The iX’s pre-crash front seatbelts will tighten automatically in the event the vehicle detects an impending crash, improving protection against injury significantly. The Uncharted doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the iX and Uncharted have child safety locks to prevent children from opening the rear doors. The iX has power child safety locks, allowing the driver to activate and deactivate them from the driver's seat and to know when they're engaged. The Uncharted’s child locks have to be individually engaged at each rear door with a manual switch. The driver can’t know the status of the locks without opening the doors and checking them.
In the past twenty years hundreds of infants and young children have died after being left in vehicles, usually by accident. When turning the vehicle off, drivers of the iX are reminded to check the back seat if they opened the rear door before starting out. The Uncharted doesn’t offer a back seat reminder.
To provide maximum traction and stability on all roads, Full-Time Four-Wheel Drive is standard on the iX. But it costs extra on the Uncharted.
The BMW iX’s optionalSurround View is available with washers for its front and rear cameras, ensuring crystal-clear visibility in any weather condition. Conversely, the Subaru Uncharted only offers a rear camera washer, which may not provide the same level of all-weather performance.
The iX has standard BMW Assist, which uses a global positioning satellite (GPS) receiver and a cellular system to remotely unlock your doors if you lock your keys in, help track down your vehicle if it’s stolen or send emergency personnel to the scene if any airbags deploy. The Uncharted doesn’t offer a GPS response system, only a navigation computer with no live response for emergencies, so if you’re involved in an accident and you’re incapacitated help may not come as quickly.
Both the iX and the Uncharted have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver and front passenger knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, post-collision automatic braking systems, daytime running lights, lane departure warning systems, blind spot warning systems, rearview cameras, rear cross-path warning, driver alert monitors and available around view monitors.
The BMW iX weighs 1087 to 1704 pounds more than the Subaru Uncharted. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.