BMW iX1 vs DS N°4

The DS N°4 is £70 cheaper to buy. Running costs are almost identical - about £136 a year either way, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the two land within £10 of each other - effectively the same to own. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 267 miles for the BMW iX1 and 232 miles for the DS N°4 - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The BMW iX1 goes roughly 34 miles further between charging stops. Both rapid-charge to 80% in a similar time, around 29-29 minutes.

The two are within 15 mm on width, so neither is meaningfully easier to thread into a tight space. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 570 mm of total clearance for the DS N°4 and about 555 mm of total clearance for the BMW iX1. The DS N°4 also turns in a 1.1 m tighter circle, which helps with U-turns and multi-storey ramps.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the BMW iX1 and 84% for the DS N°4. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation. Both batteries carry a 8-year manufacturer warranty.