BMW's Chinese-Market iX3 50L Just Drove 640 Miles On One Charge

It's always tricky to look at range in different countries, as different markets have different testing standards. For example, the U.S. EPA's range tests are more conservative than any other, since they're designed to better show real-world range. While other tests, like the Euro WLTP or China's CLTC are far more lenient.

So when BMW said that it just completed its own range test in the Chinese-market iX3 50L and achieved a whopping 640 miles on one charge, I was skeptical. However, instead of using any specific standardized test, it just drove from one place to another that was 640 miles away. 

The test was to drive a specifically planned route from BMW's factory in Shenyang to its R&D facility in Beijing. That's only around 440 miles away, but BMW apparently planned a different route that's further, to see just how far the iX3 could go on one charge. When it got to its destination, it had driven 640 miles exactly and still had five percent left in its battery. Who knows how much further it could have gone by just running the battery to zero, but it might have even cracked 700 miles.

Even more interesting is that this beats even the CLTC's very optimistic range listing of 571 miles for the iX3 50L. And beats it by almost 100 miles. If this is true, and BMW didn't use any trickery to fool us, that's incredibly impressive.

Photo by: BMW

This wasn't even the first time BMW impressed with the iX3's real-world results. Back in June, it completed a loop around Qinghai Lake in China, which covered around 500 miles, and it finished with two percent battery left. How did it jump 140 additional miles of range between then and now? That remains unclear but perhaps BMW cleverly designed the route to help it achieve such a figure, planning out traffic, weather, and grade. We're not sure how fast it went, either.

The BMW iX3 50L uses a 108.7 kWh battery and its new Gen6 electric powertrain that's designed to be as 20% more efficient than BMW's previous powertrain. What will be interesting is whether BMW can replicate such results in the U.S. market. Because it it can realistically get anywhere near 500 miles on one charge, it will be among the longest-range cars on the market. 

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