New BMW M3: 1,300hp electric super saloon rendered by Carwow
February 18, 2025 by Jamie Edkins
Car changing is a big deal
The new BMW M3 is on the way, and it’ll be available as an electric car for the first time. We’ve had a crack at imagining what it’ll look like
- New BMW M3 rendered by Carwow
- Design to take inspiration from Neue Klasse concept
- 3.0-litre straight-six petrol engine to carry over
- All-electric version uses four motors
- Concept car has 1,300hp
- Full reveal expected in 2027
BMW is hard at work developing the new M3, and it recently teased the design and some of the tech with the Vision Driving Experience (VDX) concept. It’ll adopt a lot of styling cues from the Neue Klasse concept we saw in 2023, and there will be an electric version which may have 1,300hp.
The 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged straight-six petrol engine from the current car is also expected to carry over, albeit with some tweaks to improve the emissions. The Carwow team has had a go at predicting the M3’s final design in digital form.
Exclusive renders: new BMW M3 design
The BMW VDX teases some of the design features you’ll see on the new M3, but it’s just a concept car which won’t go into production as you see it here. The production version of the M3 has been spotted testing a few times by Carwow’s spy photographers, and we’ve used some computer wizardry to peel back the camouflage.
You can immediately see that the new M3 has a completely new front end design. Gone are the huge vertical buck teeth and in their place you find thin, wide kidney grilles taken from the Neue Klasse concept.
In true M3 style you have flared wheel arches which both look super-aggressive, and make room for the wide tyres you’ll need on a performance car such as this. It has an equally wide stance from the rear, with an aggressive lower diffuser and ducktail spoiler helping mark this out as the M3.
We’ve pictured the petrol version here, hence the four massive tailpipes. The EV will of course do without these, and the front grille will be completely blanked-off to help it slip through the air more easily.
New petrol-powered BMW M3 engine
The headline-grabbing thing about the next BMW M3 is the fact that it’ll be available as an electric car for the first time, but this doesn’t spell the end of the petrol-powered BMW sports saloon.
Frank Van Meel, boss of BMW’s M division, recently confirmed that the next M3 will be offered with both petrol and electric power options, stemming from a decision to build the next M3 using two different platforms.
Platform is just a fancy word for the collection of parts which make up a car. The petrol version will be an evolution of the current M3 under the new body, while the EV will be all-new.
Let’s start with the old-school petrol engine. BMW won’t be going down the AMG route of fitting a four-cylinder engine with a plug-in hybrid system, nor will it use the same complicated hybrid setup you get in the latest M5.
The next M3 will actually use the same 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged straight-six as the current car, but it’s working to make it more environmentally friendly so it’ll meet the latest EU emissions standards.
Check out Mat’s review of the M3 CS…
This means it could use a similar mild-hybrid system to the one you get on the BMW M340i. It only adds around 11hp, but it makes the engine more efficient. As it stands the most powerful BMW M3 you can buy is the CS, and that car has 550hp. With the addition of some electrical assistance and a few mechanical tweaks, don’t be surprised if this car ends up having close to 600hp.
New BMW M3 EV motors and performance
So what about the highly-anticipated electric version? Well BMW has been teasing this car for a while now.
A few years ago it unveiled an i4-based concept with four electric motors, which it’s been using as a test bed for future electric M cars. It has a whopping 1,300hp, and BMW has now transplanted that system into another new concept car.
It’s called the Vision Driving Experience, or VDX for short. In addition to the quad-motor setup, it’s also being used to test a whole host of new technology to make this electric car just as fun to drive as the petrol-powered one.
It has four fans built in which suck it down into the road, just like a McMurtry Spierling, meaning it can produce over 1,200kg of downforce from a standstill. BMW has hinted that this allows the VDX to do 0-60mph in around 1.8 seconds, which is quicker than the bonkers Tesla Model S Plaid.
There’s a big but here though, and we’re not talking about the VDX’s enormous rear bumper. This is just a test mule BMW is using to decide which technologies will be used on future electric M cars, so you can expect the power to be toned-down a bit in the production M3. Around 700hp seems more realistic. The fans are unlikely to make production, either.
That quad-motor layout will be carried over though, because it plays a key role in BMW’s new control system, the “Heart of Joy”. This is the name given to the computers which control the power delivery, steering, braking traction control systems.
It brings all of these systems into one central control unit, which can process information 10 times faster than BMW’s current performance cars. Handy when you’ve got 1,300hp on tap, and it should make the car feel much more responsive as well.
When can I buy the new BMW M3?
Not for a while yet unfortunately. The standard BMW 3 Series is likely to be revealed in late 2025 with sales starting in 2026, so don’t expect to see the next M3 until around 2027. In the meantime though, the petrol-powered straight-six version will soldier on.
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