The BMW M3 sports activities sedan, the German automaker’s most iconic high-performance car, goes electrical. Throughout a roundtable interview in Portugal this week, BMW’s product improvement chief, Frank Weber, confirmed the rumors.

After rumors have been spreading about an electrical M3 for months, the hypothesis is popping out to be true.

Weber advised auto reporters on the world launch of the BMW i5 that the primary electrical BMW M3 would arrive round 2027, in accordance with Carsales.com.au. The high-performance EV is anticipated to journey on BMW’s next-gen Neue Klasse platform.

BMW revealed its “Imaginative and prescient Neue Klasse” earlier this month, giving us a glimpse into its high-tech, environment friendly future. The time period is in reference to BMW’s small, sporty vehicles of the Sixties that helped form the model.

Weber confirmed that the Neue Klasse structure “was designed for 4 independently working electrical machines [motors] as much as one megawatt.”

The feedback echo remarks made by BMW M CEO Frank Van Meel. Throughout his go to to Australia, the efficiency model chief highlighted the potential of a megawatt (1,000 kW) sports activities sedan based mostly on the next-gen platform. A megawatt would translate to roughly 1,340 horsepower.

BMW to launch its first electrical M3 sports activities sedan

In keeping with Weber, “you may go loopy” with the brand new EV platform. He defined, “After which you’ve some settings the place you may go deeper into one thing that’s increasingly rear-wheel drive biassed with the management potentialities that you’ve got with electrical machines.”

Earlier this yr, BMW revealed its quickest, strongest EV mannequin within the i7 M70 xDrive electrical sedan with as much as 660 hp.

BMW has additionally teased a quad-motor i4 electrical mannequin. The i4 M50 is at the moment BMW’s top-selling M mannequin, beginning at $69,700 with a twin electrical 536 hp drive system.

Nevertheless, the efficiency model seems to prime it with its first electrical BMW M3 mannequin. “We wish to include one thing the place we present Neue Klasse is already very bold,” Weber defined.

“However that is doing one thing far above what persons are used to right now. This can include M3 and won’t be too far-off from the preliminary launch of the Neue Klass as a product line.”

Due out in 2025, the Neue Klasse platform will function “30% extra vary, 20% quicker charging, and a 25% total enchancment in car effectivity.”

With M prospects merely wanting “the best and finest efficiency,” in accordance with Weber, an EV with virtually one megawatt in efficiency will change your perspective:

I can assure to you there could be one thing flawed with the engine sound in the event that they nonetheless miss this, however positively not how the automotive behaves. It’s unimaginable.

BMW plans to launch the electrical M3 shortly after the beginning of manufacturing of the Neue Klasse as “folks wish to have what M can do finest additionally within the battery-electric world.”

Regardless of the passion round its first electrical M3, BMW plans to maintain the gas-powered model round some time longer.