerfed the car most likely would refuse to drive not just revert to an ice only mode.

So decisions beyond on your driving profile (how many sub 40 mile days vs long driving days) and access to salary sacrifice schemes..it is cheaper for me to get a new ix 60.to replace the q7 than to buy the audi at end of 4 year finance and run it privately...

[uktrailmonster]

hantsxlg said:

As mentioned 'fuel costs wise an x5 45e might be similar to ix daily trips are less than 40 miles. We have a q7 phev which does half distance of x5 on battery (25ish miles) but still in 3.5 years and 36k miles 70% of driving is on electric. Also if the battery in a phev was nerfed the car most likely would refuse to drive not just revert to an ice only mode.

Fair point if just crawling around in city traffic most of the time. But I would still much prefer a proper BEV in that situation. The last hybrid I tried was a Volvo XC90 T8 and the drivetrain in that came a very poor second to the Tesla Model X we chose over it.

[bennno]

We ve got a 73 plate iX, brought used with a huge discount. We ve done about 12k miles since purchase.

It s one of the best cars we ve owned, semi autonomous capabilities and tech (hud, 360 cam, massage seats, Sat nav with charging integration) are next level compared to our ionic 5 which proceeded it.

Such a nice place to travel long distances, aided by the b&w hifi option in ours, which is mind blowing, worth seeking one out with it.

Ours is on 22 without air, I d discounted it out of hand on that basis, sales guy said to try it, it rides at least as well as a RRS I had on 20 s with air.

We are on a road trip across France / Switzerland / Italy at the moment (not using the iX) but noticed modern and relatively low cost EV charging is everywhere, clearly some huge investment going on.

Edited by bennno on Sunday 15th June 06:45

[DMZ]

uktrailmonster said:

You could argue the polar opposite of this, which would be equally valid. In reality there will be a market for both these cars in that time frame and both will have lost most of their initial value.

OP might as well just buy the car they prefer right now and not try to overthink the future. Buying a 2-3 year old car is certain to avoid a huge initial loss from new.

I wished I had overthought the future before I bought an EV and I can’t see how anything has changed in those four years re the next four years. It has been mostly good other than the depreciation, though, but the question was re depreciation.

But buying according to preferences is a good idea. Which would be the X5 in my case out of those two.