The BMW i3 name once belonged to a polarizing little hatchback that looked like it was designed by committee during a fever dream. That car is dead. What rolled onto the lawn at Goodwood this weekend is a full-size electric 3 Series sedan painted in M Le Castellet Blue, riding on 20-inch wheels, and carrying a starting price of £57,905.
BMW chose the Festival of Speed to give the i3 First Edition its first public appearance, and the timing isn’t accidental. The company opened European order books in mid-June, weeks ahead of schedule, after what it described as “encouraging customer feedback.” Translation: dealers were getting calls, and BMW didn’t want to leave money on the table.
The momentum tracks with what’s happening across the Neue Klasse lineup. The iX3 SUV, the i3’s platform sibling, is closing in on 100,000 orders. BMW hasn’t released sedan-specific numbers yet, but pulling the launch forward tells you everything the spreadsheets would.
Every First Edition rolls with the M Sport Package, the illuminated kidney grille BMW calls Iconic Glow, a Harman Kardon sound system, 3D head-up display, three-zone climate control, and heated steering wheel. The sole powertrain available at launch is the i3 50 xDrive, which means dual motors and all-wheel drive. AC charging is doubled to 22 kW over the standard spec.
It’s a loaded car out of the box, the kind of configuration designed to make early adopters feel like they’re getting something the masses won’t. Options are deliberately limited. You can add a panoramic glass roof, heated rear seats, an electrically deployable tow bar, and various driver-assistance packages.
That’s about it. BMW wants these cars configured fast and rolling off the Munich production line, which fires up in August, with deliveries beginning this fall.
The standard i3, which drops the First Edition trim and presumably some of that equipment, will start at £53,005 in the UK. That positions it roughly where a well-optioned 3 Series diesel sits today. Not cheap, but competitive against the Tesla Model 3 Performance and the Mercedes EQC successor pricing that’s been leaked in recent weeks.
You can’t build one online yet. The configurator won’t go live until fall, when the standard car joins the range. For now, ordering is dealer-only, which gives BMW’s retail network something they desperately need: a reason for customers to walk through the door instead of clicking buttons on a screen.
Six exterior colors are available: Alpine White, Black Sapphire, Space Silver, Brooklyn Grey, Eucalyptus Green, and the Le Castellet Blue shown at Goodwood. Inside, the display car wore a Digital White interior with an Individual steering wheel, though other combinations are on the menu.
The car itself is bigger than the outgoing 3 Series in every dimension, because of course it is. Car bloat remains undefeated. But BMW is betting that Neue Klasse’s architecture, a dedicated electric platform rather than the converted-combustion approach used for the China-market i3, will deliver the driving dynamics that made the 3 Series matter in the first place.
Whether it drives like a proper 3 Series or just looks like one in a fancy blue suit, Goodwood attendees couldn’t say. BMW kept the car static. The real test comes this fall when keys start landing in customers’ hands and the road tells the truth the show lawn never does.
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