BMW m7 i7 2023 price

BMW m7 i7 2023 price
The 2023 BMW 7 Series securely manages to successfully straddle both sides of the fence, providing extreme luxury on one side with a remarkable ability to flick through the scenery on the other. Alex Kwanten

For the first time in living memory, BMW has built a flagship 7 Series that isn’t specifically pitched at its traditional arch-rival, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. That’s because the all-new BMW 7 Series has everything—combustion, plug-in hybrid and pure EV powertrains—in one body and the S-Class doesn’t. Instead, the 7 now faces off against not only its familiar gas-powered rival but also the S-class’s lozenge-shaped, all-electric EQS sibling. 

Given how separate the marketing has been for BMW’s i4 and its gas-powered 4 Series sister, you’d think the 7 Series and i7 would be different models, but that’s not how BMW sees it. “The customer who orders a 7 gets a 7,” i7 project director Christian Schneider told Forbes Wheels. “We can let them decide what powertrain they like.”

Due in North American showrooms later this year (not that there’s much of it left), the BMW 7 Series will arrive with its not-inconsiderable armory ablaze. There’s a twin-turbo, inline-six for the 740i, the thumping biturbo V8 for the 760i and a pair of Herculean electric motors powering the i7. 

The first one will land at $93,300, the V8 tab will be $113,600 and the i7 60 will be $119,300, all of them topped off by a $995 destination charge. (And, obviously, options, and there’ll be plenty of them because it’s BMW.) 

BMW has done a great job of making the interior, style and technology experiences uniform across each variation, and there are lots of new luxuries like the rear theater screen and cashmere-blend fabrics, but the V8 and EV versions do drive a little differently. 

BMW m7 i7 2023 price
Big, broad and handsome, from every angle but the front the 2023 7 Series and i7 are the most conventional BMW flagship in decades, and appropriately tasteful and muscular. The grille? That’s up to interpretation. Alex Kwanten

The Battle Renews

2023 sees the beginning of a very different-looking battle between the luxury heavyweights. While Audi’s A8 looks just like it always has and Genesis’ G90 wows with new style, neither offers an electric option and BMW and Mercedes-Benz are the traditional big sellers in this group. By offering two very different choices, Benz has either foolishly divided its forces or caught BMW in a pincer movement. Only time will tell.

There are two totally different strategies deployed to capture the same well-heeled lease payments, but it’s a game BMW looks to have played superbly well. Traditionally, the S-Class has had the edge in luxury and technology, while the 7 Series has prioritized handling and dynamics to project a youthful zest. Not so this time around.

BMW Chairman Oliver Zipse has called this dynamic focus a losing strategy, and so the 7 Series has pivoted, hard. “Of course, some people think you’re nuts. BMW always built this sporty limousine in the six cycles before,” Zipse defended to Forbes Wheels. “Then you ask the customer and they say it’s a great car but only for the driver. After six generations, is that what you still want to hear?” Quite.

BMW m7 i7 2023 price
The rear quarters of the 7 Series have enough room for LeBron James, but in case the regular seating arrangement isn’t enough, and if there’s no front passenger, there’s a lie-back option. Alex Kwanten

At 212.2 inches long, the new 7 is the biggest car BMW has ever built and the old short-wheelbase model (not offered in the U.S in many years) is no more. It’s also wider (76.8 inches) and taller (60.8 inches), and as spacious as ever.

It added adaptive air suspension, rear-wheel steering, four-zone climate control, heated and ventilated massage seats in the front and the rear, an almost entirely new infotainment system, Swarovski crystal headlights and more. 

Not all of these features are necessarily aimed at Americans, as China is now the 7’s biggest market and its demographics are different. The average Chinese 7 Series buyer is just 38 (!). That’s 18 years younger than the average US buyer, and 95% of them are male (versus 75% in the US).

And Chinese customers, the BMW 7 Series Vice President Robert Kahlenberg explained, love their digital bling, like the 31.3-inch rear entertainment screen, which can stream almost anything else you might have a subscription to. The car is awash with digital bling, like the lights on the dash layout itself, ambient lighting, touchscreens in the rear doors and on and on.

BMW m7 i7 2023 price
The curved display looks great, with crisp and beautiful graphics, and iDrive 8 works very well. But with so many features and functions, there’s a significant learning curve. Alex Kwanten

Digital Overload?

All of these digital features flow through iDrive 8 and the curved dash display, Munich’s latest and greatest iteration of its infotainment software and screen setup first seen on the i4 and iX. iDrive 8 is intuitive and beautiful, and in some lower-end models it’s a huge upgrade over what went before.

In the 7, though, there are miles of pages to swipe through and many sub-menus, so there’s going to be a considerable learning curve. Fortunately, BMW’s Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA) is there to help, incorporating world-class voice commands and responding accurately to normal human speech patterns. 

Still, there’s a little too much going on in the 7, and physical controls for things like seat heaters might have been better.

So How Do They Drive?

BMW has set out to take the 7 Series somewhere it has never been before, into the field of true cosseting luxury. But despite Zipse’s speech, the engineers couldn’t really let go of the whole handling thing. “Many people think that 7 Series customers are usually in the back seat, but that’s not so,” Schneider said. “The majority of our customers prefer to drive themselves.”

So the 7 Series has become the car that can do both very well. It just does one a bit better than the other and, surprisingly, that area of expertise is luxury.

The 760i xDrive does, indeed, behave like a mega-luxury limousine when you want it to and like a massively impressive (but clearly huge and hefty) sports sedan when the driver finds a road worthy of stirring the dragon inside.

The V8 is quiet when you want it to be and stirring when you want it to unlock all 536 hp and 553 lb-ft of torque and rarely strays into the nothingness in between. There’s also 12 hp and 147 lb-ft of torque from its 48-Volt, mild-hybrid electric boosting system, which fills in the gaps when the turbo isn’t fully spooled up. It’s seamless and soothing, but roars when commanded to. It rockets to 60 in 4.2 seconds (we tested it).

There are so many unusual pieces that make up this puzzle as BMW seeks to push its luxury credentials in a way it has never done before. The doors shut with authority, even though the interior button-opening system takes some getting used to.

There is slightly more wind noise than the S-Class, but it’s perhaps quieter in road noise and the rear end feels more composed in the way it remains flat through corners and refuses to toss the passengers around.

If luxury is the priority like no 7 Series before it, the flagship hasn’t given up on dynamics, as the launch roads in California proved. Nothing in the luxury class (outside a Porsche Panamera) hustles through the bends with this car’s security, competence and even joy. 

BMW m7 i7 2023 price
Apart from a slightly different grille, different badges and a tailipipeless rear bumper, the i7 is essentially identical in every cosmetic way to the gas-powered 7 Series models. Alex Kwanten

Then There’s The Electric One …

The BMW i7 is a ground-breaker for the brand, with lots of innovations rolled into a package that looks more or less identical to the rest of the 7 Series models. It’s heavier for sure, and you notice it right away behind the wheel. Adding 950 pounds over the 760i is sure to strain chassis parts. It’s 1,323 pounds heavier than the 740i. 

Slung under the cabin and trunk are 101.7 kWh of lithium-ion battery that can be charged from 10% to 80% in just 34 minutes at a 350kW DC fast charger. It can deliver 318 miles of EPA range and 80 miles of charge in just 10 minutes (at a maximum of 195 kWh).

There are no rare-earth minerals in the i7’s motors, which are electrically excited synchronous motors, with the rear one boasting a bit more power than the front, to maintain the traditional BMW performance balance.

BMW m7 i7 2023 price
Wheel choices will be more of a factor on the i7 than the gas-powered cars, as the different sizes yield different overall ranges, with the smallest 19-inch wheels yielding the maximum 318 miles. 20- and 21-inch units reduce it to 308 and 296, respectively. Alex Kwanten

It is a gem of a machine, with its silent cruising backed up by strong straight-line performance (reaching 60 mph in 4.5 seconds), topping out at an electronically-limited 149mph.

There’s an astonishing, overwhelming competence to the way the i7 eats miles, whether it’s in a straight line, in heavy traffic or on a winding mountain road, and at no point does it ever feel stressed. It does feel less lithe than the 760i, but its grip levels beggar belief and BMW has not sacrificed a scrap of comfort to get to them.

Price fighters

The least painful 7 Series is the only one we couldn’t test, the 740i, in rear-drive form with 375 horsepower and 383 pound-feet of torque, at $93,300. Meanwhile, over in Stuttgart, the six-cylinder S 500 Mercedes starts at $111,100, then climbs to the $117,700 S 580, which is a bit more than the 760i xDrive.

The entry point for the Mercedes-Benz EQS is the EQS 450 at $102,310, but the more powerful EQS 580 ($125,900) matches up better with the $119,300 i7 60. There’s also an AMG EQS with a lot more oomph at $147,500. BMW will answer that challenge, too, but not just yet.

In the meantime, there’s plenty to like here even though the styling will still split opinions. The best part about driving the new BMW 7 Series is not that you can’t see the front end from the driver’s seat. That’s not even in the top five.

BMW has embarked on a perilous new journey into luxury, and it has done it so convincingly that there are areas in which its limousine topples even the mighty S-Class. The ride quality is on par, the interior noise levels are right there, too, and the rear seat comfort might even be better. 

There is work to do on the multimedia system and its clunky electronics, but even diehard S-Class fans should take notice.

BMW provided lodging and meals to enable Forbes Wheels to bring you this first-person drive report. Although Forbes Wheels sometimes participates in manufacturer-hosted events, our coverage is independent, unbiased and aimed at offering consumers an objective view of every vehicle we test.

How much is BMW m7 i7?

The 2023 BMW i7 is the first all-electric 7 Series. It has the luxury and technology you'd expect from a flagship luxury sedan and an estimated 300-mile range. Pricing starts at $119,300.

How much does BMW m7 cost?

The least-expensive 2021 BMW 7 Series is the 2021 BMW 7 Series M760i xDrive 4dr Sedan AWD (6.6L 12cyl Turbo 8A). Including destination charge, it arrives with a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of about $157,800.

When can I buy a 2023 BMW?

The all-new 2023 BMW 7 Series full-size luxury sedan will arrive on American shores in the fourth quarter of 2022.

How much is BMW i7?

The upcoming EV will have an estimated range of “up to 300 miles” and a starting price of $120,295.