Ugly, Uncomfortable, But Somehow Comfortable”: Jeremy Clarkson’s Brutally Honest BMW iX Review Has Fans In Stitches

Jeremy Clarkson has built an entire career on saying exactly what he thinks about a car, no matter how many marketing executives it upsets. His latest review, of the facelifted BMW iX for The Times, might just be one of his most quotable yet, an absolute masterclass in loving something and hating it at the very same time.

Let’s start with the bad news, because Clarkson certainly did. The design, in his words, is completely awful. He couldn’t fathom how BMW’s own design team presented the finished look to a board meeting without a single person putting their hand up to object. As for the price tag, a hefty €130,000, Clarkson made it clear he thought it was simply not justified for what you’re getting, particularly when the interior plastics felt cheaper than the sticker price suggested they should.

And yet, somehow, the review doesn’t end there in total demolition. Because once Clarkson actually got behind the wheel, something unexpected happened: he liked it. The claimed 0-100 km/h sprint time of 4.6 seconds felt, in his experience, even quicker than advertised. He praised the cabin’s noise insulation and the way the suspension handled the road, genuinely surprising praise from a man who has spent years insisting electric cars can’t be truly enjoyable to drive.

It’s the kind of contradiction that makes Clarkson’s writing so endlessly readable, and so endlessly shareable. He’s not interested in delivering a tidy, one-note verdict. He wants you to feel the tension of a car that looks like it lost a fight, drives like an absolute dream, and costs more than most people’s houses used to.

Then there’s the ending, which has become the most talked-about part of the whole piece. True to form, when it came time to return the iX to BMW, Clarkson didn’t bother plugging it in for one final charge. Instead, in a move that’s peak Clarkson, he had the car loaded onto a trailer and sent back that way, engine off, charge be damned.

His final verdict, delivered with the kind of deadpan confidence only Clarkson can manage: “ugly, uncomfortable, but somehow comfortable.” It shouldn’t make sense as a sentence. And yet, somehow, it perfectly captures exactly what he meant.

The review lands at an interesting moment for Clarkson’s relationship with electric cars more broadly. This is, after all, the same man who has spent years arguing that taking away the noise and vibration of a combustion engine strips a car of everything that makes it genuinely fun to drive. But he’s also previously admitted, however reluctantly, that certain EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N have made him reconsider his blanket dismissal of the technology. The BMW iX review feels like another small chapter in that same slow, grudging evolution, even if the design still has him rolling his eyes.

Whatever you make of his verdict, one thing’s for certain: nobody writes a car review quite like Jeremy Clarkson. Whether you agree with him or not, you’ll come away from it entertained, informed, and probably laughing out loud at least once.