BMW’s new electric 3-series is now the LONGEST-RANGE EV in the world
► New BMW i3 saloon officially revealed► Electric 3-series launches with mega range► Neue Klasse’s biggest moment yet
This is it, the big one. BMW has launched its first global electric 3-series: the new i3 saloon.
BMW’s small car design chief Oliver Heilmer calls the 3-series the ‘ur metter’ or ‘original measure’ of the brand, with the wider team knowing just how important the car is. Still though, this new i3 is the second car to launch under the brand’s rather drastic and sweeping Neue Klasse project that overhauls the brand’s design direction, software stacks and powertrain engineering. While the iX3 was the vanguard for the Neue Klasse efforts, it’s this one BMW needs to get right more than any other.
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Of course, many know the i3 as a pioneering carbonfibre-clad city car that was a bit weird to look at and rather idiosyncratic with BMW’s wider plan. But there has been an electric 3-series wearing the i3 name prior – a G20-generation model purely for China.
CAR has been up close and personal with the new i3, so here’s everything you need to know.
Woah, that’s a bold look
But one we’ve known was coming for some time, with our first glimpses at the electric 3-series seen via the Neue Klasse concept. Joachim Post, BMW’s board member for development, boldly calls the new i3 a ‘gesamt kunstwerk’ – a work of art. But, then… of course he would.
The i3’s front differentiates itself from the iX3 (with its pair of skinny kidney ‘grille’ panels inset into the front end) by simply housing two black bands that incorporate the headlights as well as hide the sensors and camera without needing some jarring extra panel in the front bumper. But they also include backlit lines that rise up to illustrate a pair of digital kidney grilles that animate on your approach.
Elsewhere, BMW’s design team have aimed to make the i3 as restrained in its look as they can, with bodywork that sports precious few creases, a few distinctive design cues and a solid stance.
The one pictured is in M Sport spec, with aerodynamic 21-inch wheels and a new Le Castellet Blue paintjob; you’ll be able to spec smaller wheels and a less aggressive bodykit in lower trims.
What’s it like inside?
Very much like the iX3 which, to our experiences, is a good thing. It’s definitely a bold interior design here, with a properly cyberpunk steering wheel and slanted infotainment screen hosting a properly up-to-date operating system.
The OS X system is designed to be cleaner and simpler to operate compared to OS 8.5 in cars like the 5-series and OS 9 in ones like the 1-series. It looks daunting at first and there aren’t many physical buttons to back it up, but there’s logic to some of the menus and the main screen is designed to be as useful as possible so you don’t have to go digging through the menus for specific settings.
What really impresses is the continued use of the Panoramic iDrive panel under the windscreen. It feels like a proper driving innovation and one that works impressively well in practice, given our time with the iX3.
Naturally, the interior shape is lower down given this isn’t an SUV, with BMW ensuring a proper touring car-spec driving position like a good 3-series should.
Any new tech?
Plenty of it. But, again, nothing that’s entirely distinct from the iX3. As well as the usual suite of safety tech and driver aids, BMW aims to one-up the likes of Tesla and Mercedes by adding a new ‘motorway assistant’ system that enables hands-free lane-changes activated by you looking at a door mirror. I’ve tried it on the iX3 and it’s impressively fluid, prompting lane changes in good time and enabling real hands-off driving on a motorway – and even exiting onto slip roads if there’s a navigation route planned. On top of that, BMW’s taken remote parking one step further by allowing you to climb out of the car entirely and let the car do its thing – useful for tight spaces.
BMW also makes plenty of fuss about its ‘Heart of Joy’ – a processor unit that bundles all of the car’s handling dynamic attributes together, and something that is designed to mask the i3’s two-tonne-plus kerbweight as much as possible. That said, BMW’s engineers know their bread and butter is in mechanical engineering, with driving dynamics expert Chirstian Thalmeier telling us ‘you can’t cure driving behaviour with actuators.’
To that end, BMW’s team have been hard at work ensuring the i3 feels like a 3-series to drive, with this model sporting subtle revisions to the suspension, anti-roll bars and tyres over the Neue Klasse-generation iX3. The wheelbase is identical to the SUV, but the battery is lower down in the architecture and the tyres run on a lower profile to help the car’s stance. The early signs from Ben Barry’s drive in the icy wilderness of Sweden sounds positive.
You mentioned huge range?
That’s the headline figure from the launch i3 launch model: the 50 xDrive. BMW says this version of the i3 is capable of up to 560 miles, toppling the Lucid Air Touring to become the longest-range electric production car the world has ever seen.
That’s enabled by the Neue Klasse battery concept that uses cylindrical cells for better energy density, as well as a pair of ultra-efficient new ‘Gen6’ electric motors that generate 463bhp.
The brand hasn’t confirmed the battery size for the launch i3 yet, but it’ll likely be almost identical to the 108kWh pack in the iX3 and comes with same features: an 800-volt architecture enabling up to 400kW DC charging, vehicle-to-load functionality and bi-directional charging via a specialised wallbox.
More variants will launch over time, likely including a single-motor rear-drive one that’ll start at a lower price than the circa-£55k figure we’re predicting for the 50 xDrive.
Rest easy, though – this doesn’t mean the combustion 3-series is dead. We’ll see a new generation of that, using the Neue Klasse project’s design, tech and engineering upgrades, in the months to come. This also applies to the M3, which will launch as a stonkingly powerful quad-motor electric model as well as a new-generation version with a straight-six.
Come on then, when and how much?
BMW says the i3 will go into production in the summer, with the first orders hitting the road in the autumn of 2026. BMW hasn’t confirmed pricing in the UK yet, but we’re expecting a circa-£55k price tag for this 50 xDrive launch model.
