The 2026 BMW i3 from the curb
The kidneys are not holes anymore. Stand at a U.S. curb and you get a black bar across the nose, two kidney outlines drawn in light, and the four-eye lamps sitting in that same panel. BMW calls it geometry and light. From the sidewalk it is just the new face.
People still say i3 and mean the carbon city car with the suicide doors. BMW kept the name and none of that body. This i3 is the second Neue Klasse sedan — a 3 Series with a motor on each axle, badged i3 50 xDrive. Munich starts building them this month.
The shark-nose still leans the face into the pavement. The roundel sits in a crease on the hood, in the valley above the light bar. Optional contour lighting traces those kidneys when you walk up. From thirty feet you do not need a badge. The glowing grille already named it.
In profile it is the old sedan idea with a new count. BMW calls it a 2.5-box: long wheelbase, short overhangs, a greenhouse set back so the shoulder looks thick. Flush handles. A Hofmeister kink that got sharper. The pack is flat under the floor. The roof does not rise to confess it.
From above the glass is the tell. A dark roof pane. A long daylight opening. A character line dropped low so the car looks sat down. Concealed seals. The glass meets the paint without a chrome frame shouting about it.
The tail is a horizontal lamp on each shoulder, the old L-shape flattened into a strip, the roundel in the valley between them. Flares stay wide. A black diffuser sits where two pipes used to live. No exhaust. No fake vents trying to pretend.
i3 50 is the stamp on the right of the lid. The charging door lives on the rear-right flank — NACS for the Supercharger lane, a CCS adapter in the bag. That is the U.S. confession. The rest of the car still parks in a 3 Series stall.