Get ready for a BMW revolution, because the automaker’s next-generation Neue Klasse EVs have just taken their first tentative steps from concept car to showroom-ready product. Spy photographers have snapped a prototype of the BMW electric SUV that will be the first of the NK cars to make it to market in 2025. Known internally by the codename NA5, the SUV is roughly the same size as the current X3, but appears lower and sleeker, and has a very different face. But it’s a face you’ll instantly recognize if you’ve been paying attention to BMW’s recent Vision concept cars, and is made up of a pair of wide, smooth panels that stretch across the nose and hark back to the look established by the original Neue Klasse sedan of the 1960s and kept in play for over 30 years. There even appears to be a set of oval kidneys hidden in the center, beneath the disguise.
Potentially badged iX3, which is a name
already used on electric versions of the X3 sold in Europe (but not in the
U.S.), the new SUV is slated to begin production in summer of 2025 and will
arrive on the market ahead of a production version of the Vision Neue Klasse
sedan concept that will use the same platform and replace today’s 3-Series. Though
exact details of the architecture and platform are still, like the styling,
under wraps, we can expect the iX3 to be available in single motor and
dual-motor, all-wheel drive forms, with the same kind of 40 eDrive and xDrive
grades we’re familiar with.
This particular prototype’s blue brake
calipers and relatively large wheels suggest it might be an M50 or M60 model,
and BMW must also be working on a full M version that offers even more
performance. BMW says the architecture can in theory deliver a whole megawatt
of power (1,340 hp), though even an iX3M is unlikely to offer much
more than half that for the street.
The extensive disguise doesn’t give too
much away in terms of details, but we can see that the iX3 has a sportier
stance than the upright current X3, that it features wide, muscular rear arches
and flush door handles. BMW trademarks like the Hofmeister kink in the rear
quarter window, however, are still present, even if BMW has tried to hide them
for this road test.
