BMW iX3 Review 2023 | Performance & Pricing
Super-refined, and actually good fun to drive, but despite the SUV looks it’s rear-drive only
In town
Around town and at lower speeds, the iX3 is very, very relaxing and easy to drive. As with most electric cars, noise levels are kept well under control. By knocking the gear selector to the left, you can put the iX3 into ‘B’ mode which ramps up the regenerative braking, slowing you down without using the physical brakes, which is handy in city driving. In fact, B mode will actually bring the car to a complete stop without touching the brake pedal if you have enough space — proper ‘one-pedal’ driving. The turning circle is OK, nothing special but it’s fine, and the steering is nicely light so it’s pretty easy to manoeuvre. The suspension, with the adaptive dampers, rides bumps nicely but it’s a touch firm compared to the likes of the Mercedes EQC. It’s about the same as the Jag I-Pace, though. One annoying thing — the brakes often make an irritating squeaky-groan noise, like someone’s reclining in an old rocking chair.
On the motorway
The refinement continues when you take the iX3 up onto the motorway; although you’ll start to notice a bit more tyre roar and wind noise, but it never gets really out of hand. The sheer grunt of the iX3’s single rear-wheel drive electric motor helps when you’re joining a fast-moving motorway as it rockets from 40mph up to 70mph, and the well-tuned suspension means it’ll cling on firmly on a long, curving on-ramp. The EQC and Audi e-tron are, again, a little bit quieter than the BMW, but there’s not a massive gap.
On a twisty road
The iX3 is really, properly quick. Other EVs with two-motor, four-wheel drive systems might be able to scamper to 62mph faster, but the BMW lives up to its on-paper 6.8secs time — in fact, it might even beat that as we were able to get to 60mph in just under 6.0secs.
Speed is one thing, control is another, but the iX3 is all over that. The battery pack is mounted low down in the car’s floor, so its centre of gravity is actually lower than that of a standard diesel or petrol X3, meaning you can chuck it around with plenty of confidence. The steering has pretty good weight and feel, and that firms up if you put it in Sport mode, but the trouble is so too does the suspension, and then things just get a bit too bumpy.
Better to leave it in Comfort mode, to be honest. It’s still engaging to drive even then, although it doesn’t quite have the hooligan tendencies of the Ford Mustang Mach-E. It also won’t slide and skid about, in spite of being rear-wheel drive — try to do that and it just kind of understeers like a big electric lump. Even so, it does get BMW’s new-ish traction control system, where the control module is mounted directly to the electric motor so that it can react faster and more accurately any time you start to lose traction. That said, you’re not going to be getting very far off-road with just rear-wheel drive and a ride-height that loses 2cm compared to the standard X3.
