BMW turns an electric BMW i4 M50 in to a four-motor electric BMW M test car.

BMW is planning the electric future of cars like the M3 and M4 with a BMW M test car based on the electric i4 M50 with four electric motors.

What happens to performance cars like BMW’s M cars when even a family EV hatchback is boasting the sort of performance that was the realm of supercars until electric motors powered by big batteries arrived? Well, BMW has a plan.

The plan seems to be all about the driving dynamics rather than pure out-and-out power – although there will be plenty of that – and to start to test the route to take BMW has taken an electric i4 M50 and fitted it with four electric motors – one for each wheel – and is busy trying to make things work.

The i4 used as the starting point has a modified body an M car would get with wide wheel arches to allow the fitting of high-performance axles, an adapted body strut concept nicked from the M3 for high torsional rigidity and an M xDrive four-wheel drive system with four electric motors to allow precise and rapid distribution of torque.

Dirk Häcker, Head of Development at BMW M, said:

Electrification opens up completely new degrees of freedom for us to create M-typical dynamics, and we can already see that we can exploit this potential to the maximum, so that our high-performance sports cars will continue to offer the M-typical and incomparable combination of dynamics, agility and precision in the locally emission-free future.

This doesn’t mean an electric M3 and M4 are just around the corner, but that’s where BMW is heading.