BMW will open US reservations for the i3 electric sedan on September 29 at 6:01 p.m. Eastern, earlier than the October window dealers had been told to expect.
BMW USA emailed people who had registered for i3 updates on its website on Tuesday, according to BMWBlog. The email asked recipients to mark the date and gave no price.
BMW USA’s own i3 page says the sedan will be available in 2027, with an estimated range of up to 440 miles.
A Reservation, Not an Order
What opens next week is a reservation. US-specification cars have not been built yet, and BMW has not published a price.
If the i3 follows the iX3, pricing will come within a day of reservations opening.
BMW USA emailed interested iX3 buyers in late April and opened reservations on May 6. It announced the price the next day: $61,500 plus $1,350 destination. Buyers reserved through the online configurator with a $1,000 deposit paid to the retailer they chose.
Several BMW dealers have already been taking non-binding deposits for the i3 through their own reservation pages, BMWBlog reported in August.
One Version at Launch
The i3 arrives in the US as a single version, the i3 50 xDrive. It has two motors producing 463 hp and 476 lb-ft of torque, a 108.7 kWh battery, and charging at up to 400 kW.
It comes with a NACS port for Tesla Superchargers. BMW says the car supports bidirectional charging, including vehicle-to-load at up to 3.7 kW.
A cheaper i3 40 xDrive and a performance i3 M60 xDrive are due later.
The car was unveiled on March 18 as the electric counterpart to the 3 Series. The combustion 3 Series sold about 33,000 units in the US last year.
The nameplate last belonged to a carbon-fibre city hatchback, BMW’s first volume electric car. It peaked in the US at 11,024 sales in 2015 and sold more than 45,000 there in total.
BMW ended US production of the hatchback in July 2021, and global production the following year after about 250,000 cars. The new i3 shares the badge and little else.
Built in Munich, Then Mexico
The first i3s sold in the US will come from Munich.
The sedan entered pre-production there in February and went into series production on August 6, after a rebuild of the plant that took about four years.
US-specification builds are scheduled to start on the same line in November, according to BMWBlog. With a gap similar to the iX3’s, the first American deliveries would fall in the first quarter of 2027.
BMW confirmed in July that its San Luis Potosí plant in Mexico will also build the i3 and the iX3 from 2027. The plant is part of an €800 million ($917,000,000) expansion that includes on-site battery assembly.
The brand has not said whether Mexican-built i3s will be sold in the United States.
In Germany, a First Edition opened for orders in June at €75,340 ($86,400). The regular i3 50 xDrive lists from €65,900 ($75,500), with deliveries starting this autumn.
German prices include 19% VAT, so they do not translate directly to the US.
The German i3 50 xDrive lists €5,000, or 7.1%, below the iX3 50 xDrive, which rose to €70,900 after a €2,000 increase. Applied to the iX3’s US price, the same gap would put the sedan near $57,200 before destination.
BMW has given no guidance.
Tariff Exposure
The first US i3s will be imported from Munich and pay the 15% tariff that applies to most EU-built cars under the 2025 trade framework. BMW‘s US-built SUVs avoid it.
President Donald Trump said in May that he would raise the rate on EU cars to 25%, accusing the bloc of failing to implement the deal.
The Council of the EU gave final approval to the EU’s side of the framework on June 25, ahead of his July 4 deadline. The 15% ceiling remains the rate described as in force.
A Shrinking US EV Business
The sedan arrives as BMW tries to rebuild electric sales in the United States.
The brand set a US sales record in 2025, selling 388,897 vehicles, up 4.7%. Electric cars did not share in it.
BMW’s US battery-electric sales fell 16.7% to 42,484. The i4 was its best-selling electric model at 20,114, followed by the iX at 12,587. Plug-in hybrids rose 30.7% to 25,351.
The decline steepened at the end of the year. Electric sales fell 45.5% to 7,557 in the fourth quarter, after federal clean-vehicle tax credits ended for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025.
BMW said its combined sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars fell 50% in the first quarter of 2026 and 18.1% in the second. It does not break out battery-electric sales on their own.
Plug-in hybrids rose 22.9% in the second quarter, which means fully electric sales fell further than the combined figure.
Cox Automotive estimated BMW’s US electric sales at 6,547 in the second quarter, down about 41%.
Overall BMW brand sales rose 13% to 102,713 in the quarter.
BMW stopped selling the iX in the United States in April, saying it was moving to Neue Klasse models. The i4 is expected to be phased out after the i3 arrives, electrive reported.
The iX3 Goes First
The i3’s reservation date lands days after BMW brought forward the US launch of the iX3. The iX3 is the first Neue Klasse model and the company’s main bet for recovering electric sales in the United States.
A dealer notice posted on the Bimmerpost forum said BMW of North America allowed iX3 retail sales and deliveries from September 16, citing strong customer demand. The official launch date is September 25.
In Europe, where deliveries began earlier this year, the iX3 has logged 100,000 orders. The Debrecen plant in Hungary moved to three shifts this month.
The group’s global fully electric deliveries fell 7.4% in the first half to 204,295. Europe carried the transition while US and Chinese sales declined.
