The most "BMW" car is no longer BMW's most important car.

By｜Hu Chengxu Edit｜Mao Shiyan

Auto Pixel (ID:autopix)Original

BMW's best news and worst news arrived at almost the same time.

At the end of July, BMW reached a milestone in Debrecen, Hungary. The group's first all-electric exclusive factory produced its 50,000th Neue Klasse iX3.

Orders are growing faster than production ramp-up. From production start to the 50,000th unit roll-off, it took only nine months, while iX3 orders in Europe are approaching 100,000. BMW disclosed that for every three new electric vehicle orders in Europe, one belongs to the iX3.

To catch up with demand, the Debrecen factory started a second shift earlier, and hundreds of employees were transferred from the China factory for support.

In the first half of 2026, the iX3 also swept the World Car of the Year and World Electric Vehicle awards.

This is probably BMW's best new product start in the last decade. However, within the same period, several other things happened.

On July 29, BMW reached an agreement with the Works Council to launch a voluntary redundancy plan starting in October, cutting approximately 8,000 jobs globally by the end of 2027, accounting for 5.2% of its 154,500 employees. The cuts fell on R&D, planning, and functional departments in Germany, effectively slicing off one-fifth of BMW's white-collar jobs in Germany.

On July 30, BMW released its financial report for the first half of 2026. Net profit attributable to shareholders was 2.858 billion euros, down 25.75%. Pre-tax profit in the second quarter was 1.7 billion euros, a year-on-year decline of 35.1%.

The automotive business operating profit margin dropped by more than half year-on-year, and free cash flow decreased by 73.4%. These factors caused BMW's stock price to fall by about 39% this year, touching a 52-week low in late July.

The huge hole dragging down BMW's performance is in China. In the first half, BMW China's sales fell 20.4% year-on-year, and the second quarter's decline widened to 30.2%. With sales continuing to lose speed, China's record of consistently being BMW's largest single market for 12 consecutive years was ended, and its share of BMW's global sales dropped from a peak of 33.5% to 25.5%.

But in China, where BMW's new energy transformation needs to be tested the most, new cars arrived the latest. The domestic version of iX3 will be launched in the fourth quarter of this year.

Thus, strong sales in Europe are a good start, but it cannot yet prove it is the answer. The old market is losing speed, and the new anchor has not yet completed the hardest verification.

01

BMW Once Only Needed One Car

The last time BMW used the name "Neue Klasse" was in 1962. That time, it saved the company.

Before that, BMW had walked to the edge of being absorbed. Daimler-Benz proposed a takeover and restructuring plan. Before the December 1959 shareholder meeting, the deal was once considered a foregone conclusion. It was not until minority shareholders and employee representatives opposed it on the spot that the plan was vetoed, and BMW barely retained independence.

At that time, its product line was almost severed in the middle. One end was cheap micro-cars and motorcycles like the Isetta, while the other end was expensive V8 sedans like the 501 and 502. In the middle, there was no mainstream product that could contribute scale and profits simultaneously.

Marketing Director Paul Hahnemann saw this gap: a family sedan with displacement between 1.5 and 2.0 liters, high quality, and a sports character.

At the 1961 Frankfurt Motor Show, the BMW 1500 made its debut. This series was called "Neue Klasse".

▍BMW 1500 at the 1961 Frankfurt Motor Show

The four-door body abandoned the 501's elaborate styling and turned towards a more restrained, function-focused design. Von Falkenhausen developed the M10 engine for it and persuaded management to increase the displacement from the initial idea of 1.3 liters to 1.5 liters, while leaving space for expansion to 2.0 liters.

On the rear side of this car, at the junction of the C-pillar and the body, the "Hofmeister kink", a fold line turning forward, appeared for the first time, which later became BMW's signature.

But these elements that later defined BMW did not immediately bring a sales legend. The 1500 was produced for over two years, with full lifecycle sales of 23,800 units. What truly changed BMW's fate was the product template it provided. The four-door Neue Klasse was produced cumulatively for 339,800 units. The 02 series, shortened and simplified from it, sold over 820,000 units.

From 1960 to 1970, BMW's sales tripled, and revenue growth exceeded seven times. In 1963, nearly two decades after the dividend suspension, BMW resumed dividends to shareholders.

The M10 engine was produced until 1988, cumulatively exceeding 3.5 million units, and later spawned M12 and M13 turbocharged models for the F1 arena. In 1966, it lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under 10 minutes.

That same year, BMW put the Neue Klasse technology and sports character into a more compact and cheaper car, and the 02 series was born. In 1975, its successor officially adopted a new name: the 3 Series.

From 1975 to now, the 3 Series has cumulatively sold over 16 million units, making it BMW's best-selling series. Luxury mid-size sedans have long used the 3 Series as the benchmark; Audi A4, Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Lexus IS, and even the later NIO ET5 all treated it as an archnrival.

More importantly, it turned sports character into a product logic that BMW could replicate generation after generation.

BMW's official positioning of the 3 Series has always been clear. In 2024, the wording was that for nearly 50 years, the 3 Series has always represented the core (the core of the BMW brand) of the BMW brand; in 2022, it was called the heart (the heart of the BMW brand) of the brand; when the new i3 was released in 2026, the 3 Series was still emphasized as the essence (the essence of the BMW brand) of the BMW brand.

These are not just rhetoric. Over the past few decades, many of BMW's key technologies and product concepts first became complete cars on the 3 Series before spreading to other products.

In 1985, the second-generation 3 Series E30 launched the 325iX, becoming BMW's first four-wheel-drive sedan, laying the starting point for the xDrive that later covered the entire series.

▍Third-generation 3 Series from 1990 to 1998

By the third-generation 3 Series E36, the 3 Series began to define BMW's driving experience more deeply. The Z-link multi-link rear suspension was extended to sedan, two-door, and wagon versions, and the center console was also significantly tilted towards the driver. "Driver-oriented" was established as a replicable cockpit layout.

In the past six decades, BMW's method of expanding its product line was essentially to replicate the 3 Series, scale it up to 5 Series and 7 Series, scale it down to 1 Series, and elevate it to X3 and X5. As long as the answer of the 3 Series stands, BMW's product line stands.

But in the EV era, BMW took the premiere rights of "Neue Klasse" from the 3 Series, and also took away the power to define the next generation of BMW.

02

The Next Generation BMW,

No Longer Starting with the 3 Series

In September 2025, BMW reactivated the "Neue Klasse" name at the Munich IAA. But the first car was not the i3, but the iX3. Six months later, the i3 was released, officially referred to only as the "second Neue Klasse model".

Technical premiere rights were also moved. The Driving Super Brain Heart of Joy, which best embodies BMW's differentiation, as well as sixth-generation electric drive, large-format cylindrical cells, and Panoramic iDrive, were all first deployed on the iX3.

The i3 launched next year, every technology it receives, was received by the iX3 first.

In terms of wording, the change in status can even be seen. For example, for a certain function, the official wording for the iX3 was "the smoothest parking process in BMW history", while the i3 was described as "the smoothest parking process in 3 Series history", the scope was proactively narrowed.

In Q1 2026, global deliveries of the 3 Series and 4 Series totaled 103,800 units, down 11.8% year-on-year; X3 grew by 18.5% year-on-year, of which a considerable proportion came from the iX3. Analysts believe the iX3 could push the X3 family to the top of BMW's sales list by the end of 2026.

BMW's definition of the i3 has also regressed from "defining the entire series" back to "continuing 3 Series DNA", and the task of defining the next generation of products has been handed over to the SUV.

BMW is not the first to do this.

Tesla had the sedan Model 3 first in 2017, and the SUV form Model Y only in 2020, but the latter is the anchor that determines Tesla's product configuration. Model Y is not only Tesla's best-selling car globally, but also the foundation for its subsequent products, such as Cybercab.

Li Auto is even more thorough, and has not yet launched a sedan.

Behind this is first the engineering reality. The BEV platform lays a battery about 10 cm thick under the floor, which is naturally more suitable for higher-bodied SUVs. The battery gives SUVs the low center of gravity that sedans once had exclusively, but it does not give sedans the space of SUVs. Therefore, the mainstream configuration of the new energy era tilts towards SUVs.

But more importantly, the "driving dynamics" represented by sedans could almost support all of BMW's value in the ICE era; in the EV era, it is still important, but only one layer of product capability. Space, comfort, and cockpit experience, SUVs are rather easier to make comprehensive.

This means the 3 Series can no longer represent the Neue Class BMW. But the 3 Series stepping down does not mean the iX3 has completed the succession.

Beyond driving dynamics, the intelligent driving, cockpit, and ecosystem that determine the victory or defeat of new energy vehicles in China, BMW relies heavily on public suppliers. The China-spec iX3 adopts Momenta intelligent driving, while Momenta also supplies Mercedes, Audi, and IM Motors. In the capabilities consumers value most, BMW stands on the same foundation as rivals.

To re-establish differentiation, BMW almost rewrote the domestic iX3. 70% of the OS code was rewritten by the Chinese team, intelligent driving was co-developed again, and the cockpit integrated Alibaba, DeepSeek, Huawei, and Gaode.

The trade-off was time. The overseas version was delivered this March, and the domestic version will be launched in the fourth quarter.

Peculiarly, the market where BMW has the deepest problems, the new product arrived the latest. Mercedes has already compressed the pure electric GLC to 299,900 yuan, and Chinese new EV players have also completed several rounds of iteration in the same price range.

Meanwhile, starting from July this year, the domestic i3 and iX1 entered the production halt process, and i5 production was suspended. BMW cleaned up the previous generation of electric products to free up production lines and resources for the Neue Class models.

This led to it having virtually no domestic pure electric models for sale, with a new energy penetration rate in China of only about 6% in the first quarter, while the overall market in China has already exceeded 50%.

So, the iX3 has not yet taken the most critical exam. Its success in Europe can only prove that BMW made a decent car, but it has not yet proven in the global competition's most fierce and cutting-edge new energy market that it is sufficient to become the anchor of the next generation of BMW.

03

iX3 Is Not Yet The New Anchor

In 2020, BMW also made an iX3.

It rolled off the line at the Shenyang Dadong Plant, it was BMW Brilliance's first truly global model. All iX3s sold worldwide came from the same plant and were all the same car.

Six years later, the new generation iX3 has two versions. The standard wheelbase version is produced in Debrecen, Hungary, for Europe and the US; the long wheelbase version is produced in Shenyang, for China, as well as India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

With the same car name, selling one car globally has become two distinctly different products.

In the ICE era, domestic BMWs would also be lengthened. At that time, the long wheelbase version and standard wheelbase version still shared the same core technology, just different dimensions. Now operating systems, intelligent driving solutions, AI engines, and ecosystem systems have all gone down different paths.

The fundamental divergence is demand. The 3 Series can be unified globally because the market demand for good-handling mid-size sedans is consistent. For the new energy market where the iX3 belongs, the demands on both sides are already different; the Chinese market values intelligence, rear seat experience, and ecosystem connectivity more.

This also pushes the problem to a deeper level. If a car entrusted with a global anchor role must be rewritten after entering the most competitive market, can it still represent globally?

Furthermore, the victory won by the iX3 in Europe, the time may not be plentiful.

In April this year, the sales share of Chinese brands in the European electric vehicle market exceeded 15% for the first time, and the overall market share rose to 9.8%. In May, monthly new car registrations of Chinese automakers in Europe exceeded Japanese automakers for the first time. In the first quarter, exports to Europe reached 438,400 units, a year-on-year increase of 84.7%.

What mainly blocks domestic carmakers is tariffs. The combined tax rate for some domestic new energy vehicles in Europe reaches up to 45.3%. Even bearing high tariffs, the BYD Dolphin Surf (corresponds to the domestic Dolphin) is still cheaper than the same-class Renault 5 in Germany.

And this barrier is being bypassed. BYD, Chery, and Geely are turning tariffs from long-term barriers into phased costs by building factories in Europe or utilizing existing capacity.

More critically, the iX3 is absent from not just an ordinary market, but a place where global new energy competition premiered early. The demand changes happening in China today may well be the preview for other markets in the coming years.

This consolidation has already begun. Geely's G-ASD became the first Chinese driver assistance system to pass EU certification; XPeng has also brought intelligence into Europe as a lever for future competition.

They are betting on Europe's next stage. After electrification, competition will continue to migrate towards intelligence, and gradually approach today's China.

This means the China-spec iX3 is not just BMW's catch-up for a regional market, but also verifying the answer for the next round of global competition for it. The problem is that this verification has not started, and the time and profit space left for BMW have tightened simultaneously.

The semi-annual report released on July 30 maintained the automotive business profit margin guidance of 1% to 3%, this range was significantly reduced from 4% to 6% in June.

BMW's "voluntary redundancy plan" will last from October this year to the end of 2027, and true improvement in profitability will not come until 2028. The product battle that decides victory or defeat, however, has already started from Q4 2026.

BMW is not without the conditions to make long-term decisions. In 1962, Herbert Quandt dared to bet the entire company, and the governance structure relied upon that by stable family holding, allowing enterprises to bet across cycles still exists, and the Quandt family still holds about half of BMW's shares.

But things have changed.

In 1962, BMW had just walked out from the edge of being acquired. The Neue Class of that year was its all-in direction.

In 2025, BMW's global deliveries were about 2.17 million units. The iX3 is just the first of 40 future Neue Class products.

Today's BMW can no longer complete its transformation by relying on one car, one market, and one set of answers. This is where BMW is safer than in 1962, and also where it is harder than in 1962.

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1.4 tons of water is approximately equal to two days of domestic water usage for a typical household.

This is also the water intake per unit produced by BMW Brilliance in 2025. More noteworthy is that this figure has decreased for eight consecutive years, reduced by nearly half compared to eight years ago.

This trend is clearly visible from data changes: In 2022, BMW Brilliance's water resource consumption per unit produced was 1.77 cubic meters/unit; in 2023 it dropped to 1.72 cubic meters/unit; in 2024 it further dropped to 1.57 cubic meters/unit; by 2025, it was compressed again to 1.4 cubic meters. Seemingly just changes after the decimal point, but looking at the Shenyang production base with an annual capacity exceeding 830,000 units, accounting for nearly 30% of BMW's global capacity, every decrease of 0.1 cubic meters creates very considerable resource saving benefits.

More importantly, this achievement is far below the industry average. According to industry standards, the advanced water quota for sedan manufacturing is about 4.0 cubic meters/vehicle, and the general value is about 6.29 cubic meters/vehicle. Currently, mainstream automakers generally remain in the 3.0—4.5 cubic meters/unit range, and even relatively advanced fuel vehicle factories domestically are mostly around 2.5—3.6 cubic meters/unit. However, BMW has almost "squeezed" single car production water consumption to the extreme.

But what BMW truly wants to answer is obviously not just "how to save more water".

For a long time in the past, the automotive industry focused more on sales, speed, and scale. After entering the new energy era, this competitive anxiety was further amplified, and the voice of "sales determine heroism" was once heard loudly. But after the industry entered the stage of deep competition, more and more people began to realize that a truly mature automotive industrial system is no longer just about how many cars are sold, but how to continuously reduce resource consumption and persist in the long-term commitment to low-carbon transformation within a huge manufacturing system.

In addition to the continuous decline in water usage, BMW Brilliance also gave its own thinking through 13 consecutive years of sustainable development reports. In 2025, its full value chain carbon emissions decreased year-on-year by more than 5.4 million tons, and supply chain carbon emissions decreased by 1 million tons compared to 2019. This means that sustainable development within BMW has long become a system capability that is executed long-term and iteratively.

And the efficient use of water resources is precisely one of the important benchmarks for measuring automotive green manufacturing capabilities. Compared to data that is easier to see like sales and capacity, water resource management often reflects a car company's long-term foundation at the manufacturing system level. In this regard, BMW is always committed to reducing water resource intake in production processes and daily operations, and relies on sound water resource management, as well as advanced water saving and water treatment technologies, to continuously reduce water demand from the source.

In 2025, BMW Brilliance achieved a dual decline in total water resource intake and per-unit production water intake. The total annual water resource intake was 752,100 cubic meters, a year-on-year decrease of 24% compared to 2024; the total water resource consumption was 439,481 cubic meters. At the same time, the total water intake of various factories has decreased for three consecutive years, with a decrease of over 40% compared to 2023.

Furthermore, BMW goes beyond "water saving" to rethink the relationship between industrial production and urban ecology. While strictly controlling the consumption of fresh tap water, it is also constantly exploring the potential for water resource recycling. Not only does it recycle wastewater by building efficient reclaimed water reuse facilities; it also creatively introduces municipal reclaimed water, integrating the factory water "small cycle" into the city water supply "large cycle". In 2025, the total use of reclaimed water exceeded 680,000 cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 71.9%, and the saved water volume was enough to meet the annual domestic water needs of nearly 9,300 Shenyang households.

In fact, this exploration of BMW Brilliance's Shenyang production base is particularly important for Shenyang. As a typical water-scarce city in the north, Shenyang's per capita water resources are only one-sixth of the national average, and it is also a key region for the country to implement the "double control" strategy of total water usage and intensity.

Against this background, BMW Brilliance has continued to expand reclaimed water application scenarios since 2016, gradually covering municipal reclaimed water and internal reclaimed water systems. In 2025, the Shenyang Dadong Factory achieved breakthrough progress, where all production processes fully adopted reclaimed water substitution, and all production processes achieved zero tap water consumption. At the same time, based on the 100% use of municipal reclaimed water for factory greening and irrigation in 2024, it was further expanded in 2025 to the Tiexi Factory and Lida Plant coating workshop cooling tower operation, continuously improving overall water resource utilization efficiency and reducing the pressure on urban sewage treatment.

This concept revolving around water resource recycling is also continuously extending to BMW's entire supply chain system. Currently, 13 suppliers have installed advanced wastewater circulation and reuse systems, achieving the recycling and reuse of process water.

Not limited to the Shenyang production base, BMW is also promoting water saving practices at global production bases according to local conditions. For example, the Chennai factory in India and the Rayong factory in Thailand will collect rainwater intensively during the monsoon season, meeting about 50% of the water demand in the factory area throughout the year, and prioritizing its use for non-production scenarios such as toilet flushing, cleaning, and greening.

In fact, when the industry is increasingly competing on "parameters", "configurations", and "traffic", indicators like water resource utilization rate and supply chain carbon reduction, which seem "not eye-catching" or even "not mainstream", actually better reflect an enterprise's understanding of long-termism. Because a truly mature global car company must not only think about "how many cars were sold this year", but also think about ten, twenty years later, whether it still possesses the system capability and sustainable development capability to continue participating in global competition.

For the automotive industry today, this might also be an increasingly important question: What should a car company ultimately leave behind? Is it rapid overdraw after short-term scale sprinting, or the industrial system capability that can traverse cycles and continuously create long-term value.

In a sense, BMW's persistence on sustainable development over these 13 years has also made people re-understand another layer of meaning of "luxury". True luxury has never been just the accumulation of parameters and configurations, but rather a long-term awe of resource efficiency, environmental responsibility, and future development.

And as more and more car companies begin to rethink the relationship between "scale growth" and "long-term value", BMW's answer sheet regarding "water" may also be providing a reference with greater long-term significance for the entire industry to move towards a new stage of high-quality and sustainable development.

萬眾期待，BMW 進入新世代！作為首款基於「新世代」架構打造的長軸距純電 SAV，新世代 BMW iX3 長軸距版標誌著寶馬在電動化、數字化與本土化戰略的里程碑，也重新定義「智能純電時代的駕駛樂趣」，它將會全方位滿足中國消費者對豪華純電 SAV 的所有期待！

新世代寶馬 iX3 長軸距版提供 9 款車漆可供選擇，包括碳黑色、火焰紅、極晝灰、礦石白、空間銀、藍嶺山脈色、沙丘灰以及個性化定制的濱海灣藍和磨砂空間銀，我們這次棚拍的是藍嶺山脈色，比較清新、淡雅的一款車漆。

外觀極具辨識度，一眼寶馬！

可以看出來的是，這款量產版極高地還原了 BMW 新世代 X 概念車的設計，可以說是一台「買得到的概念車」，整體給人的感覺是非常不一樣的。日行燈採用了雙箭頭式設計，而雙腎格柵微微內凹的型面致敬寶馬經典的「鯊魚鼻」造型，同時寶馬用燈光替代鍍鉻，營造出非常強的立體感。

前臉下方是一體的主動式進氣格柵，兩側還有單獨的通風口，用於疏導輪轂周邊的亂流。上圖中這台車配備的一款 22 吋空氣動力學輪轂，除了看起來更加運動之外，也可以一定程度上增加續航里程，輪胎規格為前 255/35 R22，後 275/35 R22。

車身側面最值得關注的一點是門把手，國產長軸距版已經變成半隱藏式的，完全符合國內將要實施的法規，它還有三重保障，一是高壓電池直接供電、二是備用蓄電池供電、三是機械開關，安全可不是小事，為寶馬點讚！

傳統的霍氏彎角進化為「鏡光彎角」，超薄的氧化鈦條紋可以實現「外反光、內透明」的動態光影效果，這也是中國專屬的設計。

尾燈組是比較細長的，能從視覺上拉寬車身，具備無限漸變的視覺深度。「華晨寶馬」的尾標字體相比之前略顯圓潤。車尾頂部的攝像頭是國內獨有，因為全新 iX3 配備了一套寶馬與 Momenta 合作開發中國專屬的智駕系統，具備端到端的能力，可以覆蓋城市、高速、停車場等所有場景。

依舊以駕駛者為中心的智能座艙

車廂內部都是全新的設計，首先就是這款行業首創豎形的超感方向盤，握感是很棒的，在 3/9 點位置集成了物理按鈕與電容觸控反饋；在前擋玻璃下方就是左右貫穿的視平線全景顯示，和駕駛員的距離刚刚好，即便戴上偏光墨鏡也能看清顯示內容；

BMW 首創的全景 iDrive 採用「視覺錐」布局，整合了視平線全景顯示、3D 抬頭顯示、向駕駛者傾斜的中控螢幕（17.9 英寸，傾斜 17.5 度）及超感方向盤，讓關鍵資訊始終處於自然視線範圍內，降低駕駛員分心風險。而新世代操作系統 X 中有很多本土化的軟件與功能，包括與高德地圖深度定制的沉浸式導航、與阿里巴巴和 DeepSeek 大語言模型合作的 BMW 智能個人助理、與華為合作開發的 HiCar 等等。

前後排的座椅材質摸起來、坐上去都很舒服，而且副駕駛座椅還首次配備了腿托。這款車國產之後軸距加長 108mm，達到了 3005mm，所以後排的頭部空間和腿部空間都很富裕，坐墊和靠背也都經過了加長加厚。

新世代電驅技術革新，四驅雙馬達續航超 900 公里

這次只有靜態體驗，不過以我去年在成都試駕原型車的感受來看，這台車所配備的駕控超級大腦簡直太牛了，整體的響應更快、駕控更精準，讓我印象深刻的還有動能回收和無感煞停，我相信經過寶馬後面的精細化調整之後，新世代 iX3 長軸距版不僅是目前最好開的純電 SAV，也會是純電车型的駕控新標杆。

這款寶馬 iX3 長軸距版採用全域 800V 高壓架構，搭載寶馬最新的大圓柱電池，續航里程可輕鬆突破 900 公里（CLTC），最大充電功率 400 千瓦，充電 10 分鐘即可補能超過 400 公里續航，從 10% 充至 80% 僅需 21 分鐘，同時還支持外放電。純電寶馬车型的續航一貫紮實，這一點大家完全沒必要擔心。

這款寶馬 iX3 長軸距版下半年在中國正式上市之後，後續還將出口至泰國、馬來西亞、印度尼西亞及印度等國際市場。從 1960 年代 Neue Klasse 重塑寶馬，到今天新世代 iX3 開啟電動新紀元，寶馬始終沒變：永遠把駕駛放在第一位，把豪華藏在體驗裡，把技術用在刀刃上。沒有浮誇的參數噱頭，沒有割裂的配置堆砌，真正的豪華純電，從來不是「為了電動而電動」，而是讓每一次出發都有寶馬該有的底氣與樂趣！