There are lots of buttons in addition to the touchscreen, though, including on a small steering wheel that has shades of Peugeot’s i-Cockpit, meaning you have to look over it at the instruments it has partially obscured. As of next year, a by-wire steering set-up will be optional.
This system is called One Motion Grip (OMG, geddit), and has a yoke replacing a wheel. It looks like it’s from the future, and feels like it when you drive it, too.
Full lock-to-lock is just 150-degrees, and it’s a constantly variable system with two very distinct feels: an almost aggressive turn in at low speeds to tackle tight manoeuvres (I guarantee you’ll turn in too early at first, such is its directness, so you need to learn to turn in later) and then a more minimal movement at higher speeds and softer corners.
Both feel weird at first, but you soon get used to them. It’s impact is felt most when you get back in a BZ4X without it – suddenly it feels very stodgy, very slow, compared to the almost shocking directness and speed of the OMG system.
It still needs a bit of work and smoothing out, but it shows what’s possible with the technology, and will likely make more complex rear-wheel steering systems redundant.
To drive, the rest of the bZ4X is – if you’ll forgive what I think is an underused term where so much of the world thinks everything is either awful or fantastic – fine.
From a 4×4-ing perspective, there’s hill-descent control, low-speed crawl control, more axle articulation than anyone will ever ask and a 500mm wade depth. On the road, where it’ll spend rather more of its time, there are two states of deceleration – reasonably heavy or coasting, but in either it creeps from a standstill like a conventional internally combusted auto.