BMW has officially unveiled the BMW iX3 Long Wheelbase at Auto China 2026 in Beijing. This fully electric SUV offers extended legroom, additional features and design tweaks to adapt to the mainland Chinese market.
It is based on BMW’s Neue Klasse EV platform, featuring an 800V architecture that boasts faster charging speeds and over 900km of CLTC-rated range.
BMW iX3 LWB offers 900km CLTC-range, 400km range top up in 10 minutes
As its name suggests, the iX3 Long Wheelbase features a stretched layout with a focus on rear passenger space, which is a key requirement in the China market.
The iX3 LWB has a wheelbase of 3,005mm, which is 108mm more than the standard wheelbase version for the global market.
With an 800V Gen6 eDrive platform, the BMW iX3 LWB supports DC fast charging speeds of up to 400kW, which can deliver up to 400km of CLTC-rated range in around 10 minutes. On a full charge, the iX3 50 Long Wheelbase is also said to offer a CLTC-rated driving range of over 900km.
As a comparison, the global iX3 50 equipped with a 108.7kWh battery has a WLTP-rated range of up to 805km and a quick 10-80% top up is rated to provide a top up of 372km of range.
The iX3 50 features twin-motors that deliver 345kW (463hp) and 645Nm of torque. It can accelerate from 0 to 100km/h in 4.9 seconds, up to a top speed of 210km/h. So far there’s no official performance figures for the LWB version.
BMW iX3 LWB gets more features in China
What we do know is that the iX3 LWB for China gets additional design tweaks which include a traditional exterior door handles instead of the flush pop-up mechanism. The move is to comply with China’s EV regulations.
According to BMW, both inner and outer door handles use a combination of electric and physical design with triple safety redundancy. In the event of a power outage, the doors can still be opened mechanically via the door handles.
As seen from the earlier teaser, there’s also a roof mounted rear camera presumably for surround view monitoring.
In the interior, there are some interesting premium touches as well. Besides having the option for a China-exclusive dual-tone Amber Chestnut and Smoky white interior, the front passenger seat gets extended lower leg rest support as well.
The physical seat controls for the front passenger seat are mounted on the sides of centre console.
Rear occupants also get heated seats as indicated by extra seat climate controls below the rear air conditioning vents.
According to BMW Blog, the iX3 50L also comes equipped with ventilated front seats along with massaging feature. These are nice add-ons that would make long distance drives a lot more comfortable.
Other reported extras for the iX3 50L include an extra wireless charging pad for rear occupants, better speaker grille, extra ambient lighting and metallic coat hooks on the B-pillar.
BMW iX3 LWB coming to Malaysia
At the time of writing, there are no official availability and pricing details for the iX3 50L. What we do know is that the long wheelbase iX3 will be making its way to selected international markets outside of China such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and India.
Importing the LWB variant assembled at BMW’s plant at Shenyang would make more sense for our market due to lower 5% import duty for CBU EVs imported from China.
It isn’t clear if these extra features for the mainland China market will make it to international markets including Malaysia.
