MALAGA, Spain—Late last year, we got our first chance to drive the new BMW iX3. An all-electric version of one of BMW's best-sellers, the electric SUV is arguably the new head of the class in the competitive premium SUV EV segment, with good driving dynamics and an extremely efficient electric powertrain. The next new BMW EVs to use the company's Neue Klasse platform is the one we find more interesting here at Ars, even if it won't sell as well. It's the 2027 i3, or BMW's first 3 series EV, and it goes into production in Munich this August.
A proper sedan
It has been a few years since we first saw the Neue Klasse sedan concept, and it has mostly remained faithful to that design as it made the transition from concept to production model. Light has replaced chrome for BMW's traditional kidney grille, which here contains kidneys within kidneys. Like the iX3, there's a valley down the hood, but here the kidneys are long and wide, unlike the bucktooth look of BMW's new SUVs.
The biggest change is at the rear. Sadly, the i3 has little of the elegance or charm of the concept aft of the rear axle, but the demands of real-life practicality meant BMW needed to raise the rear deck a few inches in order to give the car proper cargo-carrying capacity. And yes, the rear window does have the traditional "Hofmeister kink." At launch, the i3 will be just a sedan, but BMW showed us a silhouette of a wagon variant—Touring in BMW-speak—that we very much hope crosses the Atlantic at some point.
Read full article
Comments
Source: Ars Technica
