2026 BMW iX3 review: radical new electric SUV driven
Next year's BMW iX3 will be the first in a new generation of cars from the German brand – both in terms of its design and technology. And we've been for an early test drive...
On sale Early 2026 Price from £60,000 (est)
Neue Klasse. In recent years, BMW has shown off a couple of concept cars that use this name. And you don’t need an A-Level in German to realise that it translates to ‘new class’. But given the stepchange in design and technology those concepts showcased, what might come as a surprise is how much next year’s new BMW iX3 resembles them.
True, the prototype versions we’ve just tried were all wearing camouflage. However, the pictures of the car on their infotainment screens clearly reveal that the finished product is a dead-ringer for the Vision Neue Klasse X concept (below).
That means the front-end harks back to BMWs of the mid-Sixties through to the Eighties, with two small ‘kidney’ grilles set in the middle of a panel that runs the full width of the car. But instead of the round headlights of old, there are angled lightbars, while stripped-back body lines also help to create a modern look.
Then there’s the iX3’s technology, which includes an all-new control and display layout that was previewed in the concepts and is called Panoramic iDrive. It includes a trapezoidal central touchscreen that leans towards the driver to bring it within easier reach. Meanwhile, instead of a traditional instrument cluster, information is projected onto a wide strip that runs below the base of the windscreen.
The layout of this strip can be customised to show the features you use most often (although, understandably, a speedo has to be in one of the nine slots). And you look over the steering wheel, rather than through it, to see the info ahead of you – much as you do in modern Peugeots, except that in the iX3 smaller drivers aren't forced to set the wheel awkwardly low.
Further information (including augmented reality sat-nav instructions that show you where to turn) can be projected directly onto the windscreen, via a head-up display. And if all this sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t worry; the various displays actually complement each other well and are easy to take in at a glance.
Distraction is further minimised by the fact that certain switches – such as those for the cruise control and auto parking – only illuminate when you’re driving at a suitable speed to use them. Plus, the voice control uses AI to help it better understand natural speech, and the buttons on the steering wheel are set at different heights so you can find them by touch alone.
There is one big disappointment, though; BMW has ditched the rotary control dial that sat between the front seats of its cars for years and made it easy to scroll through menus on the move. True, a small, touch-sensitive pad on one of the steering wheel spokes does a similar job, but it’s far fiddlier to operate, while using the screen itself also requires more of your attention than a physical controller would.
There’s better news when it comes to practicality. Two six-footers will have plenty of head and leg room in both the front and the rear of the new iX3, and those in the back can slide their feet beneath the front seats – even when those are set as low as they’ll go. Meanwhile, a completely flat floor makes life more comfortable for a central rear passenger than it is in petrol SUVs, such as the BMW X3.
What we can’t judge yet is quality or boot space; most of the prototypes’ interior panels were either covered or unrepresentative of what you’ll actually get, while the tailgates were taped shut.
Similarly, full technical details are still to be revealed, but BMW says the 50 xDrive version of the car that we tried should offer up to 800km (497 miles) of range in official tests. That easily beats the 382 miles that the rival Audi Q6 e-tron Sport quattro officially covers and the 364 miles of the Tesla Model Y Long range AWD.
In theory, usability is further enhanced by a 400kW maximum charging speed that makes it possible to add around 215 miles of range in just 10 minutes. However, it’s worth noting that public chargers capable of delivering such speeds are currently incredibly rare in the UK. And BMW says it has no plans to help address this problem by investing extra money in the Ionity network that it co-owns.
As for the other sort of speed, the 50 xDrive’s twin electric motors (one on each axle for four-wheel drive) are said to produce more than 400bhp and allow it to accelerate from 0-62mph in less than 5.0sec. By comparison, the Q6 e-tron Sport quattro requires 5.9sec, although the Model Y Long range AWD takes only 4.6sec to get from a standstill to 60mph.
Make no mistake, though, the iX3 50 xDrive feels like a properly fast car when you put your foot down. And if anything it’s even more impressive when it’s time to slow down.
You see, like other electric cars, it has both regular friction brakes and regenerative braking to put energy back into the battery on the move, but here the former are only used in an emergency stop or to improve stability and agility by nipping at individual wheels. As a result, there’s no awkward transition between the two forms of braking, and it’s easy to slow the iX3 smoothly; in fact, we’d go as far as to say that in this regard it’s the best electric car yet.
The prototypes we drove had 21in alloy wheels and conventional, passive suspension (rather than adaptive or air), which would usually be a recipe for an uncomfortable ride. But the set-up never feels overly firm, and your head isn’t tossed from side to side in the way that it can be in a Mercedes EQE SUV or a Model Y.
In addition, the iX3 has a playful character in bends, because it not only controls body lean well, but lets you adjust the balance of the car with the accelerator. And while the steering in a lot of modern cars just becomes heavier when you select Sport or Dynamic mode – actually reducing your sense of connection with the road – here there’s barely any extra weight, but a significant increase in responsiveness and feel.
Not that you always have to do the steering when you're in the driver's seat. The iX3 can park itself in parallel and perpendicular bays at least as quickly as a person could do the job. And it will happily – and effectively – drive itself on the motorway, as long as you keep your eyes on the road.
What we suspect will be more welcome for many people, though, is the way BMW has tried to make the electronic driver aids that all new cars are obliged to have less intrusive. For example, while the iX3 has lane-keeping assistance, this disengages if you look at the appropriate door mirror before steering, so you aren’t dragged back into that pothole you were trying to dodge.
It remains to be seen how competitively the new iX3 will be priced, and whether it bucks the recent trend of BMW downgrading the quality of its cars' interiors. But if the brand gets those things right, this new class will certainly deserve good grades.
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