BMW has made its EV ambitions crystal clear by planning a veritable onslaught that started in 2021 with the iX3 facelift, iX, and the i4. 2022 brought us the iX1 and i7 along with China’s i3 Sedan, but there’s so much more to come. The next-generation 5 Series due in 2023 will spawn an i5 from day one and we’re also going to see the Rolls-Royce Spectre. At MINI, a new wave of EVs is in the works, including a production version of the Concept Aceman.

On the performance side, BMW M has so far launched M Performance versions of the i4 (M50) and iX (M60), with an i7 (M70) scheduled to break cover next year. Meanwhile, a modified two-door coupe prototype of the i4 M50 received four motors to signal work has started on what will eventually become a full-fat electric M car.

The peeps from Munich might have provided an early sign of their first “real M” with no combustion engine during a meeting with members of the media. As part of the official presentation of the new X1, BMW had a slideshow illustrating its roadmap to electromobility. We get to see all the models on sale today that are mentioned above, along with the M BEV Concept and several vehicles hiding under covers.

While some SUV and sedan silhouettes are visible, our colleagues at Bimmer Today noticed a low-slung model in the bottom-right corner of the image. Although we can’t see the full side profile of the car, the heavily sloped roofline leads us to believe it’s a real coupe with only two doors. The front fascia appears to be considerably different than current M cars powered by combustion engines and it gives us the impression of a bona fide supercar.

That said, we may be getting ahead of ourselves since it could just be a generic car beneath that cover. However, the fact they included the quad-motor widebody i4 M50 in the slide illustrates BMW M is hard at work preparing a legitimate electric performance machine. We wouldn’t count on it happening very soon as logic tells us an ICE-less sports car or supercar will be based on the Neue Klasse, which is slated to arrive in 2025 with a sedan and an SUV in the 3 Series segment. An exciting model is unlikely to be offered right away.

In an interview with BMWBLOG a few weeks ago, Frank Weber, Head of Engineering and R&D at BMW, told us the German automaker already has the knowhow to develop an electric supercar with 1 megawatt of power, so 1,341 hp. However, he refrained from saying it’s actually going to happen in the foreseeable future. For the time being, those rumors about a new BMW-McLaren tie-up have not been confirmed, but we’re hoping the aborted Vision M Next will get a purely electric road-going successor one day.

Source: Bimmer Today