Can you tell which new 3 series is EV?

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so i don’t actually know which one is which but i am 99% certain the blue one is the EV and the red is combustion.

would you be able to tell them apart if they were same color ? BMW wants them to look the same but they are clearly different.

notice the blue EV has an angled hood, taller roof and less space between front wheel and front door. these are all tell tale signs of an EV.

angled hood for better aerodynamics to extend range ( and to mate to taller roof )

taller roof to accommodate for battery under the floor.

front wheel placed closer to the center of the car for weight distribution.

in combustion RWD cars it is beneficial to move the front wheels forward to maintain even weight distribution with heavy engine in the front. in EVs the weight is in the center and there is no need to move front wheels forward.

so this is a radical shift in approach to making cars that we’ve never seen before. for the first time we have EV and ICE cars from an automaker that are built on DIFFERENT platforms yet made to look similar …

the previous gen BMW ( 5 series and i5 ) were built on the SAME platform. they had the SAME dimensions. roof was same, hood was same, wheels were in the same spot. everything was the same except drivetrain.

and Mercedes EVs were built on different platform from ICE but they were also styled to look nothing like their ICE brethren. they had their own “EQ” design language that ICE models did not have.

now for the first time we have EV and ICE built on platforms of different dimensions and yet styled to look as similar as possible.

just wanted to give you niggers a heads up because i know this will confuse some people.

this may also be the trend going forward for other brands as well BMW is just the first.

Mercedes is already restyling their ICE models to look more EQ like. Porsche’s new electric Cayenne and Taycan are looking quite similar to regular Cayenne and Taycan and yet they still make sure to differentiate them visually just enough that you can tell which one is which.

with BMW now they are obfuscating the difference on purpose.

maybe BMW is going too far. probably Porsche has the right balance where they look almost the same but have a different type of grill - an ICE grille and a lower profile EV “grille”

but regardless the industry trend is for EV and ICE styling to converge closer …

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the other thing to note here is that when BMW originally released i4, i5 and i7 on the same platform as ICE variants this was considered a smart move and BMW certainly did better in that generation than Mercedes and Porsche who both struggled with their EV sales after having invested into dedicated platforms - likely eating huge losses there …

BMW said that EVs were not big enough yet to warrant their own platform and went with a “CLAR” platform designed to accommodate both drivetrains resulting in both ICE and EV cars being compromised but realizing huge saving by not needing to develop twice as many platforms …

Even then though BMW admitted this was only a stop gap solution. That the next generation “Neue Klasse” would be different. Well Neue Klasse is here and we are finally living in the future.

Neue Klasse is indeed very solid EV stuff because it is the most modern ground up EV platform and is no longer saddled with having to share platform with ICE … now it only shares the styling.

same for the ICE - it is no longer saddled with having to share platform with EVs which made 5 series awkward. i drove the 5 series many times and it is a very large car on outside that is still cramped on inside because it had to accommodate both engine, transmission and EV battery all on same chassis. NOT ONE reviewer picked up on this because they all have low IQs or they would be engineers instead of reviewers.

Engineers design cars. Marketing people tell Engineers what they are allowed to reveal to reporters and reviewers. Reviewers them make videos where they try to be “funny” by making “jokes” but having zero clue about the car. Needless to say Marketing people told engineers to NOT reveal how severely compromised the car is by having EV and ICE built on same platform.

Well that abomination is now headed to the dust bin of history. So far only the 3 series has moved past that wretched compromise … but 5 and 7 will eventually follow.

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i should mention i5 and i7 were praised for being better than EQE and EQS despite not being on dedicated platforms …

this is simply because dedicated EV platforms are built around cost cutting ( just like Tesla ) so they use cheap materials and so on. because i5 and i7 were built on regular platforms they didn’t have the same level of cheapness and thus were praised.

at the same time the gas 5 series was excoriated for having cheap plastic interior relative to old 5 series because the whole platform had to be cheapened to make EVs possible financially …

essentialy when BMW EV and ICE were on the same platform the EVs were subsidized the ICEs making BMW EVs come out on top of Mercedes EVs at the expense of BMW ICE 5 series losing out to Mercedes E class combustion …

it’s all a trade off and compromise … well it USED TO BE … but not anymore …

the industry is healing so to speak. it is rebalancing. we are now entering an era where EVs can have a dedicated platform while still having both the styling and the quality of ICE cars. this is a new phenomenon and that’s why i felt it deserved a write up.

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please note what i wrote above applies only to SEDANS

the new BMW X5 still seems to be sharing the platform across five different powertrains - EV, ICE, PHEV, Diesel and even HYDROGEN

this is because SUVs INHERENTLY have a large space under the floor that can be used for EV battery or in case of new X5 even hydrogen storage.

Sedans do NOT have such a space and must be made TALLER or LARGER to accommodate the battery. this is why 5 series sedan is both taller and longer than E-class while having same interior space. but this math does NOT apply to SUVs as they simply have more underfloor space and are taller to begin with.

weight distribution differences still exist for SUVs of course, but at the limit handling may not be as much of a concern for SUVs as it is for BMW sedans.

so BMW SUVs might still continue to share platforms across powertrains while sedans have moved on to dedicated EV and ICE platforms but ALL new BMWs will share the same “Neue Klasse” design language across both sedans and SUVs, EVs and ICEs.