What does the second 100,000 euros buy? Autogefühl's Thomas spent a full review answering that in a BMW i7 fitted with nearly every option, then gave his verdict at motorway speed: not much. A base i7 at about half the price, he says, would still be a great luxury car, and doubling the price is not justified. It is an unusual conclusion for a luxury review, and each of today's other stories reaches a version of it.
Wheels come up most often. Thomas says the 22-inch wheels let small bumps and manhole covers through the air suspension, and he advises against the biggest size. He says the same about the optional M wing mirrors, which he found loud at motorway speed in an earlier test, while the standard mirrors kept the cabin quiet. Savagegeese made that call before driving: his long-term Lucid Gravity Grand Touring sits on the smaller range-extender wheel package, with 600-treadwear tires picked for efficiency, quiet and comfort over looks. In the R2 owners' comparison, the cost of the other path gets a number. The 21-inch wheel has one tire option, a Pirelli put at about $475 each, while the 20-inch size has around 20 choices, many in the $200s. Both owners also think most buyers can skip the Performance trim if its semi-active suspension is the only draw.
Bentley writes restraint into the spec sheet. According to Top Gear Tech, the company describes the Torcal's 875 hp as sufficient, says it could have built 1,000, and chose faster charging, up to 400 kW, over a bigger range figure. It also kept physical climate switches and declined to offer a passenger screen, choices that read as decisions about what not to add. The Pebble Flow is the one case where the extras are the product. Andy Slye's test unit is the fully specced Founders Edition at $180,000, and nearly everything he liked, from self-hitching to switchable glass, is automation that costs money. He says two more affordable versions are coming, and those, not the flagship, are where most buyers will actually decide whether an app-driven trailer is worth it. The flagship i7 sits in the lead story for the same reason: it shows what the whole catalog adds up to.
What to watch is the configurators. BMW's pricing for the base i7 outside Germany, the cost of Pebble's lower trims, and whether the 0 percent financing and lease deals that savagegeese says currently soften Lucid's sticker prices outlast the restructuring he describes. He has the Gravity for a year, so whether its fixed software stays fixed will get a real answer.
BMW's Updated i7 Gets a Bigger Battery and Faster Charging on the Same 400-Volt Base
Autogefühl's Thomas calls the 7 Series refresh BMW's most extensive mid-cycle update, and says the electric i7 gets the biggest share of it. Per the video, the battery grows by about 10 kWh to 112.5 kWh, using cylindrical cells from BMW's Neue Klasse program, and peak DC charging rises by 50 kW to 250 kW, for a 10 to 80 percent session of 28 minutes. The car stays on a 400-volt architecture, which the host says BMW improved with help from Rimac. AC charging is 11 kW, or 22 kW as an option. The i7 60 tested here is quoted at 4.8 seconds for its acceleration figure, against 5.5 for the base i7. On the Autobahn, hands-off assisted driving worked up to 130 km/h and changed lanes after the host glanced at the mirror, though it once asked him to take the wheel in traffic. His consumption tests gave 21 kWh per 100 km at 100 km/h, for about 535 km or 335 miles of range, and 25.5 kWh at 130 km/h, for about 440 km or 275 miles. The complaints are specific: no front trunk, Veganza leatherette seats that cannot be combined with ventilation or the executive rear package, rear sunshades reached only through a touchscreen menu, and optional M wing mirrors he found loud at speed in an earlier test.
Top Gear Tech Tours the Torcal Cabin, Where Bentley Calls 875 hp Sufficient
This is the fourth Torcal video on the site since September 24, after Autogefühl's first look, Autotrader on its sound and carwow on its weight, so here is only what Top Gear Tech adds. The presenter confirms the car shares the PPE platform with the electric Porsche Cayenne and uses a 113 kWh NMCA battery in pouch cells. He says Bentley chose charging speed, up to 400 kW, over a bigger range figure of around 360 miles. Bentley, he says, expects the pack to keep around 90 percent of its capacity after 100,000 miles. The car shown was a static display, so there are no driving impressions. Inside, Bentley kept a physical row of climate switches and added a detox button that calms the screen, and it offers no passenger screen at all. New materials include a merino wool developed with a British wool specialist the presenter says is 400 years old. At under 5 metres, he says, it is shorter than a Bentayga and the most compact and affordable new four-door Bentley. One miss: the rear blind is worked by the window switch, and a second press lowers the glass, which the presenter did not find very luxurious.
Savagegeese Starts a Year With a 2027 Lucid Gravity Specced for Range, Not Looks
Savagegeese is keeping a 2027 Lucid Gravity for about a year and says the series will focus on the technical side: what works and what does not. The host drove a pre-production car early and says the first production Dream Edition he drove had problems serious enough that he would not have recommended it. On this 2027 car, he reports, the core functions work. The key is detected every time, the car boots quickly, and Android Auto connects on every drive. His spec is deliberate. He chose the Grand Touring trim for range, the smaller range-extender wheel and tire package, the upgraded audio, Dream Drive 2 Pro, and the dynamic handling package, which adds rear-wheel steering and, per the video, makes the car feel much smaller than it is. The build comes to $123,000, a figure the host calls misleading given Lucid's current 0 percent financing and lease offers. His reservations are the standard glass roof, which he says creates uneven cabin temperatures, and a cabin he finds less isolated than the BMW he drives. He also notes that the lidar and cameras in Dream Drive 2 Pro do not deliver self-driving yet. Charging at home, he says, costs him about a third of what premium fuel would.
Two Rivian R2 Owners Compare Wheels, Wraps and Sound After Six Weeks
Travis Ketchum and Gjeebs bought launch R2s with different options and compared them in Phoenix. The owner on 20-inch all-terrain wheels runs a BFGoodrich Trail-Terrain T/A Plus that, he points out, lacks the three-peak snow rating of the regular version, which he suspects is a compound change for lower rolling resistance. He finds it much quieter than the tires on his R1S. His efficiency is running below other owners', which he puts down to hills and a heavy right foot, but he says charging makes up for it: in 109 °F desert heat, the R2 charged as it would on a mild day, where his R1S had derated badly in similar heat last year. The other owner says his R2 finished a 10 to 80 percent charge about two and a half minutes faster than his Model Y. Tires are the cost argument. The 21-inch size has one fitment, a Pirelli put at about $475 per tire, while the 20-inch size has around 20 choices. Neither owner thinks the semi-active suspension alone justifies the Performance trim. Both rate the R2's sound system the best Rivian has built, though one says it still trails Tesla's. Launch buyers in certain states, they add, should select the charging accessory bundle before delivery, since it can be credited to zero there. For delivery timing, see our R2 tracker.
Three Nights in the $180,000 Pebble Flow, an RV Built Around an App
Andy Slye took the Pebble Flow travel trailer to Yosemite for three nights. The Founders Edition he tested is fully specced at $180,000, and he says two more affordable versions are planned. It carries a 45 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery and 1.1 kW of rooftop solar, which the video says allows up to seven days off grid, and the host says it can also act as backup power for a home. Its most unusual hardware is a motor at each wheel. Those motors let the trailer hitch itself using its cameras, move around a campsite by remote control from the included iPad, and push while being towed, which Pebble says reduces range loss for an EV doing the towing. The Flow accepts AC and DC fast charging, and its NEMA 14-50 outlet let the host charge his Rivian from the trailer at a campground where he could not plug the car in directly. Inside are switchable privacy glass, a queen Murphy bed, a removable induction cooktop and a system that uses gray water to rinse the black tank. A five-minute shower plus brushing teeth used about 15 percent of the 40-gallon fresh tank. His friend, who prefers manual controls, was less keen on running everything through an app. For a cheaper take on EV camping, see yesterday's night in an R2.
Bottom line: Buy the base i7, the smaller wheels and the 20-inch R2. Across today's cars, the reviewers liked the core product and struggled to defend the upcharges, the reverse of how these cars are sold. The Gravity deserves the closest watching, because incentives make a $123,000 build cheaper than it looks, but only a year of ownership will show whether the fixes last. The Pebble Flow is the exception: the automation is the product, and at $180,000 it is a Founders toy until the cheaper trims arrive. Bentley's "sufficient" is the most honest word on a spec sheet this year.
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