The BMW NA5 iX3 50 xDrive M Sport Is A Range Buster Extraordinaire

The Tour: Le Touquet, a chateau in Fontainebleau, Chateau de Chambord, Chaumont-sur-Loire

The queue for Le Shuttle's Flexiplus lounge told its own story. McLarens, Ferraris, Lamborghinis — you name them, they were there, idling politely in line like schoolboys waiting for the tuck shop to open, their owners doing that studied nonchalance that only a man leaning against half a million pounds of carbon fibre can attempt. And among them, our ride for the next four days and 1,400 miles: the BMW NA5 iX3 50 xDrive M Sport, humming silently and looking, it must be said, like an angry camel flaring its nostrils at the exotica around it.

That, I promise you, is where the criticism ends. Because what follows is the story of the car that finally — finally — made me stop thinking of electric motoring as a compromise, a penance, an exercise in mental arithmetic conducted at 60mph. This is the car where the electric revolution truly begins.

The Brief: Three Chateaux, Four Days, 1,400 Miles

First, the itinerary, because it was not a modest one. A few days on the seafront at the Novotel Thalassa Le Touquet, with a tour of President Macron's old house, Villa Monejan, now reborn as the DAgArt Gallery. Then south to a family birthday at a chateau in Fontainebleau. Then a quick dash down to the Chateau de Chambord to catch my best mate Robert Mann's artist-in-residence exhibition, Solaris, before winding up in Chaumont-sur-Loire and pointing the nose back towards Guildford. Three big events, four days, well north of a thousand miles.

We had decided this would be an eco tour. Noble intentions, serious mileage, tight schedule — the exact combination that has historically reduced electric touring to a white-knuckle exercise in charger roulette. So we plumped for the BMW NA5 iX3 50 xDrive M Sport, and we were spot on with our choice.

Let me save you the suspense. I forgot it was electric. My lack of range anxiety was so complete that I began to suspect the car didn't need charging at all, and had to physically force myself to stop and plug it in, the way you might force yourself to eat vegetables you don't actually need. It never seemed to run out of power or range. Ever. And at 4.9 seconds to 62mph, it's impressively nippy with it.

Le Shuttle: The Supercar Commute

But first, the crossing. We chose Le Shuttle, and the Flexiplus lounge started the journey off in exactly the right register — cakes, macarons, drinks, and genuinely top-level sandwiches, the kind that make you briefly reconsider your dinner plans. I confess I love driving onto a train. There is something wonderfully civilised about it: no queues for security theatre, no removing your belt in front of strangers, just a gentle roll into a steel tube and, 35 minutes later, you emerge in France — rested, fed and faintly smug.

It remains the most luxurious and stylish way to cross the Channel, and you needn't take my word for it. Just look at the machinery queuing alongside you. When the McLaren and Lamborghini set have voted with their wheels, the argument is rather over.

BMW iX3 50 xDrive Specs: The Numbers That Matter

Now, the numbers, because they matter here more than in most reviews. The iX3 50 xDrive delivers 463hp and 645Nm of torque, good for 0–62mph in 4.9 seconds and a top speed of 130mph. Consumption is a competitive 15.4kWh/100km, and then the headline act: a WLTP range of up to 795km, extending to 994km in pure city driving. It seats five in comfort within a 4,782mm frame, all while maintaining a hushed operating level of 65dB — quiet enough to hear yourself gloat as you sail past yet another charging station without stopping.

Power balanced with practicality, in other words, and an unusually generous helping of both.

Exterior: An Angry Camel in Polarised Grey

Here comes the wry bit, so BMW may wish to look away. The iX3 looks like a flat-faced pug with a camel's nostrils. The front is slick and streamlined, which in practice means the look doesn't stand out; the body and rear are aerodynamically efficient, but the overall effect is a fairly typical electric SUV. The point, perhaps, is that it doesn't need to be attractive. This is function over form — and as we shall see, the function is extraordinary.

Our car wore Polarised Grey (£875.00), paired with the S03NH 20" M aerodynamic wheels in M Bicolour (£1,047), which do their level best to lend the thing some élan. But the looks are disappointing for a BMW — a marque that has, after all, spent decades making machines you'd cross the street to admire. My unsolicited advice to Munich: get rid of that flat front bonnet and I reckon you could add another 100km to the range. You may have that one for free, gentlemen.

Interior: Fitted to the Micrometer

Step inside, however, and normal BMW service is emphatically resumed. The BMW M Black interior design is immaculate — fitted to the micrometer and solid as rock. There is no rattle, no flex, no suggestion that anything was assembled on a Friday afternoon. It exudes confident luxury and proper engineering, the sort of cabin that makes you sit a little straighter and drive a little better.

I love the sport steering wheel too — thick-rimmed, purposeful, exactly right in the hands. And here is a small detail that earned a disproportionately large place in my affections: the charge flap closes itself automatically. No walking round the car in the rain to snap it shut, no driving off with it hanging open like a broken wing. Massive brownie point for that one. It is precisely this kind of thinking — the quiet elimination of a hundred tiny irritations — that separates the great cars from the merely good.

Tech: The Best Touchscreen and Sat Nav in the Business

The technology suite is comprehensive and, unusually, all of it is worth having. Our car came with the Technology Plus Pack, which brings a high-fidelity Harman/Kardon Surround Sound system and BMW's superb 3D Head-up Display. Parking Assistant Pro and M Sport brakes look after the stopping and the shuffling, while the cabin environment is handled by 3-zone automatic air conditioning, multifunctional seating and a heated steering wheel. BMW Iconic Glow, a panoramic glass sunroof with climate comfort glazing and sun protection glass complete a very well-judged specification.

The layout deserves particular praise. The big infotainment screen commands the centre of the dash, while the instrument cluster is a wide, narrow strip running the full width of the car beneath the front bonnet — a clever arrangement that means your eyes travel from road to information and back far faster than with a conventional binnacle. The haptic touchscreen registers instantly, with none of the lag or double-press nonsense that plagues lesser systems. It is far superior to any other car's, and the leader as far as we're concerned.

And the sat nav — best in class, without question. I am about the only person I know who trusts a built-in navigation system over his phone, and even then only in this car. It is that good.

Then there is the active cruise control, which is excellent and worth using on all A-roads and motorways. As well as steering, accelerating and braking all the way to a stop, it adapts automatically to the local speed limit as you pass each change. On French autoroutes, with their cheerful enthusiasm for speed cameras, this is worth its weight in gold. Between this and the superb range, all the anxiety is taken out of long-distance touring — which is how running 1,400 miles in four days, while attending three different big events, became a genuine breeze. The ultimate networking and socialising car.

Performance and Range: Mon Dieu, the Range

On the road, the iX3 is incredibly sure-footed — fast and steady at any speed, with a composure that never wavers, from Le Touquet's narrow streets to a brisk autoroute cruise. A very confident drive, and one that transmits that confidence straight to its driver.

One minor grump: the drive setting is not easily reached on the wheel, should you suddenly need more dynamic performance. But here is the thing — I kept it in Eco the entire time, and the performance was never found wanting. Not once. When 463 horses are on call even in the frugal setting, sport mode becomes something of an academic exercise.

And then there is the range. Mon dieu, the range. The iX3 50 does 400 miles at 100% on Eco, and the amazing thing is that the figure is bulletproof and can be relied upon absolutely. Almost no other car has given me the same range confidence this BMW has. That is enough to tour properly throughout Europe — not hop nervously between charging stations, but tour, in the grand old sense of the word. The manufacturer claims 493 miles, and while that wasn't what we got, I believe it's achievable if driven with care.

The proof came on the road, and it came repeatedly. Driving from Guildford to Le Touquet, the car showed more miles remaining at the end than it had predicted at the start — and I drove fast. That was the story of the whole trip. From Le Touquet to the chateau in Fontainebleau, it predicted I would arrive with 150km remaining; I arrived with 200km. Every other electric car I have driven does the opposite — promising the earth and delivering rather less of it. An electric car that underestimates, so you always arrive feeling clear and comfortable — now that is revolutionary.

The Tour: Fishermen, Chateaux and a Swim in the Seine

Le Touquet. We stayed at the Novotel Thalassa Le Touquet, right on the seafront, swam in the sea and watched the sunset from L'Impasse Beach Bar, with dinner at Le Village Suisse. But the moment of the visit came on the beach, where I met Rémi the fisherman, cleaning his tide net and gathering up the catch. We got chatting, as one inevitably does with a man surrounded by fresh lobster. His son, it turns out, is a famous chef and sommelier in Le Touquet — the family trade, elegantly evolved.

Rémi practises la pêche au filet trémail, la pêche de marée: araignée de mer and couteaux from the nets, with salicornes and laitue de mer gathered among les légumes of the shore. "On se nourrit de la terre et la mer," he told me — we feed ourselves from the land and the sea. He picks up sole and mulets noirs, homard and crevettes, all within sight of the beach bars. Afterwards we watched thirty or so chars à voile — land yachts — racing up and down the hard sand at implausible speeds. Quelle joie de vivre.

Fontainebleau. Then south to the family birthday: a dinner party out on the front terrace and lawn before the chateau, surrounded by the beautiful forest with the Seine flowing just below, the conversation running on until 3am, as the best ones do.

The next morning, a swim in the river — and I say this having swum in a great many places: this is the most tranquil and beautiful spot on earth. Herons standing sentry, transparent water, fish flickering below, the odd water snake going about its business. We swam upstream to Thomery, the little village just up river, which is the intelligent way round — the current carries you home. Girl scouts walked in the sunshine along the opposite bank in front of the chateau, and a couple in a speedboat waved with their daughter as they passed. No more beautiful place on Earth.

Chateau de Chambord. Then on to Chambord, that great stone extravagance of the Loire, to see Robert Mann's artist-in-residence exhibition, Solaris — and what an extraordinary piece of work it is. These are pinhole photographs taken over the solstice at the chateau, each exposure running for months. Each line across an image is the sun's path over a single day: an unbroken line means a clear day, a spotted line means clouds, and an invisible one a fully clouded day. Together they form a record of every clear and cloudy day from 21 December to 21 June — which means every image taken at Chambord carries the same lines, all captured over the same six-month period. Weather, time and light, made visible in a single frame. Almost all the works sit in curved boxes, except two in flat boxes — the heart and the rectangle.

And the chateau itself performs its famous party trick: the double helix staircase, one spiral for the men, the other for the women, so cleverly intertwined that you would never know there are two at all. Five hundred years old and still the cleverest piece of architecture I know.

Chaumont-sur-Loire. Then off to Robert's place in Chaumont-sur-Loire, where the day ended with the frogs singing by the river Loire at sunset — a chorus no Harman/Kardon system can quite match, though the BMW's comes admirably close.

And then the long run home: Chaumont-sur-Loire to Guildford, 375 miles or 600km not including Le Shuttle — being 275 miles (440km) to the train and another hundred miles (160km) up from Folkestone. In most electric cars, that final leg is where the nerves set in. In this one, it was where my faith became almost reckless: I had 100 miles to go and 68 miles of range showing, and had to force myself to stop and charge just in case — because I had developed so much confidence in the car's habit of under-promising that I'm quite sure it would have got me home anyway.

Verdict: The Electric Car That Finally Beats Petrol

Let me total it all up. The performance is sweet-spot good — quick enough to entertain, never so savage as to exhaust. The interior is superbly designed and finished, the tech is the best in the business, and the ride is exceptional. The looks are disappointing for a BMW — very average SUV — but the range and battery performance are world-best, and that makes this an utterly brilliant electric car, worth buying over any other for that reason alone.

No other electric car has ever made me forget that I needed to recharge. I got so blasé that I felt the car would simply go on forever. Without doubt, this was the most carefree 1,200-mile-plus tour I have ever done in an electric car — brilliant BMW engineering, from the first mile to the last.

The BMW iX3 finally makes electric motoring superior to ICE. Not equal to it, not an acceptable substitute for it — superior. And it is so good that I could not care less that it lacks a throbbing, roaring engine. The frogs of the Loire provide the soundtrack; the BMW provides everything else. Chapeau, Munich.

Base price: £60,250.00 

Our model with extras: £68,387.49

https://www.bmw.co.uk/en/all-models/x-models/ix3/…

https://www.chambord.org/en/robert-charles-mann-s…

https://www.instagram.com/dagart2006/?hl=en

https://all.accor.com/booking/en/novotel/hotel/04…

https://www.le-village-suisse.fr/

https://www.leshuttle.com/uk-en

FAQ — BMW NA5 iX3 50 xDrive M Sport

What is the range of the BMW iX3 50 xDrive?
The BMW iX3 50 xDrive has an official WLTP range of up to 795km (493 miles), rising to 994km in pure city driving. In real-world touring, we reliably achieved 400 miles on a full charge in Eco mode — enough to drive from Guildford to Le Touquet and beyond without range anxiety.

How fast is the BMW iX3 50 xDrive M Sport?
It produces 463hp and 645Nm of torque, taking it from 0–62mph in 4.9 seconds, with a top speed of 130mph.

How much does the BMW iX3 50 xDrive M Sport cost in the UK?
The base price is £60,250. Our test car, with options including Polarised Grey paint (£875), 20" M aerodynamic bicolour wheels (£1,047) and the Technology Plus Pack, came to £68,387.49.

Is the BMW iX3 good for long-distance driving?
Exceptionally so. We covered over 1,400 miles across France in four days, and the iX3 consistently arrived with more range remaining than it predicted at departure. Active cruise control with automatic speed limit adaptation makes motorway touring effortless.

How efficient is the BMW iX3 50 xDrive?
It consumes 15.4kWh/100km, making it one of the most efficient electric SUVs in its class.

What technology does the BMW iX3 M Sport come with?
The Technology Plus Pack includes a Harman/Kardon surround sound system, BMW 3D Head-up Display, Parking Assistant Pro, best-in-class sat nav, a full-width instrument display, 3-zone climate control, heated steering wheel and a panoramic glass sunroof.

Is the BMW iX3 better than a petrol SUV?
On this evidence, yes — the range, refinement and running costs now make electric motoring genuinely superior to ICE for long-distance touring, not merely a compromise.