BMW has begun series production of the new all-electric i3 at its Munich home plant, turning one of the brand’s most historically important factories into a key launchpad for the Neue Klasse era. The move is more than a new-model milestone: it signals BMW’s plan to make Plant Munich an EV-only operation from 2027.

For decades, the BMW 3 Series has been the car that defined the brand in the real world. It was the compact executive sedan people bought when they wanted something practical enough for weekdays, engaging enough for a Sunday drive, and just premium enough to feel like a step up. Since 1975, more than nine million 3 Series cars have rolled out of BMW’s Munich plant. Now, the factory’s next chapter starts with an electric car carrying an unusually familiar badge: i3.

This is not a revival of the quirky carbon-fiber city car BMW sold between 2013 and 2022. The new i3 is effectively BMW’s electric 3 Series, built on the company’s all-new Neue Klasse architecture and aimed at a far broader audience. It is also only the second production vehicle on that platform, following the iX3 SUV, which makes its arrival significant both for BMW’s product strategy and for Europe’s increasingly competitive EV market.

BMW says series production began in Munich on August 6, with customer orders having opened early in mid-June. The company describes initial demand as strong, though it has not publicly disclosed reservation or order numbers.

A factory rebuilt while running

The bigger story may be where the i3 is being made. BMW spent four years transforming Plant Munich while keeping its existing production lines going, a difficult balancing act for any automaker. The facility reportedly continued building as many as 1,000 vehicles a day during the conversion, even as BMW added a new body shop, an assembly hall and logistics areas covering roughly one-third of the site.

That is the sort of industrial work consumers rarely see, but it shapes everything from delivery timing to a carmaker’s ability to price EVs competitively. Building battery-electric vehicles at scale requires different supply flows, different assembly methods and more software-driven quality controls than conventional internal-combustion production. BMW’s answer is its iFACTORY strategy, which combines automation, digital systems and production planning intended to improve efficiency without turning the factory into a lights-out, people-free operation.

Plant director Peter Weber says the start of i3 manufacturing lowers costs by a further 10 percent. The figure is BMW’s claim rather than an independently verified financial measure, but the direction matters: legacy European manufacturers need cheaper, faster production if they are to protect margins as Chinese EV makers expand globally and as buyers remain highly price-sensitive.

By 2027, BMW says Munich will build only fully electric vehicles. That makes the i3 the bridge between the plant’s 3 Series past and its battery-powered future.

What the new i3 brings

The first announced version, the BMW i3 50 xDrive, gives a clear sense of BMW’s ambitions. It has dual-motor all-wheel drive, 345kW, or 469 horsepower, and 645Nm of torque. BMW claims up to 900km of range on the European WLTP test cycle and DC fast-charging capability of up to 400kW, enough in ideal conditions to add up to 400km of claimed range in 10 minutes.

Those figures are headline-grabbing, but there are important caveats. WLTP range tends to be more optimistic than real-world highway driving, particularly at higher speeds or in cold conditions. Similarly, a 400kW charging peak depends on finding a compatible ultra-fast charger, arriving with the battery at the right temperature, and starting at a low enough state of charge. Still, the numbers point to the core promise of Neue Klasse: BMW wants its EVs to feel less like compromises and more like long-distance cars that happen to use electricity.

The i3 uses BMW’s sixth-generation electric-drive technology, with high-voltage batteries produced at the new Irlbach-Strasskirchen plant in Lower Bavaria and motors made at BMW’s Steyr facility in Austria. The motor plant manufactures core components including rotors, stators, inverters and transmissions, while the motor housing comes from BMW’s aluminum foundry in Landshut, Germany.

That regional supply chain is deliberate. BMW is trying to keep critical manufacturing relatively close to its assembly operations while using shared production know-how across its European footprint. In a car business increasingly shaped by battery logistics, raw-material sourcing and geopolitical risk, proximity is not just a sustainability talking point – it is a manufacturing strategy.

BMW is arriving at a pivotal moment. Demand for EVs has grown unevenly across markets, consumer enthusiasm varies heavily by charging access and price, and automakers have had to temper some of their near-term forecasts. But the long-term direction is clear: a premium brand cannot treat electric models as a side project forever.

The i3 gives BMW a chance to bring its core 3 Series identity into the electric era without hiding it behind a separate niche nameplate. That may prove more powerful than it sounds. Customers know what a 3 Series represents, even if the powertrain is changing completely. BMW is betting that the familiar promise – a driver-focused premium sedan – translates better than a radical reinvention.

The new model also serves as a test case for the Neue Klasse production system. BMW says the lessons learned from launching it in Munich will flow into its wider manufacturing network, influencing future model ramp-ups elsewhere. That makes every i3 leaving the line more than a saleable vehicle; it is also part of a larger industrial rehearsal for BMW’s next generation of electric cars.

For now, the most meaningful detail is straightforward. At the same Munich factory that spent decades building the combustion-powered 3 Series, BMW has started producing its electric successor. The badge may be i3, but the mission is unmistakably 3 Series: make the EV that carries the center of BMW’s brand into the next era.