Earlier this week, BMW filed a trademark for the name “iM3.” Combining BMW’s electric “i” and performance “M” badges would theoretically suggest a hot EV, but BMW M boss Frank van Meel is here to quickly shut down those rumors.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Top Gear<\/em>, van Meel said the company would “never” use i and M badges together on the same vehicle. “No, that will be a Mission Impossible!” he says. “Actually, we would never use an i on an M, even though it would be electric.”<\/p>\n That’s not to say that a performance EV with a pure M badge won’t happen, though. “If we would ever do something like that, it will always be called an M without an i,” suggests van Meel, “because that’s just the technology, and M is not about technology. It\u2019s about a promise, it\u2019s about motorsports, it\u2019s about emotion. It\u2019s not about the drivetrain.”<\/p>\n BMW already has four M-badged EVs \u2013 the iX M60, i4 M50, i5 M60, and the i7 M70 \u2013 and the company debuted a quad-motor performance prototype in 2022 that looked suspiciously like a 3 Series. So the BMW Neue Klasse electric platform is bound to breed a performance EV, it just won’t be called the iM3.<\/p>\n We’ve reached out to BMW USA for a comment and will update accordingly.<\/p>\n