BMW has poured over 10 billion euros into Neue Klasse to develop a wide range of electric vehicles. However, the future in the future is not just about spending large amounts of money on products. It’s also about investing in people. To support the engineers of tomorrow, the luxury automaker is donating one of its high-end EVs to a vocational school.
It is not the new IX3 that leads New Class return, but an existing electric SUV from a class mentioned above. This IX is an XDRIVE40, so yes, the pre-facelift version. When the Lifecycle Impulse debuted earlier this year, the base model was replaced by the XDRIVE45.
The donated EV, worth around €91,000, will benefit the vocational school in Nabburg, part of the Oskar-von-Miller-Schwandorf I vocational school. Representatives from the Regensburg and Wackersdorf factories attended the handover ceremony, joined by officials from the Lell car dealer.
This IX XDRIVE40, assembled at the Dingolfing factory, will be used to train future automotive mechatronics technicians. Teachers at the vocational school will analyze the electric SUV to give students hands-on experience with the IX’s complex innards. BMW ended production of this advance model a few months ago to make room for the heavily updated version.
The IX is believed to be a one-and-done affair with no second generation in the works. Sources close to Munich claim that production will end in mid-2028. At this point, the indirect successor has already been available for sale for almost two years. Based on the next-generation X5 (G65), the IX5 is expected to enter series production in August 2026.
An IX7 (G67) will reportedly follow about a year later, making the current IX redundant. However, nothing is official until BMW confirms it. The company’s largest electric SUV remains on sale for now, although it won’t adopt the Neue Klasse design language introduced by the new IX3.
Source: BMW
