BMW i3 successor will avoid polarizing design, top exec says

MUNICH -- BMW will avoid a polarizing design with its successor to the i3 full-electric compact.

When it launched in 2013 as the automaker's first mass-produced battery-electric vehicle, the boxy hatchback was criticized by BMW loyalists because its styling was so different from the company's sleek sedans.

The i3's successor will be less controversial, BMW development boss Frank Weber told Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche.

"A lot of people liked it, but in the eyes of others the i3 was not a real BMW. A bit of an outsider in the classroom if you will. We will not repeat that in this form," Weber said.

BMW stopped building the i3 last year after selling more than 250,000 units of the hatchback during a nine-year production run -- making it one of the most successful electric cars of all time.

"BMW definitely needs to bring to market an affordable, compact car,” Weber said. "We attach great importance to offering customers the best possible access to the BMW brand. That is why we are thinking very carefully about how an entry offering can be part of the Neue Klasse family."

BMW's Neue Klasse electric architecture, which will underpin the company's future electric cars, is being developed to have longer driving ranges and faster charging times than its current EVs as well a new software functions, while reducing battery pack costs by 50 percent.

BMW will launch output of its first Neue Klasse cars at its new plant in Debrecen, Hungary, in 2025 and then in Munich that same year.

BMW will initially produce a midsize sedan and SUV on the Neue Klasse underpinning.

"Within the first two years, we will then expand the Neue Klasse by four more vehicles," Weber said. "You can easily imagine that a lot can be created from the middle downward to smaller vehicles as well as upward to larger vehicles.