The electric cars based on the ‘Neue Klasse’ or ‘New Class’ from BMW are to usher in nothing less than a new era, as the board of management has recently emphasized.

According to a media report, this upheaval is also likely to be accompanied by a new nomenclature for the model series and drive variants and the combustion engines.

BMW will change its models’ nomenclature during the planned introduction of the ‘Neue Klasse’ electric cars from 2025 onward. This is reported by the English specialized magazine Car concerning applications submitted by BMW to the EU trademark authorities and its own sources.

Back to the future

According to the report, the new edition of the SUV model X3 will bear model names such as X320 and X330 as internal combustion engines, and the electric variants will be distinguished from the internal combustion engines by a preceding ‘i’, i.e., in this case, they will be called iX330, iX340, and iX350.

The same scheme is planned for BMW’s sedans and estate cars. The electric sedan, the BMW Vision Neue Klasse concept, with which BMW provided a near-production preview at the IAA, is to be given designations such as i330 and i340 as a production model.

The designations sDrive, eDrive, and xDrive should thus no longer apply. They designate the combustion engine rear-wheel drive, electric rear-wheel drive, or all-wheel drive.

Suppose the report in Car Magazine by Georg Kacher, an often well-informed journalist, is correct. In that case, the future naming will probably be based on the simpler designations BMW had back in the old days: a BMW 530d then was a five-seater with a three-liter diesel engine. However, the new i5 still uses the additional designation eDrive or xDrive, which is still based on the ‘old’ architecture.

What will happen after the premiere of the electric 3/X3 remains to be seen: will BMW change the model designations of the current model series uniformly, or will the update take place gradually with the following model update or new model generation based on the New Class architecture? No official comment from BMW yet.

Keep it simple

BMW will probably not be alone in reorganizing and simplifying its model naming. Numerous carmakers are adapting their nomenclature to unite the additional drive technologies with the familiar model range.

At Mercedes, the EQ label is apparently on the brink of extinction for the future. Audi, with a completely incomprehensible nomenclature for the moment, has also given itself a new naming system for the electric future this year.