BMW iX3 2021 Review - International

Unless the visuals haven’t made it abundantly clear, BMW didn’t want the iX3 to have a crazy bit of EV sculpture out and spooking people, like the i3 and the i8 might have done.

Not everybody who buys an electric car is a virtue signaller, the car-maker believes, and the BMW iX3 is an EV for people who just want a car that works and might be utterly indifferent to what powers it.

This car will cost a tick over €66,000 ($A108,000) in Europe, which nestles it right at the top end of the X3 range anyway, and it gives 210kW of power and 400Nm of instant torque, all driven through the rear-end.

It will deliver up to 460km of EV range on the WLTP test cycle, recharge to 80 per cent in a claimed 34 minutes at a 150kW charger (or deliver 100km of range in 10 minutes) and still ease to 100km/h from standstill in 6.8 seconds.

The colour blue is a standout feature inside, as it is outside, just so nobody forgets they’re in an EV.

It uses a very similar interior to the standard X3, complete with the scroller for the i-Drive system and a start-stop button.

There are two stock versions from Germany: the Inspiring and the Impressive.

The iX3 Inspiring scores three-zone climate control (with pre-heating and pre-cooling while it’s plugged in), 245/50 R19 rubber, a panoramic glass roof and a full driver assistance suite, including the latest active cruise control and Level 3 operation up to 60km/h.

Almost anything in the X3 options list can be plugged in to the iX3 because the EV is built on the normal X3 production line.

The electric front seats are heated, there is adjustable ambient lighting, over-the-air (OTA) software updates, more precise routes and arrival times in the navigation, smartphone integration and connected charging.

The Impressive model steps things up with 20-inch alloy wheels, adaptive LED headlights, acoustic double-glazed front windows, a head-up display, a top-end parking assistant and a Harman Kardon sound system.

A little is lost with the battery in the rear, but the iX3 retains 510 litres of luggage space, which can be boosted to 1560 litres with the 40/20/40-split folding rear seat.

The BMW iX3 is built in a CO2-neutral factory, even down to the electricity it uses, and the manufacturer claims its carbon footprint is up to 62 per cent lower than the four-cylinder turbo-diesel X3 20d.

It also insists the X3 is the first SUV to offer the “power of choice” between diesel, petrol, plug-in hybrid or pure EV power in the same bodyshell.

You pay for not just an EV, but an EV delivered without rare-earth metals and two-thirds less cobalt than most EVs of this capacity, and what little cobalt it does use comes from Australia and Morocco, with all the supply chains tightly managed by BMW.

A lot of the technology inside the iX3 is designed to neither be seen nor noticed, seamlessly measuring, calculating, swapping and saving, all without bothering the operators.

BMW insists it worked hard to minimise rare-earth metals and cobalt in its iX3 – and given this powertrain will end up in the i4 and the iNEXT in 2021 as well, that’s good news.

It managed its own lithium and cobalt sourcing, and then relied on cell suppliers to deliver their pouch cells for bundling up into battery packs.

Its big push for the iX3 has been efficiency, insisting nobody else is anywhere near the 18.5kWh/100km energy consumption (WLTP) it can claim for its new 2185kg SUV.

Its mantra has been to reduce the waste rather than increasing the battery pack.

The iX3 uses 62 per cent less cobalt per kilowatt than the i3 does, and it claims CO2-free production of its NMC 811 prismatic battery cells, even though each cell is individually housed for longevity and safety.

It also claims it can recover and recycle 96 per cent of the cell material at the end of the car’s useful life.

BMW insists 90 per cent of all “speed-reducing situations” can be handled without the brakes, with a quarter of its WLTP range claim (460km) coming from energy recuperation in braking.

The car’s aero has been heavily focused on, too, with five per cent less drag than the X3, which effectively adds 10km to the range.

One of the key reasons BMW built the i3 in the first place was to learn what was right and wrong about their EV knowledge in a limited production series, so they could add those lessons to the iX3.

One of the key lessons it figured out was to integrate the driving unit, the charging unit, the high-voltage battery and the adaptive recuperation.

The neat little housing that contains the electric motor, the power electronics and the single-speed transmission is set to spread across the BMW EV range, as a modular block.

But the electric motor is BMW’s major breakthrough.

The motor has no permanent magnets of any kind. Instead, it’s an electrically excited synchronous motor, which leaves the power electronics to adjust the magnetics of the motor on the fly.

It also dictates less friction from the permanent magnet when the car is “sailing” with no throttle on highways.

The other benefit to avoiding permanent magnets is that they use a lot of rare-earth materials, so there’s that neatly dodged, all while delivering 30 per cent more power density than the i3.

The other advantage to this variable magnetism business is that the 210kW maximum power output is almost the same throughout the 17,000 rev range, even though it peaks at 6000rpm.

The torque peak of 400Nm is there from zero until 5000rpm.

Don’t bother bracing your neck for a Ludicrous mode. The BMW iX3 isn’t that kind of SUV and it’s not that kind of EV, either.

Instead, it’s meant to slide right in to the X3 line-up and not frighten anybody away from the torque-rich pleasures that are to be found early in e-motor rev ranges.

Obviously, the start-up is silent, with just a press on the start-stop button, and moving off is near silent as well.

There’s a quiet strength to the iX3 that belies its modest performance figures.

There’s always performance when it’s needed, from its 80-120km/h time of 2.5 seconds to its 180km/h (limited) top speed.

At first, it’s disappointingly not rapid. There’s no crispness to it, either, but it turns out that’s just what BMW wants you to think.

Dig a little deeper and fiddle with its modes and the iX3 quickly becomes a second skin of smooth, calm mobility.

It can be driven normally, with sailing and default energy recuperation, or it can be driven in the one-pedal style beloved of i3 owners, with the full regeneration turned up to the maximum.

Here, any lifting from the accelerator is quickly followed by a sharp deceleration as the electric motor eats kinetic energy and turns it back into electrical energy for the battery to bounce back when it needs it.

It is, frankly, too confronting to drive at its maximum for long, and it’s more relaxed in its default-driving mode.

It’s utterly silent, too, except where it reveals some bump thump in the rear-end that the engine and exhaust notes of the stock X3s hide.

It’s unfailingly polite and gentle with its driver and passengers (up to four of them) and somehow the more sedate pace makes it easier to get your head around.

The handling, with more weight on the rear, is even more convincing than the driveline, with the standard car’s strut front-end and five-link rear doing heavier service here and doing it easily.

It can be whipped through corners happily and carries surprising speed in them, and it remains unruffled.

Its new instrument cluster technology and driver assistance systems make it ludicrously easy in traffic, even allowing for hands-off technology below 60km/h that is so close to Level 3 self-driving it’s not funny, even if BMW isn’t claiming Level 3 autonomy.

It will literally take over everything for you below 60km/h, largely (like the Mercedes-Benz S-Class) because that’s the handover speed that will be dictated by the EU early next year.

For those uncomfortable with a lack of sound, the iX3 has different motor sounds pumped through speakers inside and outside the car, which are claimed to add to “emotional depth” to driving.

And, sure, it works, but the car is better being pure, and being pure means being silent, unflustered and utterly calm, which is what the iX3 is all about.

Should you buy a BMW iX3? Well, why not?

If you can snap up one of the array of home-charging methods BMW offers, then 460km becomes a reasonable range for most people.

The only questions, then, are over its price, speed and payload, and it’s a lot of money for not that much of the other two.

As for payload, you can only take 540kg on board, including you, so it’s not that helpful for a big family that likes big holidays, especially when it can only tow 750kg.

But is it a better car than a Jaguar I-PACE, a Mercedes-Benz EQC or an Audi e-tron?

Yeah. It sure feels like it is.

How much does the 2021 BMW iX3 cost?
Price: $135,000 estimated (plus on-road costs)
Available: Third quarter 2021
Engine: Current-excited synchronous electric motor
Output: 210kW/400Nm
Transmission: Single-speed gearbox
Battery: 70kWh lithium-ion
Range: 460km (WLTP)
Energy consumption: 18.5-19.5kWh/100km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested