After months of rumors about a major change to BMW’s nomenclature, we can confirm that the gossip is true. Future vehicles equipped with gasoline engines are going to drop the “i” from the end of their names. Referencing injection, the letter will be gradually retired. Well, yes and no. Although it’s going away from ICE models, the German luxury brand intends to continue to use “i” for EVs.
The disclosure was made by Bernd Körber, Senior Vice President BMW Brand and Product Management, Connected Company. BMWBLOG asked why the “i” is being deleted in the context of the forthcoming X3 M50, which will replace the outgoing M40i:
“Historically, even though our interpretation of BMW i was always different, it’s more innovation, not necessarily only electric, and we historically had injection at the end [of the badge], we said, we would like to keep ‘i’ as an asset, and we would like to keep it as a signature to indicate you’re driving an electric car and that was the logic that we had.”
Which other products aside from the next-generation X3 (G45) will lose the “i”? We reckon the 1 Series hatchback and 2 Series Gran Coupe are up next. Both compact cars will be renewed before the end of 2024. It’s not just next-gen cars that’ll drop the letter as we’re hearing facelifted models will follow suit. Rumor has it the 7 Series LCI will do away with the “i” for its mid-cycle update in 2026.
On a related note, we had to ask another question. You know how electric M Performance models get their names from internal codenames of combustion engines. The i7 M70 is the highest number BMW has used thus far. We quizzed Bernd Körber about whether we’ll see M80, M90, or even M100: ”Three digit is our threshold. So far, nothing in the plan that gets us close to that.”
