This Electric SUV Could Be BMW’s Best Yet

I get to test a lot of new electric vehicles before they're even ready to be seen in final production form. These are opportunities to get behind the wheel of this prototype or that pre-production machine, each promising bigger range and quicker charging than the last. Most of these tests focus on driving dynamics, power output, and whatever other bits of next-gen technology are gratuitously littered throughout the cabin. 

2026 BMW iX3 Prototype Drive

Photo by: BMW

Rarely, though, do we get to put those fast-charging promises to the test. But at the first drive of the upcoming BMW iX3, the first car to be built on its Neue Klasse platform, the company's engineers decided to put their money where their mouths are—or perhaps more appropriately, their kilowatts where their capacity is. 

Charging is indeed impressive. But that's only part of what's good here.

(Full Disclosure: BMW covered my travel and lodging to Miramas, France for this test.)

2026 BMW iX3: What Is It?

If you haven't been following the endless hype cycle that's led up to this moment, Neue Klasse ("New Class" in German) is a fully new, ground-up EV platform that builds on the learnings of EVs like the iX and the i3 that came before. As good as offerings like the i4 and i5 have been, they have their origins with a gas-car platform. 

That changes with the iX3. New motors, batteries, and a raft of new software-defined systems in between mean that the iX3 and the other EVs that follow are radically different than any BMW EV we've seen before.

It starts with BMW's new Gen6 batteries. The company's engineers haven’t said how much capacity the iX3 will have, but it'll be somewhere in the ballpark of 100 kWh, enough for roughly 400 miles of range on the EPA cycle. Do the math, and that equates to a healthy 4 miles per kWh in this compact SUV, resulting in more range on a smaller battery than BMW's current range meister, the 2026 iX.

2026 BMW iX3 Prototype Drive

Photo by: BMW

That pack powers a pair of motors said to provide a combined 400 horsepower, but the real magic is the system that controls them. It's a fully integrated, software-defined platform that BMW aspirationally calls Heart of Joy. Basically, it's the trend of banishing disparate controllers for different in-vehicle systems, the same sort of simplification that pulled 1.6 miles of wiring out of the latest-generation Rivians, but here taken to new heights. 

This unification has many benefits, the primary one being that everything can communicate with everything else. For example, it's the same system handling both regenerative braking in the electric motors and ABS in the physical brakes, allowing for a far more seamless handoff when slowing down. Likewise, traction control, stability control, and direct motor controls are all running in the same place, so there's no latency or lag as one system makes requests to another.

2026 BMW iX3 Prototype Drive

Photo by: BMW

The net result is an EV that feels particularly smooth, which is saying something considering how smooth your average EV is. Whether I was creeping away casually from a stop sign or sliding your way sideways through a corner on a wet test track, the iX3 prototype delivered clean and consistent feedback, particularly through the steering, which is a rarity in your average battery-powered SUV.

The iX3 is officially rated for a max charging rate of 400 kW, which BMW says is enough to get more than 200 miles of charge in 10 minutes. On a 400 kW test charger at the company's Miramas facility in southern France, I watched as a pre-production iX3 did even better, hitting a 403 kW max charging rate on the way to hoovering down more than 350 km (217 miles) of indicated range in 10 minutes. 

2026 BMW iX3 Prototype Drive

Photo by: BMW

To be fair, it only held that 400 kW rate for a few minutes, but in 10 minutes of charging, it averaged 318 kW, still higher than the max rate of many new EVs on the road today. It was just one of a series of impressive demos that BMW had lined up for me during my visit to France, all of which left me blown away by the potential of the iX3 and its new platform.

Smooth Slowing

What might be most remarkable, weirdly enough, is just how good the iX3 is at slowing down. That more precise control enabled by the SUV's upgraded systems means it can rely exclusively on regenerative braking to bring the SUV to a complete stop in a new and sublime way. This thing stops so smoothly and cleanly that if you close your eyes, you can't tell when it's stopped rolling.

2026 BMW iX3 Prototype Drive

Photo by: BMW

This will be music to the ears of anyone who's suffered some stomach upset from overzealous use of one-pedal driving, and indeed, the iX3 offers multiple levels of regen to suit your desires —and the nerves of your passengers.

The fidelity of this control, the big range, the fast charging, and the flashy new interior with its peripheral-spanning display and rhomboid touchscreen all conspire to make for a pretty remarkable machine. 

What’s Next For The BMW iX3?

So the prototype is good, but there are some big questions left to be answered. One is just what it will look like. It's always a little hard to guess at details beneath that eye-warping vinyl camouflage, but I could see enough to know that the Vision Neue Klasse X concept is awfully close to the real thing. (BMW's concept cars tend to be very similar to what actually hits the road.) I'll leave it to you to decide whether that's a positive or a negative.

The other big question is how much this thing will cost. On the one hand, it's a smaller car than the company's current $75,000 and up iX, meant to provide a battery-powered companion to the current X3 SUV, which starts at about $50,000. That's a pretty wide window of pricing to fit through, and given the iX3 offers more range, more tech, and similar performance to the iX, it's hard to guess exactly where that sticker will fall.

Obviously, I'm hoping for an MSRP more towards the bottom end, if only because this is an EV that could change a lot of minds about EVs. But only if they can afford it.

Tim Stevens is a veteran editor, analyst, and expert in the tech and automotive industries. He helmed CNET's automotive coverage for nine years and acted as Vice President of Content. Prior to that, Tim served as Editor-in-Chief at Engadget and even led a previous life as an Enterprise Software Architect. Follow Tim on X at @tim_stevens and catch his Substack.