BMW Concept i4 ready to take on Tesla Model 3

BMW has confirmed it will use next week’s Geneva motor show to unveil a brand-new prototype to rival the Tesla Model 3: the BMW Concept i4.

The electric Gran Coupe will be unveiled on March 3 offering 390kW, an 80kWh battery pack and a real-world WLTP-rated range of 600km, the car-maker confirmed this week.
BMW was also an early contributor to the Ionity fast-charging network in Europe, and the battery chemistry of the i4 will be able to swallow 100km of range in only six minutes, or 80 percent of its maximum range in 35 minutes.

The third full i car from BMW after the i3 and the i8, it arrives in replacement of the stillborn i5 and will run more conventional materials in its construction than any i car before it.

BMW is promising 0-100km/h times of around four seconds, with a 200km/h-plus top speed.

It will be built in BMW’s Munich HQ flagship factory, both to keep its technology close to its engineers and to keep its home unions satisfied that they won’t be frozen out of any wholesale market shift to electric cars.

“The BMW Concept i4 heralds a new era in Sheer Driving Pleasure; it provides a whole new take on the dynamic excellence for which BMW is renowned and blends a modern, elegantly sporty design with the spaciousness and practicality of a four-door Gran Coupe – all while generating zero local emissions,” BMW said in a release.

The Concept i4 has been teased in the months leading up to its reveal, most recently in the form of a liquid metal sculpture.

“The BMW Concept i4 brings electrification to the core of the BMW brand,” says Adrian van Hooydonk, BMW’s senior vice president of design. “The design is dynamic, clean and elegant. In short: a perfect BMW that happens to be zero emission.”