30Say hello to the BMW iX4. Although, looking from the front, you might feel like you know it already. It’s a more style-conscious sibling to the BMW iX3, our 2026 Premium Electric Car of the Year, which it’ll be built alongside at BMW’s Debrecen, Hungary factory. Although nothing seems to have been done to the front, the iX4 is a visual departure from the iX3 from the B-pillar rearwards. It gets a sloping roofline typical of previous cars we’ve seen from BMW that it describes as ‘Sports Activity Coupes’. From a technical standpoint, there aren’t any surprises. Aside from not bothering with an equivalent of the rear-wheel drive iX3 40, the iX4’s powertrain line-up mirrors that of its marginally more practical counterpart. The range kicks off with the iX4 xDrive, combining an 87kWh battery pack with two motors for 369bhp and 520Nm of torque to yield a 0-62mph time of 5.6 seconds. It offers up to 396 miles of range, and if you need to go further, 300kW rapid charging capability means it’ll only take 10 minutes to add 187 miles of range in optimal conditions. A figure isn’t quoted for the 10 to 80 per cent benchmark. 30For the headline 514 miles of range, you’ll be wanting the 462bhp, 645Nm iX4 50 xDrive. It ups the battery capacity to a whopping 113kWh, which also adds a lot of weight, so it’s not that much quicker than the 40 xDrive, covering the 0-62mph dash in 4.9 seconds. It has a 400kW rapid charging capability, and if you can find one of the few chargers in the UK that can deliver that much power, it’s possible to add up to 240 miles of range in just 10 minutes. A 10 to 80 per cent top-up takes as little as 21 minutes. Coinciding with the iX4’s arrival is the iX3 M60, and there’s a corresponding iX4 M60 to go with it. The same 113kWh as the 50 xDrive is retained, but the motor output shoots up to 604bhp and 875Nm of torque, making 0-62mph possible in just 3.9 seconds. The additional poke inevitably affects the total range, but not by much - the official figure is 483 miles. Much like the view from the front, what you see inside will be instantly recognisable from the iX3. There’s the same 17.9-inch oblong central infotainment display, which has a screen that properly fills the space, rather than resorting to an ugly rectangular bezel to make it fit as on some rivals. The Panoramic iDrive setup with its pillar-to-pillar display is very much present, too. 30As you might expect, things are a little different behind the front seats of the iX4 compared to the iX3. We’d expect there to be a slightly lower ceiling, which we’ll judge properly when we first test the car, but BMW claims that the compact cell-to-pack design of the battery “preserves rear headroom beneath the sloping roofline.” Boot space is impacted by the swoopier styling, with the 490 litres behind the rear seats representing a 30-litre decrease on what the iX3 offers. There’s a bigger drop for the total boot volume with the rear seats folded, because this is measured to the roofline, which is no longer flat - the 1,600 litres available in this configuration is decent, but 150 litres less than the iX3. The final compromise centers on your wallet. With no rear-drive 40 model and a premium of £4,500 charged for the 40 xDrive and 50 xDrive, the iX4 is quite a bit pricier than the iX3. It’s £60,170 for the iX4 40 xDrive and £66,075 for the 50, with prices of the M60 xDrive to be confirmed closer to the car’s UK launch. The iX4 is on sale now, with first customer deliveries commencing from 6 March 2027.