EVwire brief: The new all-electric BMW i3 undercuts its gas-powered 3 Series counterpart by $4,400 in the US, one of the clearest signs yet that EVs have reached price parity with combustion cars.
The i3 50 xDrive starts at $61,500, while the comparable M350 xDrive sedan starts at $65,900, both before destination charges. The two are close in power and styling and aimed at the same buyers, which makes the EV about 6.7% cheaper.
Industry forecasters have long expected EVs to match gas cars on sticker price in the second half of this decade, with BloombergNEF pointing to 2026. Like-for-like comparisons have been rare, though, because popular EVs, like the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, typically do not have a direct gas twin. The 2027 BMW 3 Series does.
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It should be noted that there is a cheaper gas 3 Series. The 330 starts at $49,900, or $51,900 with xDrive, but BMW doesn't offer an electric version at that level yet. On range, the two flagships are also close. The i3 is estimated at up to 468 miles per charge, while all-wheel-drive gas 3 Series models have typically managed around 450 miles per tank.
Details:
Here’s a quick look at the flagship BMW i3’s primary specs.
Model: 2027 BMW i3 50 xDrive
Price: $61,500 (before destination)
Power: 463 hp, dual-motor all-wheel drive
Range: Up to 468 miles (estimated)
DC fast charging: Up to 400 kW, adding up to 208 miles in 10 minutes
Architecture: 800V, sixth-generation BMW eDrive with cylindrical battery cells
Bidirectional charging: Supported
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Context:
The eighth-generation 3 Series is one of the first vehicles to arrive under BMW's Neue Klasse banner, the platform and design overhaul behind its newest EVs. The electric i3 sits on a newer chassis than the gas model, which uses a heavily updated version of the existing platform, and it gets BMW's latest Gen6 eDrive hardware. The 3 Series itself dates back to 1975, when the first car left BMW's Munich plant, and BMW has sold more than 18 million of them since.
The i3 name isn't new for BMW. It first appeared in 2013 on a compact city EV with a carbon-fiber passenger cell, BMW's first mass-produced electric car, which stayed in production until 2022. The new i3 turns that name into the electric version of BMW's best-selling model.
Source: BMW Group, TechCrunch
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