BMW will start building a second Neue Klasse model at its Debrecen plant in Hungary this autumn, the company said without naming the car or giving a date.
The single sentence came in the same statement that confirmed the Hungarian site had moved to three shifts and round-the-clock production of the iX3. “Production of a second, entirely new model from the Neue Klasse will begin at the site this autumn,” the company said, declining to add detail.
It would be the third vehicle on BMW’s electric-only architecture to reach series production, after the iX3 at Debrecen and the i3 at Munich, which began building in August.
The model is widely reported to be the iX4, an electric Sports Activity Coupe derived from the iX3 and known internally as NA7, but BMW has never used the name in public and did not use it this week.
The circumstantial case is strong. The combustion X4 has no successor. The G02 wound down through 2025, with petrol production ending earlier in the year and diesel in November, and BMW confirmed the end of the line in January.
Prototypes have been photographed since November 2025, at the Nürburgring in June and on public roads in Munich in July.
Reports place series production at Debrecen in November, which would put a reveal within weeks. Variant names circulating are a 40 and a 50 at launch, an M60 around March 2027 and a quad-motor M car under the code ZA7 said to share hardware with the coming electric M3, none of which BMW has confirmed.
BMW’s own supplier disclosures have pointed the same way for months.
Its Steyr plant in Austria, which opened a second electric-motor line this year and plans well over 100,000 units in 2026, has listed the iX3, the i3, the i3 Touring and an unannounced iX4 among the vehicles it supplies.
No Debut in Paris
Whatever the car turns out to be, it will not appear at the Paris Motor Show, which runs from October 12 to 18.
BMW confirmed its attendance in January, then withdrew on July 22 along with MINI, citing a shift in priorities while saying it remained committed to a selective presence at shows.
The decision came roughly two months into the tenure of Chief Executive Officer Milan Nedeljković, who replaced Oliver Zipse in May, and weeks after a profit warning driven by an accelerated decline in China.
Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Volkswagen, Stellantis and Renault are all attending.
BMW has been unveiling cars at its own venues instead, including the fifth-generation X5 at its Spartanburg plant and the M Concept Neue Klasse at Le Mans.
The next-generation 3 Series, the G50, is due at the end of September, which leaves a separate slot in October for the Debrecen vehicle ahead of a November production start.
The Hardware is Known
Nothing underneath would be new. A second Debrecen model would take the iX3’s 800-volt architecture, sixth-generation drivetrain and cylindrical cells in a cell-to-pack layout, with battery assembly on site through BMW’s partnership with EVE Power.
In the iX3 that means a 108.7 kWh pack in the 50 xDrive, rated at 463 hp and 645 Nm with charging at up to 400 kW, or an 82.6 kWh pack in the rear-drive 40 at 320 hp and 300 kW.
Spy shots show a car identical to the iX3 ahead of the A-pillar, with a steeper windscreen, a roofline that drops sharply behind the B-pillars, a smaller quarter window, a shorter rear overhang and no exhaust cutouts.
Production in Hungary
Every previous X4 was built at Spartanburg in South Carolina. The electric car is reported for Debrecen alone, with no plan for the United States and no place in the San Luis Potosí schedule in Mexico, which takes the standard-wheelbase iX3 from the second half of 2027.
Debrecen went to 24-hour operation this month specifically as iX3 demand ran ahead of plan, with more than 50,000 cars built and 100,000 European orders logged in the model’s first year on sale.
The second model arrives within weeks of that step, on a site with about 150,000 units of eventual annual capacity against a current run rate near 66,000.
The Wider Plan
BMW said in March 2023 that it would launch six Neue Klasse models within 24 months of the platform’s debut, a plan German trade press reported as intact earlier this year.
Two are in production and a third starts within weeks.
Behind them sit an i3 Touring confirmed for Munich, replacements for the iX1 and iX2, and an electric iX6 rumoured for 2028, inside a group target of 40 new or updated models by the end of 2027.
Munich is scheduled to build only Neue Klasse electric vehicles from around 2027.
Against that, the group’s global battery-electric deliveries fell 7.4% in the first half to 204,295 units, and fully electric cars accounted for 17.6% of passenger car sales.
European demand is carrying the transition on its own, which is the same conclusion the third shift at Debrecen points to.
