BMW iX3 DRIVING RANGE TEST (highway and city)

I will first test the range at higher average highway speeds. I wanted to know what the minimum range of this car might be.

At the beginning of this part of the test, the battery is at 75%. I will base my estimated range on average consumption and net battery capacity.

I did the test in March and it was between 6 and 8 degrees.

I drove from Brussels toward Liege for a total of 138 km.

Let’s take a look at my results.

I drained the battery to 30% and the consumption was quite stable over the whole trip. The highway range came out to 315 km at an average consumption of 23.5 kWh.

The BMW iX3 is equipped with CCU (combined charging unit). With this system, the Ix3 can be charged with either AC or DC. For this test, I am charging the car at a DC Fast Charger. The BMW iX3 can fast charge at up to 150 kW. BMW says it takes 32 minutes to charge from 10% to 80% at 150 kW.

I did the test immediately after my test on the highway. I was mostly doing the range test at the time so I only put the fast charger destination into the GPS about 5 km before I arrived at the charger. Some say it preheats the battery and prepares the car for charging, I don’t know if that is really the case, but I did it anyway. However, I had been driving for about an hour, so the battery should have already been warmed up.

At the beginning of the test, the battery is only at 28% and the range indicator shows a range of 99 km. Outside, it is 9 degrees. The car indicated that it would take about 1h10 min to fully charge the battery. I will do a 30-minute recharge test.

At first, the car charged at a speed of about 72 kw.

After 5 minutes, I was charging at a speed of 80 kW.

After 10 minutes, I was charging at a speed of 93 kW. The battery increased to 46% and we gained about 67 km on the range indicator.

After 20 minutes, I noticed we were charging at a speed of 71 kw. I gained another 60 km of range and the battery is now at 63%.

After 30 minutes, the battery is at 77%. The charging speed dropped to 50 kw. The range stands at 273 km, so in total we gained 174 km.

I haven’t done an AC charging test with this car, but let’s look at some theoretical information. The charging speed of the built-in charger is 11 kw. AC charging time from 0 to 100% is 7.5 hours at 11 kW.

At the beginning of this part of the test, the battery is at 55%. The temperature was between 8.5 and 12.5 degrees.

The first part was about 74 km of riding on small town roads. It was in an urban area, sometimes more rural, but with lots of opportunities for smooth driving, usually between 50-70 km. I had an average consumption of 15.8 kwh which resulted in an estimated range of 468 km.

The rest of the ride I drove in Brussels. More in an urban area but with lots of stop-and-go driving. I further drained the battery to 31% over a total 103 km ride. Over the course of the drive, consumption dropped to 16.3 kWh. The range in the city is thus 454 km, which is almost exactly the WLTP range.

In conclusion, the range of the BMW iX3 is somewhere between 315 km and 454 km, based on similar driving conditions and measured in mild temperatures between 6 and 12.5 degrees. I suspect that in much colder temperatures you will probably get less range, but in warmer temperatures you will get more range.

I would like to add that all in all this is a very solid car. It feels like the iX3 is truly designed around the driver, with the combination of seating position and road visibility, steering and handling fine-tuned almost to perfection. The iX3 also looks great on the outside. It looks like a regular X3 without compromising on design to get a better range. It has superior interior finish and quality.

On the other hand, it does not have a range of more than 500 km, like some competitors, and is also only rear-wheel drive, not all-wheel drive. With a price tag of 71,000 €, like most EVs it is quite high in the budget.