2027 BMW iX3 Review: Neue Klasse Proves BMW Is Back

The new iX3 enters one of the contentious segments in the EV world: premium midsize SUVs, where being merely good gets you forgotten. The Audi Q6 E-Tron is deeply competent, the Porsche Macan Electric is properly sorted, the Mercedes-Benz GLC EV is very convincing, and the Tesla Model Y still lords over the class with its annoying blend of usefulness, software, and value. On paper, the iX3 arrives loaded for bear.

It rides on a new bespoke EV platform, promises standout range and efficiency, and it finally feels like an EV conceived from the ground up to be electric. The iX3 is also truly excellent to drive, impressively efficient in real-world use, and much easier to like inside than its odd screen setup initially suggests. It has a few typical BMW quirks, but it is the first Neue Klasse model, soon followed by a second, and it seems worth the wait.

After a few days with it, the surprise is that the hype was mostly deserved—this is a fantastic vehicle, and a true reset for the brand. BMW has good reason to be proud of this vehicle, design quirks and all.

Detailed Specifications: 2027 BMW iX3

The Design: Love It Or Hate It

The iX3 is one of those designs that improves the longer you stare at it, which is fortunate because your first reaction may not be the most positive. The shark-nose front end is the main event, and once your eyes make peace with that, the rest of the design settles down nicely.

The rear looks planted and sporty, and from some angles, it has the sort of visual confidence BMW has been missing lately. The side is a bit bland and featureless, which reminds me of the iX. The larger BMW EV is also a bit slab-sided, but it looks better from other angles. My tester had the M Sport pack, which makes the bumpers more aggressive, eliminates any unpainted plastic, and just seems to suit the iX3 very well. Its 21-inch aero M wheels also nicely complemented the design, especially from the side, where, aside from the creases that accentuate the wheel arches, not much else is going on.

Interior Quarks: Hidden Buttons and Glowing Cabin

The iX3 still registers as a BMW from the outside, and you couldn’t confuse it with something else. The interior is where the real break with tradition happens, and it may take more getting used to than the exterior. Much of it is clever and genuinely fresh. Some of it feels like BMW wandered a bit too close to the “because we can” school of design, but at least it’s not another dashboard with too many screens.

The door handles are worth mentioning because they’re peak modern, premium car nonsense. They sit flush, motor out when the car unlocks, and at night they glow with a full LED halo that looks properly fancy. But when you pull them, there’s no click, because the car uses a pressure sensor and an electronic popper to unlatch the door. It works fine. It also feels like BMW reinvented the act of opening a door just to prove it could. If you pull harder, though, you can open them mechanically.

The good news about the iX3’s interior is that there is plenty of room. It feels almost as big as an X5, with lots of space in all directions and a flat floor in the back, making it realistic to carry three passengers in the second row, even if their shoulders will be a bit tight. I had no trouble fitting behind my own driving position with knee room to spare, and I am exactly six feet (183 cm) tall.

Screens and Usability

The panoramic display that stretches from pillar to pillar under the windshield was one of my favorite parts of the iX3. It’s a combination of a traditional screen and a head-up display, and it has all the information you need right in your line of sight. Most of it is customizable, so you can pick from a very wide selection of widgets.

The parallelogram-shaped central display also looks like BMW was rationing straight lines, but it’s actually easy to use. This latest version of the BMW operating system, OS X, is quick, clear, and mostly intuitive. It’s the first larger BMW to come without an iDrive controller, which feels like a loss since BMW once had the best non-touch interface in the business.

The Numbers Are Incredibly Strong

BMW says the iX3 should be really efficient for such a big and heavy SUV. My dual-motor, big-battery xDrive 50 tester weighed 5,037 lbs (2,285 kg), yet it had no problem returning almost 3.7 miles/kWh (17 kWh/100 km) in the city at fairly low speeds. That’s better than any other electric SUV in its class, and it comes courtesy of BMW’s sixth-generation electric powertrain and batteries.

Pair that with the 108.7-kWh battery pack and the result is a claimed WLTP range of 500 miles (805 km). BMW hasn’t released EPA figures for the U.S., which tend to be more conservative, but expect over 400 miles of range. In more realistic use, based on what I saw, around 380 miles (611 km) is a believable number, which is still enough to make this one of the most convincing long-distance electric SUVs on sale.

The iX3 is the fastest-charging EV from a European manufacturer. Its 800-volt platform allows it to take up to 400 kilowatts, bringing the battery from 10% to 80% in 21 minutes with an average charging power of over 230 kW. Charging for 10 minutes in optimal conditions adds 217 miles (350 km).

Driving Impressions: The Ultimate Driving Machine?

The reassuring thing about the iX3 is that, however futuristic it may look parked up, it quickly feels familiar from behind the wheel. Not as in old-fashioned, but familiar in the specifically BMW sense: There’s a firm edge to the ride, real body control, and an eagerness to change direction that immediately separates it from the sort of anesthetized electric SUVs that mistake silence for sophistication. This is something that China can’t yet replicate, no matter how technologically advanced its EVs are.

BMW hails the Heart of Joy driving control unit (one of the supercomputers that run the vehicle) as a bit of a revolution. It improves many aspects of how the iX3 drives compared to its predecessors, but what I really wanted to experience were its claimed '10x quicker' responses. The short answer is that it works, and you can definitely feel it. Traction control intervention is more precise, and it almost feels like the car knows what you’re about to do beforehand. This supercomputer also contributes to how nice it feels to power out of corners in the iX3, because even when its back axle does step out, it’s still working to keep you sliding controllably.

Final Conclusion

Once you get past the styling and the unusual cabin layout, the iX3 reveals itself as one of the most complete EVs BMW has ever built. It’s smooth, quiet, quick enough to feel properly expensive, and efficient enough to make some rivals look a bit wasteful. More importantly, it has the one thing BMW absolutely had to get right here: It feels engineered by people who still care how a car drives, and it makes me very excited to try the i3 sedan built on the same Neue Klasse bones.