BMW’s Vision Neue Klasse concept previews an all-new EV that’s two years away, but there’s much more to it than that. This show car also brings BMW’s next-generation EV tech strategy into sharper focus.
Revealed at the IAA Mobility expo in Munich, the compact sedan’s name is a clue to its massive significance for the German car maker.
Neue Klasse, if you hadn’t guessed, is German for New Class. And the original Neue Klasse sedan was the car that more than 60 years ago pulled BMW back from the brink of financial collapse and set it on the path to present-day prosperity.
Produced from the early 60s to the early 70s, the first Neue Klasse was a forerunner of the 3 Series model line that endures to this day.
The new Neue Klasse foreshadows not only the electric future of the 3 Series, but an entire family of advanced EVs.
“I can promise you that the Vision Neue Klasse is close to standard production, and
will be on the roads soon,” Oliver Zipse told reporters during a recent quarterly financial statement conference call.
The chairman of the BMW board also emphasised its importance.
“It is about nothing less than the future of the BMW brand, the BMW Group,” he said.
Over the past decade BMW has put more than 600,000 EVs on the world’s roads and they currently account for almost 20 per cent of the brand’s sales globally.
These numbers will soon look paltry.
“This year we have plans to produce over 400,000; next year it will be over 500,000 BEVs,” says Bernhard Marx, the executive in charge of getting the next generation of BMW EVs into production.
“Modern, but not forgetting the past,” is how BMW interior design chief Christian Bauer described the look of the Vision Neue Klasse at a special pre-show preview event.
While there are faint echoes of early 3 Series models in the concept’s crisp exterior design, its interior is a showcase of advanced user-interface technology.
The concept car features a panoramic display projected onto the bottom section of its windscreen. Instead of BMW’s long-serving iDrive rotary controller there’s a touchscreen for menu navigation and selection. Widgets can be swiped upwards from the touchscreen to the panoramic display. BMW doesn’t say so explicitly, but this tech is clearly going to appear in the Neue Klasse family of models.
“The Neue Klasse will be more than one car,” says Bauer.
It’s thought the production version of the Vision Neue Klasse will be badged i3, in line with the i4, i5 and i7 EVs in the company’s current line-up.
Initial production of the compact EV sedan will begin in a new factory, powered 100 per cent by renewable energy, in Debrecen, Hungary, late in 2025. The following year it will also go into production in Munich, BMW’s home town.
The second Neue Klasse-based model will be a replacement for the X3, including the iX3 EV version of BMW’s popular mid-size SUV. It’ll go into production in 2026.
There will be at least four more models based on Neue Klasse tech. As well as Hungary and Germany, they will built in China, the USA and Mexico.
All will use BMW’s Generation 6 electric drivetrains, engineered to deliver major improvements in battery capacity, charging speed and overall energy efficiency.
The big news is that BMW will switch from the boxy prismatic battery cells it uses today to cylindrical cells, similar to the type used by Tesla.
Senior BMW drivetrain engineer Bernhard Marx says the new battery packs will store 20 per cent more charge, while vehicle energy consumption will be cut by 20 to 25 per cent. Neue Klasse-based EVs will be capable of very fast DC charging, too – only 10 minutes to add 300km to driving range is the promise.
At the same time, BMW says the new tech will help cut CO2 emissions from battery pack production by a whopping 60 per cent.
At the Vision Neue Klasse preview BMW highlighted its continuing commitment to ethical, transparent and sustainable direct sourcing of raw materials for its EV battery packs. It currently buys lithium and cobalt mined in Australia, for example.
But recycled materials will be increasingly used as the number of EVs reaching the end of their working life grows, explains BMW board member Joachim Post.
“The raw material of the future is today now on the roads,” he says.