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 Rav4 Prime doesn’t offer pre-crash pretensioners.
Both the iX and Rav4 Prime 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 Rav4 Prime’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.
The BMW iX has standard driver and front passenger side knee airbags mounted low on the dashboard. These airbags helps prevent the driver and front passenger from sliding under their seatbelts or the main frontal airbags; this keeps them better positioned during a collision for maximum protection. Knee airbags also help keep the legs from striking the dashboard, preventing knee and leg injuries in the case of a serious frontal collision. The Rav4 Prime doesn’t offer a front passenger side knee airbag.
The iX’s standard pretensioning seatbelts also sense rear collisions and remove slack from the front seatbelts to help protect the occupants from whiplash and other injuries. The Rav4 Prime doesn’t offer a whiplash protection system.
To help make backing out of a parking space safer, the iX has standard Cross Traffic Warning with braking function with automatic braking, systems which detect vehicles approaching from the sides and can automatically apply the brakes to prevent a collision. Parking Support Brake costs extra on the Rav4 Prime XSE, and isn't offered on other Rav4 Prime models.
The iX’s driver alert monitor detects an inattentive driver then sounds a warning and suggests a break. According to the NHTSA, drivers who fall asleep cause about 100,000 crashes and 1500 deaths a year. The Rav4 Prime doesn’t offer a driver alert monitor.
Both the iX and the Rav4 Prime have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, four-wheel antilock brakes, all wheel drive, 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 and available around view monitors.
The BMW iX weighs 1359 to 1534 pounds more than the Toyota Rav4 Prime. The NHTSA advises that heavier vehicles are much safer in collisions than their significantly lighter counterparts.