The crucial new BMW i3 will arrive next year as the first fully electric member of the 3 Series family, bringing a range of more than 500 miles – and company boss Oliver Zipse has promised that it will deliver “sheer driving pleasure”.

With similar styling to that of the Vision Neue Klasse concept first shown in 2023, the new i3 will be the first saloon in the Munich firm’s revamped Neue Klasse family. It will sit on the same new bespoke electric Gen6 platform as the recently revealed iX3 SUV.

BMW is gearing up to refresh its entire line-up with 40 new EVs and heavily updated combustion cars, which all share the Neue Klasse look and are due by the end of 2027.

While the X3 SUV is now BMW’s best-seller, the 3 Series saloon remains the cornerstone of the brand – and this will be the first time an electric version has been offered. BMW has sold the similar-sized i4 four-door coupé since 2021, but it chose to wait until EV technology could deliver a closer match to combustion models before launching a battery-powered 3 Series.

While the i3 will be new, it will face some familiar rivals, with a Mercedes-Benz C-Class EV set to be launched next year and an Audi A4 EV in development. But the i3 will also be key to taking on newer rivals such as Tesla and Chinese premium brands including Xpeng and BYD's Denza.

The i3 will be offered with a variety of power outputs – including a hot electric M3 – and the launch model is set to be a 50 xDrive, as with the iX3. It is likely to offer the same 464bhp and 479lb ft from a dual-motor set-up as the iX3, with power drawn from a 108kWh nickel manganese-cobalt battery.

That system gives the SUV a range of 500 miles, so the more aerodynamic shape of the saloon will potentially make it the longest-range EV on sale in the UK – and should give it an edge over the C-Class EV, which, Autocar understands, will offer a 497-mile range when it arrives next year. The Gen6 platform employed by the i3 features an 800V architecture, allowing for charging speeds of up to 400kW.

The i3 will be joined by a heavily updated version of the petrol-engined 3 Series, which will remain on the unrelated CLAR architecture but will receive a makeover with the Neue Klasse design language and the latest in-car technology.

The Vision Neue Klasse saloon concept previewed how the upcoming EV and ICE 3 Series will look, with a distinctly different interpretation of BMW’s kidney grille that is also destined for the iX3 and future SUVs. The camouflaged i3 prototype shown recently confirms that the EV will retain the typical 3 Series body shape, with smoother lines and BMW’s signature Hofmeister kink employed for the C-pillar.

Inside, the i3 will feature BMW’s new Panoramic iDrive system, seen in the iX3, which mates an angled touchscreen with a projected head-up display that runs the length of the front windscreen. The company claims that this system enables key data to be displayed closer to the driver’s eyeline.

Given the importance of driving dynamics to BMW, the firm’s engineers have put a major focus on attempting to ensure the i3 can match the petrol 3 Series models when it comes to ride and handling. Key to that is the new centralised computing architecture, which is built around a greatly reduced number of processing chips. The set-up includes the ‘Heart of Joy’ system, which unites all of the driving experience controls to enable faster and more intuitive reactions.

The system also essentially merges the braking and energy recuperation systems, automatically adjusting between them to offer maximum stopping power. BMW claims that 98% of retardation can be done using the energy regen system.

While BMW has not given official details about the full i3 line-up, BMW Group design chief Adrian van Hooydonk has confirmed that a Touring estate version will follow, along with a range of powertrain options.

After that, the first electric M3 is due in 2028 and prototype versions have already been seen testing. While it will adopt the same Heart of Joy control system, M boss Frank van Meel has previously confirmed to Autocar that it will use bespoke electric powertrain and battery components. These will be based on standard BMW components but heavily developed by the M performance division.

The electric M3 is expected to adopt a quad-motor set-up that could make it the most powerful M model yet, using advanced torque vectoring enabled by the new software architecture for control.

While the i3 is new, the model name was previously used for a pioneering and radically styled hatch, which was sold in rangeextender and pure-EV forms from 2013 until 2022.