A Look Underneath the BMW i4 M50 Undercarriage 

The presenter of this video is Jordan Arocha

🎓

the interior guy just has such a great personality

Handsome as hell

Wow, thank you!

P

What car were you in, sir?

Thank crash test regulations. The fact that individual components are functional and designed towards specific crash test attributes means companies are engineering for the test and not necessarily taking initiative on comprehensive safety (e.g. specifically 25% front crash overlap instead of other variations of front crashes).

Thanks for watching, Frank!

Much appreciated!

No problem!

Glad you liked it!

I know he tested an i4 eDrive40.

@@rkgsdeven the i4 M50 on the smaller wheels and non-summer tires can achieve well over 300 miles IRL. BMW tends to produce quite efficient vehicles. Even their ICE vehicles are usually top of the list for real world efficiency. My old M440i xDrive Gran Coupe had nearly 400HP yet I could get almost 38MPG going 80MPH. It used less fuel than my much smaller and less powerful VW GTI 6MT or my old Honda Accord 2.0T Touring. We have an i7 xDrive60 now and it is quite efficient, returning up to about 3.4-3.5mi/kWh at a steady highway cruise. For such a large and heavy sedan that’s built off an existing ICE chassis I am quite happy. At 80MPH it tends to be as efficient or more efficient IRL than a Model S Plaid while being so much quieter, nicer riding and loaded with options like soft close doors, 4-zone climate, massage seats, reclining rear seats, and a slightly larger battery pack.

LEGACY is a DECADE or more Behind what Tesla did back in 2012. most legacy is Real crap enginering.

Sure Mark sure,calm down!

I saw a few drips too, I was wondering if Jordan was going to mention what that was, it looked like to me he thought about it for a second but moved on.

AC condensation more like

Thanks Paul

OUTDATED gas car Platform. Polestar uses similar T shape battery , used in Hybrids like the gm VOLT. this is more than 20+ year old Technology.

@@markplott4820 Yes it still got a gear tunnel.

I appreciate that

We agree!

Glad it was helpful!

Wondered about that as well.

Thank you!

Glad you liked it!

I looks like they’ve driven it so it likely already needs it’s first repair

@@Termynat0r Yep!

My pleasure!

Munro has already concluded that repairing a Tesla battery is a non-starter (I couldn't help myself).

@@FrunkensteinVonZipperneck Because why would anyone without knowledge should have access into a battery pack at these voltages? Also the cost to repair a pack would be crazy expensive and risk of a bad job that it can catch fire. This pack has components tig welded directly to the pack. So getting this pack out and repaired / replaced is not going to be easy either. Getting the pack out of a Tesla is quiet easy to get it replaced. To repair a pack require some specialist workshop to do it if the pack is outside it warranty (which is 10 years on Tesla). Still need to find a workshop that does pack repairing with warranty of like 2-5 years that it wont catch fire or break.

Legacy OEMs aren't thinking in scale. As the production of batteries reaches the hundreds of TWH in scale, the cost of batteries will decline to the point where the combined labor and liabilty to replace modules will be greater than the combined cost of just replacing the entire pack itself and recycling and or re-purposing the old pack.

@@pipooh1 bullshit!!!!! The cost to repair the battery pack/change faulty modules is still way less than a whole new battery pack!

@@carholic-sz3qv How you know? You had any pack repaired by a specialist and have it tested + warranted + certified again? People keep saying that repairing a pack is cheaper but I've not found any proof yet of a legit repair workshop that offer a price for repairing a pack.

different doesn't necessary mean better for the customers.

I wonder if they negated crash worthiness by having massive stiff castings rigidly attached to the passenger compartment.

@@blackthorncane1841 safety is a primary design consideration, dont be surprised if it earns even higher crash ratings

@@blackthorncane1841 seeing as how all tesla are in the top 1% of the safest cars ever crash tested? And how safety is a top publicly stated priority for them, I'd bet they'll be even better in a crash with the castings and structural pack's. 😎

@@kkal1183 Why not? If any part of those castings get damaged in any car it's a total loss. No point in repairing since it will need to be stripped and straightened on a bench with chains to be corrected. No one is paying that work. also this car has 4 star safety rating compare to any new BEV being nearly always 5 star. For mass production you want as little amount of part as possible. We seeing here probably over 200 parts, each with their own margins and possible failures. Where Tesla now only has 1 part, since it's a casting the chances of failure is very small. There a reason Munro is trying to convince Legacy car makers to use 1 part casting for decades. It create cost savings, create a better structure, it's lighter part and less chances of failure.

REAL floor is raised to Accodomate the battery pack , makes it Uncomfortable for REAR passangers , Roof is too short , slope is too much, Floor too high. TESLA floor is Compltely flat.

Should be about 2 cm higher floor and 2 cm less ground clearance.

Polestar is ground up BEV. The reason Polestar was created as a separate entity was purely to separate out ground up EV research and Hybrids on the Volvo stable.

@@twenty-twenty 😅 its not. If the ps2 had been designed from scratch as an EV that would be correct, but its not. Its built on the Volvo CMA platform which is shares with the XC40. The CMA platform was made for ICE and hybrid drivelines. So no, the PS2 is not based on an EV platform, like many other EVs it is fit onto an ICE platform, which comes with its limitations. Most notably you can see this by the transmission tunnel going though the interior of the car, EVs do not have a transmisson so it is entirely unnecessary and steals up interior space.

Whatever dude. I have better hills to die on. I own an i4 and I LOVE the empty transmission tunnel because my 4 year old uses it as a hurdle.

@@twenty-twenty got a i4 M50 too, got the ps2 in summer of 2020, ordered it because BMW had no sporty electric options at that time. The ps2 was a decent car, but a bit half finished in some regards. I drove it for 99200km in 2 years and was happy with it even with the many workshop visits for minor mechanical and software issues. But the i4 is in another league, the range is better, the tech is more refined and reliable (autopilot on the ps2 made me look like a drunk driver, autopilot on the i4 does its job much better) and the quality feel and ride quality is much better. Im not out to get you, just wanted to point out that it was wrong, people misunderstand all the time, so no worries. I will enjoy being king of the hill for now 🫡 Polestar was created to spearhead the EV tech for Volvo, as they feared it could fail and reflect badly upon Volvos brand image as a safe and family focused car. So they positioned polestar as a more sporty option as to not steal their own customer base and at the same time make a trial EV car using Volvo tech and architecture. Along the way during development process they realized that there was a market for EVs and that EVs were here to stay, so they retrofitted as much as they could into the xc40 (which has a shared platform) and released it shortly after the ps2 release, although they kept the older and more "old people friendly" volvo HMI system instead of doing like polestar and go all in on an android OS (which is good for younger buyers, but your average 60 year old Volvo buyer would not like everything "smart" and digitalized.

You're welcome!

Clubcar golf cart.

every TESLA teardown, this was the case. only 3 mos from Unibody to 3 part Castings and 1 month to Single REAR casting.

Bmw was actually one of not the first to use those giant castings! Munro did a video on it in 2013 with AUTOLINE network go watch it!

@@carholic-sz3qv thanks for the info! Did not want to take anything away from BMW, just found calling that thing "big casting" after having seen the giga castings in the Texas Model Y ... _shakes-head_ 😉

Aluminium leaks with dirt? It's definitely a dirt

Glad you liked it!

That's partially why it's overweight.

@@lighthousesaunders7242 and a bit shit👍

It’s a platform that allows both ICE, hybrids and EVs, the “overweight” is certainly due to less use of aluminum unlike others lol…

@@carholic-sz3qv and is therefore a compromise. This will be to he downfall of legacy auto, trying to make products that fit all perceived markets. Can they make them in 10 hours at 30% profit? No? Doomed....

@@nikelliot8105 lol….. wtf are you even talking about!? Those other manufacturers litteraly makes cars that are then modified/tuned by the customers/ companies for their own usage, from trucks to even the small vehicle to the big trucks, vans……. You are doomed!

Maybe certain types of Al or Galvanized steel does not react? I am sure a coating or certain formulas eliminate or min this reaction.

BMW: ICE vs EV comparison coming soon!

@@MunroLive 🤗😎 VERY COOL 👏👏👏😍😍😍

You bet!

That's because they have no intention of having this be a high volume vehicle. The purpose of this vehicle is for PR Lip service (Hey look were relevant, we have an EV too!) and emissions credits. For these purposes it does it job beautifully. BMW is perfectly content selling high margin ICE vehicles for as long as they possibly can.

BMW did make the snub nose i3 and while range for that car was abysmal, the rest of the car design was wonderful:) BMW hopefully learned their lesson with the i4 and will correct and replace what is one of the worst designs of the year:)

Stuff like that chunky forged aluminum piece MIG welded directly to the battery pack as an attachment point to the body makes me cringe. So many different mix and match metals and alloys in the underbody. A lot of their solutions look like homebuilt garage engineering with lots of welded and bolted tubes and sections with redundancy galore. Probably why it weighs 5,000 lbs. even though with its small interior it's classified by the EPA as a subcompact.

@@flipadavis TIG welded mosaic

BMW don't use Flux Capacitors ...

OUTDATED gas car Platform.

They won't! It's a huge efficiency advantage to have the underbody close to the ground, and completely covered with smooth under-body cladding / covers, to decrease drag. And efficiency (should) drive EV design to contribute to range.

I believe all that is covered, and they were removed for the video. They've been doing that for years. Even our 14 year old 3 series is nothing but plastic covers all underneath.

It was water, the car was just washed because Cory took it home overnight and lives on a dirt road.

I imagine BMW welcome the feedback.

They just took of the bottom covers. So not really a tear down. This is what any inspection of a car would do.

It’s water leaking after they washed the car lol….

Condensation

I was about making this exact comment! Yeah would have been interesting the difference since it’s basically the same car except many modifications. Curious what those were.

There is no disadvantage for the customer here lol….. everything was well tought to make the platform work with both Ev and ICE. Also it remains a very easily serviceable car unlike the tesla big castings

@@carholic-sz3qv Except the interior is tight, there is no frunk, the luggage space is tight and the car weighs 400+ kg too much.. - except those things and probably a lot more I am forgetting "there is no disadvantage for the customer here lol…" Are you paid to defend stuff on the Interwebs? Do they know that you are not good at it?! And what kind of "service" does the chassis of the BMW need that you have to compare it to castings?! Oh, right... BMW of the past used to have issues with cracking sub-frames and shock towers for example...

@@NO3V watch Björn Nylands take on the i4 RWD i40 in these past days. No one tests as thorough and unbiased as him - and he is the biggest Tesla fan. Also, i don't know but your tone doesn't sound like you are an engineer - as an engineer you would be able to debate things properly and not talk down on others.

The i4 video is not an i4 video if nobody writes the ICE platform comment 😄

Crash safety took a serious leap forward during the 2nd part of the 60's. It has been ongoing ever since, the theme being: Save the passengers, kill the vehicle! (PS: Safety glass came into being prior to the mid 30's...so safety has always been around for vehicle manufacturers)

I mean, the entire pack is encased in what looks like hard, inert resin. It does not sound fun to chip off.