The best of BMW’s new X3 range is the version you’d least expect

Surprise! The best version within BMW’s revamped X3 range is not the one that goes the fastest, nor is it the most expensive. I’m as shocked as you are.

Stephen Corby

The new BMW X3 range comes in three flavours.

3 min read

10:04AMMarch 27, 2025.

Updated 11:33AMMarch 27, 2025

The Weekend Australian Magazine

I’m not sure if this is a common thing, but sometimes I rejoice in reliving the feeling of sitting at the back of the classroom, causing consternation at the front and sniggering inappropriately with the other reprobates who are going to amount to nothing when they grow up.

I get to do this at car launches when, before they hand us the keys, car company executives and PR fluffers lock us in a meeting room and attempt to shove a PowerPoint into our brains. Many of my colleagues are insufferable nerds who love these three- or four-hour sessions, while I sit as far up the back as possible and hope that no one can tell I’m actually reading about the end of democracy on my laptop.

What I did manage to glean at the launch of the new and very impressive X3 SUV is that BMW has sold a whopping 3.5 million of these since the launch 20 years ago, and 60,000 in Australia alone. I also heard that one in five BMWs sold here wears an M badge, meaning that a large number of us – indeed, a higher percentage than almost anywhere on Earth – prefer to buy the most expensive variants we can. Mercedes has noticed the same thing with AMG models, which suggests we are a very rich country indeed, or that we’re obsessed with showing off.

I sniggered slightly when I heard that the design language for this new X3 (which looks pleasantly muscular overall, but a bit pinched – like it’s just licked a lemon – at the rear) can be described with one word: “monolithic”. I do like the idea of a car impressive enough to be chiselled into Mount Rushmore next to King Donald. But BMW really delivered for me when it got to the interior-design philosophy, which uses something called “Shy Tech”. This really works better when said aloud, and I wasted a lot of the following Q&A session asking whether I should pronounce it “Shite Tech” or “Shite Heck”. I really need to turn this column into a podcast.

The idea of Shy Tech is that it makes functional features like air vents – horribly unsightly things, I’ve always thought – by making them “more integrated and less conspicuous”. I must admit I’ve never noticed the air vents on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, and, with its many screens, futuristic textures and slick design, the cabin of the new X3 does feel like it could have been lifted from the set of yet another Star Trek series.

BMW X3’s dash is a testament to its ‘ShyTech’ design ethos.

Unfortunately, the space-age theme goes a little too far with the new and even bigger full-colour Head-up Display. I’ve always thought the HUD is an excellent invention because it allows you to see your speed floating in front of you without ever taking your eyes off the road, but this modern BMW version throws too much other stuff into that virtual space. Select Sport mode and, for no apparent reason, the HUD throws up one of the old space ships from the video game Galaga, which just floats there, distractingly.

The new version comes in three flavours, an entry-level X3 20 xDrive at $86,100, which buys you something that looks like a BMW but doesn’t feel or sound like one because its engine is too small. All X3s now feature a “Boost” mode, where you hold in the left shift paddle for a few seconds and are delivered 10 seconds of maximum attack. But in the entry-level variant, nothing much happens at all.

Happily, in the range-topping, old-school straight six-cylinder version, the $128,900 M50 xDrive, you get loads of boost, lashings of noise and even some metallic screaming; you can also get to 100km/h nearly twice as fast as in the rubbish version (4.6 seconds vs 8.5).

Strangely, though, the M50 is not the variant I’d buy, despite a lifelong love of BMW’s sexy sixes. No, the sweet spot of the range is the X3 30e xDrive, a plug-in hybrid EV with less power, less noise (indeed none at all sometimes) and one that takes a full 6.2 seconds to get to 100km/h.

The 30E rides and responds to bumps better, so it actually feels more premium than the expensive version with the M badge.

Yes, it makes better financial sense, because it can drive up to 91km in EV mode, which is a fuel saving, and it’s cheaper overall, at $104,100, but remarkably it also just felt like the best one to drive. There’s less weight over the nose so it turns in better – and throwing a BMW into bends provides the kind of fun that sets this brand apart, particularly with this new and improved chassis.

It also rides and responds to bumps better, so it actually feels more premium than the expensive version with the M badge that all the showy Australians are going to buy. The young me at the back of the classroom would have been appalled, because he would always suggest that the fastest version is the best, but then he would have had no idea of how clever PHEV technology would be.

Of course, he would have really loved the term “Shytech”.