With similar proportions to the BMW iX3, the BE11 is pretty big inside: the cabin feels spacious and light, thanks to a panoramic roof.
There are plenty of storage compartments and cubby holes, and rear accommodation is great, too, with plenty of room for adults.
Our test car is an early example and UK pricing hasn’t been confirmed yet, but we’re told that the 72kWh version will cost around £35k and the 86kWh one somewhere between that and £40k.
This moves it firmly into the same territory as the Audi Q4 E-tron, Toyota bZ4X and Volkswagen ID 4.
In terms of interior quality, it falls way short of those cars. The fake wood veneers, synthetic leather seat upholstery and scratchy plastics all feel cheap, and you can prod and push bits of trim far too easily.
The dashboard is dominated by a large (12.8in) infotainment touchscreen. While the software didn’t suffer from any latency issues during our test, it felt very sub-standard compared with most European rivals’ displays and most of its systems didn’t work or had some unusual quirks (although Innovation Automotive promises that all systems will feature as standard on customer cars).
First off, the digital speedometer would only show in kilometers; I couldn’t find a way to change it to miles. The sat-nav system, amusingly called TurboDog9, didn’t work, and nor could I connect my iPhone to Apple CarPlay, even when I plugged into a USB port. There was also something called Worm Mode (okay…), but when I selected it, it made no difference to the car’s behaviour.
The touchscreen itself is ill-configured and awkward to use on the move. Adjusting the cabin temperature or fan speed, for example, is a challenge, because the icons are quite small. Changing the regenerative braking requires several inputs and the graphics are very much a mixed bag.
