BMW launched the Imaginative and prescient Neue Klasse sedan final September on the IAA Mobility present in Munich. This week, it took the wraps off its SUV counterpart, aptly named the Imaginative and prescient Neue Klasse X. Based mostly on this chronology, you’d be tempted to say the saloon would be the first to go on sale. Nevertheless, when the brand new Debrecen plant in Hungary begins making vehicles subsequent yr, it’s the SUV that may roll off the meeting line.

We determined to ask the corporate’s R&D Frank Weber why the iX3 can be launched earlier than the i3, regardless that the sedan was previewed first: “The choice to start out with the crossover is strategic as a result of in the present day half of BMW’s gross sales, globally, are of ‘X’ automobiles. Which implies that there are areas the place they weigh as much as two-thirds and these fashions are leaders of their phase.”

Weber added that the event of the 2 ideas was finalized concomitantly, and the Imaginative and prescient Neue Klasse pair represents “archetypes of just about all BMWs of the long run.” The sedan will comply with in roughly a yr, with manufacturing scheduled to start out later in 2026 on the Munich plant in Germany. An extra 4 fashions are deliberate for a launch by 2028, however the luxurious automaker stays tight-lipped about their identities. That mentioned, an electrical M3 has been formally confirmed.

What else can we count on? Our cash is on derivatives of the iX3 and i3 sedan, similar to a sleeker iX4 crossover and an i3 Touring wagon. Whereas BMW doesn’t say what is going to come after the preliminary SUV and sedan duo, it has introduced plans to construct Neue Klasse-based vehicles in Shenyang (China) from 2026 in addition to on the San Luis Potosi (Mexico) manufacturing unit from 2027. Later this decade, EVs will come alive from Regensburg (Germany).

BMW is gearing as much as make six electrical automobiles in the USA on the Spartanburg manufacturing unit in South Carolina. These will all doubtless be SUVs but it surely’s unclear what number of can be underpinned by Neue Klasse. Though the devoted electrical structure is correct across the nook, there are nonetheless plans to construct next-gen EVs on the present CLAR.