The new BMW i3 might be the most complete EV I’ve ever driven – rest in peace, range anxiety

Few cars are used to describe others like the BMW 3-Series. That new hybrid from a brand you haven’t heard of? About the size of a 3-Series. The plug-in family SUV? Costs the same as a 3-Series. Whether petrol pumps through your veins or you view a car as an appliance on par with a dishwasher, the 3-Series is understood.

Over 51 years and seven generations, the BMW 3-Series has become such a stalwart of the global automotive landscape, that merely describing another car as sharing a trait with it fully gets your point across. Arguably only the Volkswagen Golf and a couple of now-extinct Fords can match the 3-Series for such a universal understanding of what it is.

But now there’s a new one, and alongside it sits the i3. This is not a successor to the original i3, BMW’s compact EV that was so far ahead of its time that only now, after it died with no successor, has the rest of the world caught up to how good it was. No, this i3 is all-new. New design, new computers, new battery, new motors and new architecture. As new as new can be, yet it must also retain the instant, universal understanding of every 3-Series before it.

The numbers are too impressive to be ignored any longer. The i3 has a range of 566 miles from a 108.7 kWh battery that operates at 800 volts, charges at 400 kW and takes on 248 miles of range in 10 minutes. Range anxiety is dead, plain and simple.

Will you get that in real-world driving?

After a few hours behind the wheel, I saw an average of 3.7 miles per kWh, which indicates about 400 miles from a full charge. But that average was just 2.6 m/kWh when I started, likely owing to how it had been driven previously. My drive included a good mix of A-roads, B-roads, towns, villages and motorways, and I’ve little doubt the average would have continued climbing had I stolen the car and taken it home.

Which is what I wanted to do within about 10 minutes of setting off. The i3 is just one of those cars. Get in, get comfortable, start driving...and immediately start calculating if you can afford to buy one.

With prices starting at £47,925 for the i3 40 (which has a smaller battery but still 440 miles of range) the answer for plenty of drivers will be yes. It’s still affordable in the way a 3-Series should be. Not a bargain – and I was a little shocked to find the one I drove cost £63,000 – but not terrible by 2026 standards, and starts about £6,000 below the taller BMW iX3.

Speaking of the iX3, the i3 is a reminder that few of us really need an SUV. Yes, you sit higher, there’s a bit more space inside and your back will suffer less when moving children and their seats around. But I’m surely not alone in saying the i3 – a sensible saloon and not a towering SUV – just feels better.

It’s more precise to drive, there’s less roll in the corners, less weight to move, steer and stop, easier to park. Less dog-friendly, granted, since they can’t go in the boot. But a day in the i3 was a refreshing reminder of a time when we had “cars” and “off-roaders” instead of everything being a form of SUV.

Shark face

I won’t dwell on the exterior because design is subjective, but to me the i3 looks great. There’s the trademark BMW ‘shark face’ up front, giving the i3 a sharpness generally lacking by rivals. The kidney-shaped grille of old is nodded to by accent lighting, while the daytime running lights use four diagonal lines to remind of the quartet of circular lamps of BMWs past.

Inside is also all-new, thanks to the 17.9-inch dashboard touchscreen and Panoramic iDrive display. The former is tilted towards the driver while the latter is a projection at the foot of the windscreen that spans the entire width of the cabin. First shown in the iX3 and iX5, it’s a clever use of interior space, and does a great job of putting key information like speed in front of the driver without fitting a traditional instrument binnacle behind the wheel.

My test car had a head-up display too, which felt redundant since, by default, it shows much of the same information as the panoramic display. Buyers of the i3 will want to spend time configuring each interface, since otherwise there’s a lot of duplication, with speed, time, temperature, navigation and other key information appearing twice.

The steering wheel might also take some getting used to. It’s another hallmark of BMW’s new ’Neue Klasse’ generation, along with the panoramic display, and while it looks strange – almost like it’s upside-down – the ergonomics are excellent.

On the road

The way the i3 drives is excellent too. This isn’t the usual EV-performance paragraph where the overriding impression is one of a silent rocket ship. The i3 is both powerful and quick enough (469 horsepower, 645 Nm and 62 mph in 4.7 seconds in i3 50 xDrive form), but better still is how it drives. The inherent lack of height and bulk compared to an SUV helps, but mostly this is just a very well-sorted car that does exactly what you ask of it. It isn’t pretending to be a sports car – a monstrous M3 with electric power will come later – but retains that ‘Ultimate Driving Machine’ BMW identity.

It steers precisely, goes well, stops with reassurance and puts a smile on your face. The driver-assistance systems aren’t overly invasive, the speed warning bong (which is prone to mis-read signs, just like in every other car these days) is quick to turn off, and the semi-autonomous driving system is remarkably clever.

It has a function where on motorways, the driver is permitted to be “eyes-on, hands-off” and, when the car suggests a lane-change for an overtake, you can grant it permission by simply glancing in the relevant mirror. Do that, and the i3 activates the indicator, then switches lanes, overtakes, and suggests moving back across again, which you then confirm with another glance.

The voice assistant is good too, thanks to sourcing its intelligence from Alexa+. This gives it the AI smarts to understand natural language and hold flowing conversations.

BMW earns more points for practicality. Rear seat space is good, the optional panoramic roof is enormous, the 420-litre boot is respectable and there’s an additional 31 litres of stowage under the bonnet. If you need more, a Touring estate version should be along later.

The i3 doesn’t wow like a Polestar 5 and nor does it tug at the heartstrings like a Renault Twingo. It isn’t a particularly exciting car, but that doesn’t stop it from being an extremely good one. It is sensible, of course. But when Germanic sensibility is delivered as well as this it becomes one of the greatest traits any car can have – and the i3 has it by the bucketload.