- BMW’s cheaper iX3 cuts power and charging speed, but not enough to feel like a big compromise.
- The rear-drive BMW iX3 40 still delivers 395 miles of WLTP range despite its smaller battery.
- At €7,500 less than the xDrive 50, the iX3 40 may be the sweet spot in the lineup.
Usually, getting the ‘small-battery’ version of an electric vehicle is a compromise. But not with the BMW iX3 40, which the automaker unveiled on its German press site on Tuesday. It has a plenty of range and performance for a base model.
It pairs an 82.6-kilowatt-hour battery pack with a single electric motor for a WLTP range of 395 miles (635 km). That’s down from 500 miles (805 km) in the xDrive 50 variant, which can go even further in controlled conditions. Even after translating those figures to the slightly stricter EPA testing procedure, we’d expect the iX3 40 to deliver well over 300 miles of range.
The 40 model loses all-wheel-drive grip, but with 315 horsepower and 369 lb-ft going to the rear wheels, it still sprints to 62 mph (100 km/h) in 5.9 seconds. That’s a second slower than the iX3 xDrive 50, whose front motor adds 148 hp and should make for consistently better launches regardless of grip conditions.
The single-motor, small-battery variant should be considerably lighter than the xDrive 50, whose official weight in Euro spec is around 5,037 lbs (2,285 kg). This should mean it’s better to drive around your favorite backroad, though driver engagement is likely not a top priority for iX3 buyers.
If you live near an autobahn, it may also matter that the iX3 40 is 6 mph slower than the 50, topping out at 124 mph (200 km/h). Charging is not up to the same level either, with peak charging power dropping from 400 kW to 300 kW, which means the 10-80% time is 21 minutes. BMW says it can add 186 miles (300 km) of range in just 10 minutes of charging.
BMW could also make a single-motor model with the large battery to really maximize the range, but this has not been confirmed.
What makes the iX3 40 interesting is not just that it looks like a sensible entry point into the lineup, but that it hints at a more mature phase for BMW’s EV strategy when even its standard range models go very far on one charge. Once BMW launches the dual-motor 40 model with all-wheel drive, that could instantly become the pick of the range.
The 40 model comes with a significant price cut, with a starting price in Germany of €63,400, which is €7,500 cheaper than the xDrive 50. That’s a big enough gap to make this feel less like the budget version and more like the sweet spot in the range, especially since buyers aren’t giving up all that much in everyday usability. There’s no word yet as to whether the iX3 40 will come to America to slot below the $60,000 iX3 50 xDrive.
