Here’s BMW’s electric replacement for the X3—production starts in 2025

CASCAIS, Portugal—BMW is one of the more advanced automakers when it comes to electrification. Its current portfolio of electric vehicles includes the iX and i7, both of which have the edge on the competition in their respective classes—not bad for cars that use an underlying architecture that was designed to be powertrain-agnostic. Engineers, back at the corporate base in Munich, have been hard at work on its next platform, though, which will be just for battery EVs and will debut with next year's Neue Klasse.

Last year, we saw a preview of what the Neue Klasse sedan should look like when it goes on sale in 2025. Now, we've seen the Vision Neue Klasse X, which will morph next year into BMW's next electric crossover, probably with the iX3 nameplate. It will be an important car for the German automaker; crossovers and SUVs fail to get any less popular with the car-buying public, and demand for the production version of the Neue Klasse X will surely outstrip that for the four-door car.

BMW would rather call its X cars "Sports Activity Vehicles" rather than SUVs or crossovers and argues that it invented the breed with the original X5. That car was a handsome machine, and the Neue Klasse X keeps those classic two-box proportions and adorns them with bold angular creases that emphasize the wheel arches and create some negative space lower down the car's side that has the effect of reducing its visual bulk.