BMW 840I vs Farizon Supervan

What's the difference?

If you’re the sort of buyer who wants a car that signifies a lifestyle that is ‘large and in charge’, the BMW M850i Gran Coupe could be just the thing for you. It isn’t as showy as some of its competitors, and mightn’t reach the same levels of excitement as those cars either - but it is a convincing offering in its own right, and a beautiful piece of design at that. 

You’d think Farizon would be onto a winner given it has created a van with cool looks and the packaging benefits that come with a dedicated EV architecture. However, the SuperVan left a sour taste in my mouth.

There are good bones here, but Farizon has a long way to go with fixing the electric motor whine and safety systems.

It’s great the company is aware of the SuperVan’s shortcomings and is currently working on software updates, but it begs the question, why wasn’t it good in the first place?

This could be BMW’s most convincing design in years. I mean, the X5 is predictably handsome, the X3 was unexpectedly muscled, and the less said about the frumpy 1 Series and busy 3 Series (apart from the wagon… drool) the better.

To my untrained but enthusiastic eye, the 8 Series Coupe is a bit too rounded over its rear haunches, and the rear screen is just a little steep - to me, that lets its dimensions down a little. But this. This is gorgeous. 

I mean, you might have questions over the tail-light design, which is a theme across a few BMW models now. But there isn’t as much confrontation between horizontal and vertical graphics for this model as you’ll find one other big Bimmers, like the X7. 

The M850i model has BMW Laserlight headlights, which throw a sharp beam and look menacing in their signature, while the grille and bumper are strong. The stance of the car is prominent - there’s a long body, a long wheelbase, and a long body in general. The standard wheel package consists of 20-inch rims, and they don’t look disarmingly large.

As our images show, there’s a lot to talk about when it comes interior design and finishes, but the cabin doesn’t quite benefit quite as mochas you might think it would from all that real estate. I mean, with dimensions of 5074mm long (on a 3023mm wheelbase), 1932mm wide and 1402mm tall, this is a squat, yet substantial vehicle. It’s just more cramped than you’d think inside.

This electric van makes a fantastic first impression with its design. It’s futuristic and stands out on the road.

I haven’t driven a car that gets this much attention in a fair while, which is wild given this is a delivery van and traditionally they’re some of the dullest vehicles out there in terms of design.

What makes the SuperVan stand out the most is the variety of colours it comes in. Sure, you can get standard white if you want, but there’s also grey, green and blue. Our tester is finished in the latter which looks cool and modern.

The front continues the futuristic theme with a bright LED lighting signature for the headlights. They’re connected by an LED light strip, as well as an illuminated Farizon badge.

Given this van is electric, it doesn’t need a large, traditional grille to keep an engine cool. Instead there’s a small slotted opening at the bottom of the front bumper to cool the electric motor and high-voltage battery. It’s cool Farizon has made this van obviously look electric with this cue.

Beyond the stylish aero covers for the 16-inch steel wheels, there really isn’t much to talk about in terms of side profile design. It’s very slab-sided which is a classic van look.

It also leans into the trope that vans are essentially boxes on wheels. This is no bad thing because at the end of the day, a van is a work vehicle that’s meant to maximise hauling potential.

At the rear, this version of the SuperVan with the ‘Low Roof’ body style is perfectly square. It looks a little funny, but again this is a work-oriented vehicle that’s the opposite of a mullet - business at the back, party at the front.

Inside, Farizon has made a big attempt to make this electric van look luxurious and contemporary. Having synthetic leather seats is a luxury that many vans don’t have, along with the big digital instrument cluster and touchscreen multimedia system.

I’m a fan of the orange highlights around the cabin as they break up the monotonous black finishes.

Once you sit in the cabin, however, the commercial roots do begin to show. Virtually every surface is rock-hard plastic, which in a way is good because it means it’ll be hard-wearing in the long run.

I recall a Mitsubishi designer telling me, once upon a time, that he dreamed of making ‘a big car on the outside with a very small interior’. Maybe he made the jump to BMW, because that’s pretty much the 8 Series Gran Coupe.

There aren’t many other vehicles on the market, of this size, that offer less space inside. The boot capacity, for instance, is just 440 litres. Competitors like the Audi A7 (535L) and Mercedes CLS (520L) easily outdo it - but at least this car has more boot than the Panamera (405L), though the BMW is a smidge bigger. The cargo space is large enough for a couple of overnight suitcases, but you’re hardly going to fit a family of four’s luggage for a week away. 

And while we’re in the “not quite what you’d expect” column, the back seat space is hardly commodious. There’s enough space for me, at 182cm, to sit behind my own driving position, but not without wishing for a bit more toeroom, headroom and knee space. 

The big centre console section eats into the space in the rear, justifying the brand’s “4+1” seating claim, and unpleasantly it has a hard plastic finish to rest your leg against. Getting in and out of the second row isn’t easy for bigger people, and it’s quite a squat down into the rear seat - it really has taken inspiration from its squashy-back-seated predecessor in that regard.

If you have smaller rear-seat occupants, however, there will be catered for with dual ISOFIX and three top-tether points, plus there are air vents with climate controls (quad zone in total), and two USB-C ports as well. There are sun-blinds on the rear windows, too, which is a plus, and there is a pair of cup holders in the fold-down armrest, and map pockets in the seat backs, too. The door pockets are near-useless, though.

The front seats score better practicality, with bottle holders in the doors, bigger and sturdier cup holders, a covered centre storage bin between the seats with a USB-C port, and a wireless phone charger (Qi) with standard USB port in front of the gear selector.

Above that is the weird, very out-of-place quick buttons (1-8) that BMW could easily do away with, and further up are the controls for the climate control (thankfully with hard buttons for fan speed and temperature), and above that is the media screen, a familiar looking 10.25-inch touch display running BMW OS 7.0. 

The screen is quick and crisp, and is backed up by the rotary controller and buttons on in the centre console area. There’s wireless Apple CarPlay (now at no cost for three years), as well as a built-in SIM card for 4G data and access to the BMW Online news and weather stations, accessed through the screen.  

It’s all pretty easy to use, and the sound system is excellent - the standard setup consists of 16 speakers, with DAB+ digital radio, Bluetooth and USB plus the smartphone mirroring tech, provided you don’t have an Android device, as Android Auto is still missing from BMW’s range.

It’s a nice cabin, but I couldn’t help but thinking that I’d want a little more differentiation from the lesser models in the range if I was spending this much. Especially considering the optional cost of the interior trim fitted to our test car - see below for more detail.

While good looks can get you so far, cabin practicality is where things are a little mixed for the SuperVan.

The driver’s seat is generally comfortable, offering a decent amount of support and a centre armrest, but the driving position is heavily compromised.

The worst offender are the pedals as they’re mounted so high that I need to take my foot off the floor to press them. Then the steering wheel only offers tilt adjustment and not reach.

As a result I need to have the seat pushed further back than I’d like to make sure I can press the pedals without making my right ankle hurt in stop-start traffic. Then even with the backrest virtually upright I still need to have arms extended almost fully to reach the wheel.

It’s not the kind of place I’d like to spend a considerable amount of time, which is disappointing because many people who drive this van will likely spend hours behind the wheel at a time.

Thankfully both seats offer both heating and ventilation, which is rather luxurious.

Ahead of the driver, the steering wheel is wrapped in buttery soft synthetic leather, like the seats, and is nice to hold. I appreciate the amount of physical buttons on it. They’re all clearly marked and easy to click.

The steering wheel is also heated and gets hot super quickly. There’s only one setting – on or off.

The digital instrument cluster looks flashy and has a range of informative pages you can cycle through. One even displays a vehicle weight page which is great if you’re unsure if you’re close to the gross vehicle mass (GVM).

Moving across, the touchscreen infotainment system looks glossy and high-definition, but there’s not much to do on it. This also means it’s hard to get lost and even if you do there are shortcut buttons on the right-hand side of the screen.

As standard there’s wireless Apple CarPlay connectivity which is great if you’ve got an iPhone, but terrible if you have an Android phone. This car has no Android Auto support whatsoever.

It’s great to see a continued use of physical switchgear around the cabin for things like the drive modes, regenerative braking settings and most notably the climate control settings. The latter are big and chunky, meaning they’re hard to miss.

In terms of storage up front, it’s fairly mediocre beyond big door pockets. There’s a slide out drawer with two cupholders and another small storage section, as well as another small storage drawer and a glovebox.

Around the side you'll find one of this van's most unique features. When you open up the passenger side front door and slide open the side cargo door, you’ll see this van doesn’t have a B-pillar. There’s only a plastic partition between the passenger and cargo areas.

As a result, the seatbelt for the passenger is mounted on the door. This feels a bit weird in the passenger seat because the seatbelt cuts across more than usual and doesn’t rest on your shoulder.

The SuperVan only comes with a single sliding door. You can’t opt for one on the driver’s side in Australia which is a little disappointing from an ease-of-use standpoint.

At the back there are rear barn doors that have stops at 90 degrees and 180 degrees, before opening all the way up to 270 degrees. This is great because you’ll be able to put whatever is on a forklift into the cargo area.

Speaking of the cargo area, it’s massive. This SWB Low Roof version measures in at 2690mm long, 1795mm wide and 1440mm tall. This equals 6.95 cubic metres, which is considerably more than any similarly sized van, whether that be diesel or electric.

It’s another major benefit of this van being built on a dedicated electric vehicle architecture, rather than a combustion platform that needs to take drivetrain and exhaust components into account.

Payload is 1300kg which is fairly standard for mid-size electric vans.

I like how low the load lip is at the back. This means you don’t have to lift things too high in order to get them in the cargo area.

In terms of amenities there are some lights, tie-down points, as well as three powerpoints for vehicle-to-load (V2L) support at up to 3.3kW. Disappointingly the latter didn’t work in our tester no matter how hard I tried…

Surprisingly under the cargo area is a full-size spare wheel. This is incredibly rare for an EV, especially one that’s all about maximising cargo capacity. It’s great peace of mind if you do long-distance travelling.

The Farizon SuperVan is being offered in Australia in three trim levels. On test here is the entry-level short-wheelbase (SWB) Low Roof option.

Pricing for this variant starts at $71,490 before on-road costs. It’s worth noting that this is for private buyers. If you’re an ABN holder or are buying a fleet of SuperVans, pricing will likely be different.

This is more affordable than the Ford E-Transit Custom, Peugeot E-Expert and Volkswagen ID. Buzz Cargo, but the LDV eDeliver 7 is cheaper again. However, that rival Chinese electric van isn’t built on a dedicated electric platform and doesn’t offer as much range.

As standard the SuperVan comes with a plastic cargo partition, a single sliding side door, as well as rear barn doors that swing up to 270 degrees. You can’t option any other configuration, currently, beyond different wheelbase lengths and heights.

Standard equipment across the line-up includes LED headlights, a 7.0-inch digital instrument cluster, a 12.3-inch touchscreen multimedia system with wireless Apple CarPlay, a heated steering wheel, as well as heated and ventilated synthetic leather seats.

This is generous for a commercial vehicle that’s going to be a workhorse and will need to stand the test of time.

If you’re going for the M850i, you’re getting the big bopper engine. It’s a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 petrol engine, and it isn’t short on horsepower.

The outputs for this engine are 390kW of power (at 6000rpm) and 750Nm of torque (from 1800-4600rpm). Hardly numbers to sneeze at.

And the performance figures are exceptional, too: the claimed 0-100 km/h time is just 3.9 seconds. That’s because there’s the traction of BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive system, and shifting gears is an eight-speed automatic transmission.  

For what it’s worth, your humble reviewer saw a 0-100km/h time very close to that (4.2sec). 

The quoted kerb weight for this model is 1995kg.

All versions of the Farizon SuperVan in Australia are powered by a single, front-mounted electric motor that produces 170kW and 336Nm.

This is fed by an 83kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery which is sourced from Chinese battery producer CATL.

Farizon doesn’t quote an official 0-100km/h time, though it claims the top speed is 135km/h.

You can’t really expect a big V8 beast like this to be a fuel miser, and it isn’t.

The claimed consumption is 10.7 litres per 100 kilometres. Which is alright, honestly, given the sheer volume of car you’re driving. 

But on my test - which consisted of more than 300km of mixed driving, including days of city commuting, some twisty mountain driving, and all the freeway floundering to get there - I saw an at the pump real-world figure of 15.4L/100km.

That’s not very efficient, and it’ll be expensive to run on the daily — yet the argument could be made that if you’re spending this much on a car, fuel costs won’t matter much to you. But with a small fuel tank capacity of 68 litres, it could become a little inconvenient as you’ll be seeing a lot of your local servo.

Claimed range for the SuperVan depends on the body configuration, but it’s up to 376km according to WLTP testing for the SWB Low Roof body style.

The battery pack can be DC fast-charged at rates up to 140kW, which would see the battery charge from 20 to 80 per cent in 36 minutes.

The battery pack can also be AC charged at rates up to 11kW, which would see the battery charge from 15 to 100 per cent in seven hours.

The SuperVan also offers vehicle-to-load through Australian domestic household plugs at up to 3.3kW of continuous power. This allows you to use the van’s battery pack to power appliances, tools, or other emergency backup systems.

Farizon doesn’t quote an official energy consumption figure for the SuperVan, but during my unladen testing I saw an average of 23.5kWh/100km, which would give a theoretical range of 350km. This would likely drop with a heavier load onboard.

It’s an impressive thing, this M850i xDrive Gran Coupe. But I’m just not sure who it’s trying to please.

It’s not the sort of German monster coupe-sedan that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and throws you around with its mammoth acceleration. Not unless you poke it and prod it and make it really angry.

And that might be exactly what you want to do - put it in Sport mode, sling the shifter across to sport or manual mode, hear the exhaust open up from a pursed-lip tongue-click to an open-mouth growl. 

You’ll push hard on the accelerator, watch the tacho needle jolt to the redline, and if you’re in auto mode you’ll feel the transmission whipcrack as it shifts rapidly up through the gears as you’re shoved back into your seat. Before you know it you’ll be in licence-loss zone, and you won’t have even made the tyres chirp - that’s how immense the traction from the all-wheel drive system is.

You’ll brake hard into a sharp bend, and you’ll feel the front end dip and the body of the car change direction more readily than you’d think given its size as you turn in. The steering response will meet your expectation, with rapid reaction to adjustments mid corner. And the Active Roll stabilisation system will mean you’re not being thrown around in your seat, because it’s sitting flatter and truer than you might have expected - you’ll notice how it works extremely well in conjunction with the car’s torque-vectoring-by-braking system. There’ll be little weight shift or body roll to be counteracted, and that’ll inspire you to push it even harder.

Put it in manual transmission mode and you’ll rejoice that it won’t overrule you and shift up, but you’ll also feel shortchanged because it gets to the end of its limit very quickly. And when it hits redline, it emits a breathless little cough rather than a “oh maybe I should stop” rev-bounce noise.

But, if you’re like me, you might be doing all this with a niggling thought in the back of your mind that, while this car is technically really good and it’s a clinical performance car, you might just think to yourself, “I’m not having as much fun as I thought I would”.

A Mercedes-AMG would be more fun; it’d be more raucous, more of a muscle car experience. An Audi RS7 (at least the previous one) would be noisier, brasher, more theatrical than this car. And likewise, a Porsche Panamera - no matter the model you go for - would be more entertaining in the bends.  

Maybe it’s just a bit too predictable - and maybe that’s a result of this car being honed for drivers who will spend more time on the Autobahn than anywhere else. I have to say, there are much, much worse (and slower) ways of getting from A to B, and the highway cruising comfort of the M850i Gran Coupe was what impressed me most. 

It’s also surprisingly adept at urban driving duties, coping well with unpleasant city surfaces, though potholes can still upset things because of the stiff-sidewalled run-flat tyres. The suspension does an exceptional job otherwise, however, and I switched between the Adaptive drive mode and Comfort mode for my commuting duties. Both proved comfortable and controlled.

The M850i is by no means a failure when it comes to fulfilling the expectations you might have of a luxury sports sedan of this size. In fact, it’s close to a distinction. But I just can’t help thinking that it’s not as much an ‘M car’ as that M850i badge might have you believe it should be.

Driving this van is punishing. It’s quite unlike any other modern van I’ve experienced as they can be fun to drive. This SuperVan, however, leaves me feeling like a lot of the elements need finessing.

First up there’s the electric motor. It makes a decent amount of power and easily gets this big box on wheels moving. In Sport mode the front wheels can get overwhelmed if you’re not careful.

However, this van has an incredibly loud electric motor whine. It builds as you gain speed, then once you reach your desired speed it hovers at an annoying high pitch. Some extra sound deadening would likely help.

Additionally, there’s a pedestrian warning sound that plays under 25km/h, as well as a beeping tone when reversing. While this is common for EVs, this one feels like it’s louder on the inside rather than the outside. This somewhat defeats the purpose.

There are three levels of regenerative braking as standard and all of them require you to use the brake pedal to come to a complete stop. This means there’s no one-pedal driving mode.

With all the settings the regen braking is either completely on or off. There’s no in between which creates a thrashy feeling in the cabin, especially when travelling down a hill and you’re trying to coast along without activating regen braking too much. As a result, I like the weakest regen setting the most.

Surprisingly the interaction between the regenerative braking and the traditional friction brakes is rather seamless. Even the brake pedal feels relatively normal, compared to a regular combustion vehicle, which is sometimes uncommon for EVs.

As standard there’s an electric power steering system which, unlike some other new Chinese vehicles, feels like it’s actually connected to the wheels. While you can tell the steering is electrically assisted, you can still feel what the wheels are doing.

Thanks to the dedicated electric architecture, the turning circle is surprisingly good for such a large vehicle. It measures in at 12.2 metres kerb-to-kerb.

Like many commercial vans, the SuperVan has a double wishbone independent front and a rear leaf spring suspension setup. This typically prioritises cargo-carrying ability rather than on-road comfort.

When unladen the SuperVan’s suspension is incredibly jittery and harsh. You can feel every single bump in the road and crossing a speed bump makes me grit my teeth. It doesn’t help that the tyres need to be pumped up high. As standard the rear tyres need to be pumped up to 61psi.

With some added weight onboard the SuperVan’s suspension does settle, but it’s still quite choppy. We didn’t get a chance to test this vehicle at the full GVM, but it would be interesting to see whether the rear springs get a little more compliant then. Range would likely plummet though.

In terms of visibility, you sit up high in the cabin and there’s a large windscreen. These are both big ticks. It also helps there are large side windows and side mirrors that make seeing kerbs easier.

Like many vans however, over-the-shoulder checks aren’t possible in the SuperVan as there are no rear windows, plus seeing out the back through the tiny envelope is virtually impossible.

Thankfully there are front and rear parking sensors as standard, as well as a surround-view camera that has good quality but a choppy camera feed. Having the standard sensors and camera system is great while doing tricky parking manoeuvres.

Lastly, let’s talk about the chimes… They are some of the loudest and most incessant I have ever experienced in a new car. They’re so loud that they honestly scared me at first.

There are a variety of different tones for all the different safety systems. One that grates the most are the intelligent speed limit assist which bongs each time it detects a new speed limit, then again if the system thinks you’re travelling over that limit. It’s particularly annoying because it picks up 40km/h school zones even when it’s not school zone times.

Another chime plays for the driver monitoring system when it can’t detect your eyes. This is annoying if you want to wear sunglasses while driving.

You can turn off these settings in a menu on the touchscreen, but they all default back to on when you restart the car.

Other loud bongs play when you change the drive mode, the regenerative braking setting, even when you turn on the adaptive cruise control. You just can’t escape it.

The Farizon SuperVan hasn’t been crash tested by ANCAP just yet, however it was awarded a five-star rating by Euro NCAP earlier this year.

As standard there’s autonomous emergency braking (AEB), blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition, intelligent speed limit assist, a driver monitoring system, front and rear parking sensors, as well as a surround-view camera.

This is a lot of safety kit, especially for a commercial van, but as mentioned above a lot of safety systems are rather intrusive and have obnoxiously loud chimes.

Thankfully Farizon is currently working on a software fix that’ll see all the chimes reduced by 20 decibels. It’s also planning some tweaks to the lane-keep assist and reverse camera which may form as part of the same update.

BMW backs its cars in Australia with a three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty.

You may be confused if you head to the BMW site and see that M models and 8 Series models aren’t covered by BMW’s pre-pay capped price servicing plan (as I saw when testing this car), but CarsGuide can confirm that the 8 Series is indeed covered - unless it’s the real M8, not this M850i jigger. 

BMW Australia has clarified that the Service Inclusive pack for five years/80,000km of maintenance cover is $2490 for Basic cover (no brakes/pads, no wiper replacement), or $5641 for the more comprehensive Plus pack. Hardly affordable, but nor’s the car. 

The company uses a condition-based servicing program, too - there are no set service intervals, but the car will tell you when it needs maintenance based on how you drive it.

For what it’s worth, we ran the numbers on resale value using Glass’s Guide predictive analysis tool, and after three years/40,000km the expected retained value for this version is approximately 66 per cent - which is impressive.

The Farizon SuperVan is covered by a five-year, 200,000km warranty, while the high-voltage battery pack is covered for eight years or 200,000km.

There’s also five years of complimentary roadside assistance.

Logbook servicing is required every 12 months or 30,000km, which is relatively standard for commercial vehicles.

The first five services are capped and all up cost $2730. This averages out to around $550 per service, which is a little on the expensive side for an EV. However, diesel vans can be much more expensive to maintain in the long-term.

Farizon currently doesn’t have a dealer network in Australia and only sells vehicles in Queensland through its website. The company is working on setting up a dealer network in the coming months and is prioritising the eastern seaboard.