[masmole]

It’s possible that since all versions of the X7 were intended to have 3 rows of seating, they were not initially designed to have room in the rear trunk floor for a battery system in a plug-in hybrid implementation. With a 3rd row being optional in the X5, perhaps the addition of the battery was simpler from an engineering perspective, factoring stuff like crash-worthiness of the overall design.

BMW may also be planning to first evaluate the sales of a plug-in hybrid version of the X5 before even further investing on the R&D needed to make a plug-in hybrid X7.

So I’m guessing that if the stars align and the X5 45e sells well and BMW does move forward with an X7 45e, it won’t be until the X7’s LCI for model year ‘22 or ‘23. And perhaps by then, battery and hybrid technology will have improved even more that a hybrid powertrain might actually be the best value/performance/efficiency-proposition for BMW’s largest and heaviest vehicle.