Neue Klasse Bet

BMW’s clean-sheet EV platform passed an important early independent range test, initial evidence that it is competitive at the system level. At least in the summer.

The iX3 50 xDrive drove 781 km (485 mi) on a charge, the farthest of 24 vehicles, in the summer El Prix range test conducted by the Norwegian Automobile Federation (NAF) and Motor magazine. The field included the Mercedes-Benz GLC 400—also built on a clean-sheet EV platform—and 22 other new EVs, though no Tesla or Volkswagen.

Conditions were favorable but real-world: 12–18°C (~54–64 °F), dry roads, mixed urban and highway roads starting from Oslo, including a sustained climb of roughly 900–1,000 m (2,950–3,280 ft) elevation over ~400 km (~249 mi).

It comfortably beat the Mercedes GLC 400’s 665 km using a larger battery, but R&R’s consumption calculation from the NAF/Motor inputs still shows a narrow lead for the BMW:

The iX3’s advantage reads as a system result: a large battery pack creates most of the separation, while efficient-for-its-size execution preserves a smaller lead when capacity is normalized. At the GLC’s 94 kWh capacity, the iX3’s measured efficiency implies about 675 km of range—10 km ahead of the Mercedes.

Summer performance doesn’t validate thermal management, which is arguably the less commoditized and more revealing part of the EV stack. The iX3 is in its first year and has not participated in the NAF/Motor winter range test. Winter testing will show whether BMW’s new platform can carry its system-level competitiveness into conditions that place more weight on thermal management than aerodynamics and capacity.