BMW

A look at the battery packs of BMW arranged in chronological order with snippets of news, technical papers and presentations.

Benchmarking BMW against other packs in our battery database you can see that it is perhaps on the heavier than average side.

BMW i3

BMW’s first fully electric vehicle was the i3. Quite a radical design that was launched in 2013. The first mass produced car with most of its internal structure and body made of carbon-fibre reinforced plastic.

• i3 – this electric vehicle with optional range extender has steadily improved in battery capacity with the cell developments from Samsung SDI supporting the progress.
  • 2013 BMW i3 – the first generation of this EV and Range Extended EV.

Gen 5 Battery Packs

• GEN 5 Battery System – maximises number of cells per module, reduced number of modules and prismatic cell.
  • 2021 BMW iX3 – the first vehicle off the Gen5 electrification platform.
  • BMW i4 – pure EV
  • BMW i5
  • BMW i7

Up to this point BMW had focused on Prismatic based cells. The move to cylindrical cells for Gen 6 is quite radical for BMW.

Gen 6 Battery Packs

• GEN 6 Battery System – this introduces the 4695 and 46120 cylindrical cells, launched from 2025.
  • BMW iX3 Neue Klasse Battery – a first look at what we know and estimate around the specification of this battery pack.
• BMW 46xx Cell – a collection of notes and posts relating to the BMW 46mm diameter cell.

Over twelve model years the gravimetric energy density of BMW’s production battery packs has risen from 71 Wh/kg (ActiveE, 2012) to 190 Wh/kg (iX3 Neue Klasse, 2025) — a 167% increase driven by cell chemistry advances, pack architecture changes, and structural integration.

Pack generations, cell format and chemistry that support this are tabled below:

See also: Stellantis Batteries, Rimac