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Spy shots show prototype electric M3 with the M Concept Neue Klasse’s hood vent.

Quad-motor powertrain could deliver over 700 hp and advanced torque vectoring.

BMW will sell visually similar electric and gasoline M3 models alongside each other.

BMW ‘s electric M3 is gradually stepping out of the shadows. The naming question is already settled, with M boss Frank van Meel confirming at Goodwood that the car drops the i prefix and simply carries the M3 badge . Now fresh spy shots from the Nürburgring show the high-performance EV wearing less camouflage than before, giving a clearer look at the production model BMW hopes will convince enthusiasts that an M car doesn’t need exhausts to be exhilarating.

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Also: BMW’s New Gas M3 Loses Its Grille But Keeps Its Six, And Maybe The Clutch Too

The latest prototype appears heavily influenced by the recently revealed M Concept Neue Klasse , which BMW showcased at Le Mans as a preview of its future electric performance models. While there’s still some disguise covering key details, the overall shape and many of the styling cues now look very close to what buyers can expect when the car finally reaches showrooms.

SH Proshots

Compared to a regular i3 sedan, this prototype looks considerably more aggressive. The swollen wheel arches remain one of the most obvious giveaways, while the car also appears to feature a wider track, rear diffuser and trunk lid spoiler, and a hood vent that wasn’t visible on previous prototypes, but did appear on the concept.

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Under the skin, BMW is expected to fit a quad-motor powertrain with one electric motor driving each wheel. While the company hasn’t confirmed output figures, reports continue to suggest the electric M3 could produce more than 700 hp (710 PS), with up to 1,000 hp (1,014 PS) possible on hardcore models later.

The real challenge, however, isn’t straight-line speed. Plenty of EVs can deliver shocking acceleration. What BMW’s engineers need to prove is that this car can deliver the balance, precision and adjustability that have defined generations of M3 s. That’s where the four-motor setup could become a genuine advantage, allowing far more precise torque distribution than a conventional all-wheel-drive system.

More Power Than Its Combustion M3 Brother

Fortunately for traditionalists, the electric model won’t replace the combustion-powered M3. BMW is expected to offer both cars simultaneously, with the gasoline version continuing to fly the flag for six-cylinder performance while the EV pushes the brand into new territory. It’s unlikely that the visually similar petrol M3 will make anywhere near as much power as the electric one, though.

SH Proshots

With camouflage steadily disappearing and testing activity ramping up, it looks increasingly likely that we’ll see the finished product sooner rather than later. Whether diehard M fans embrace it is another matter entirely.

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Related: The 10-Foot-Wide M3 Isn’t Photoshopped, But It Isn’t A BMW Either

Check out the gallery below showing the M Concept Neue Klasse to see how the production M3 EV could look when the swirly camo comes off.

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BMW

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The European Parliament’s answer to its AI worries: More AI

The institution is opening its doors to models from OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic and Mistral as it tries to bring lawmakers’ growing use of the technology under control.

By MAX GRIERA

in Brussels

Illustration by Natália Delgado/ POLITICO

As MEPs and their assistants increasingly turn to artificial intelligence to draft speeches, parliamentary questions and even amendments, the European Parliament is seeking to bring that use under control with an officially sanctioned platform of its own.

The internal platform, known as EPGenAI Hub, will give lawmakers and staff access to models from Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic and France’s Mistral, offering what Parliament hopes will be a safer alternative to the public AI tools already being used for legislative work. The new platform is currently being tested and could begin rolling out as early as September, according to two people familiar with the plans, granted anonymity to discuss the internal strategy.

The plans come as concern rises inside the institution over the spread of AI-generated parliamentary material. At a meeting earlier in July, several committee chairs voiced alarm that a growing number of MEPs and their assistants were using AI to draft amendments and support other legislative work, according to three people familiar with the discussion.

“Parliament has not been immune to AI slop and misleading AI-generated content,” said Brando Benifei, the Socialists and Democrats lawmaker who led Parliament’s work on the AI Act, the EU’s landmark law governing the technology. “MEPs must lead by example as the AI Act’s transparency rules become applicable.”

The project captures the dilemma facing Parliament as generative AI becomes embedded in its daily work. Around 2,100 people use AI daily in the Parliament — around 20 percent of all staff.

Its leaders want officials to stop feeding parliamentary material into uncontrolled public platforms, but they are also concerned that the technology is degrading the quality of legislative work and introducing errors or misleading content into the democratic process. Their suspicions that lawmakers and assistants are already relying on AI have been fueled by a surge in amendments requiring translation, telltale drafting styles and occasional hallucinated references to laws that do not exist.

Committee chairs asked Parliament Secretary-General Alessandro Chiocchetti to draw up guidelines for lawmakers’ use of AI. He replied that the matter might instead fall to the Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, which would need to amend the institution’s rules of procedure to introduce stricter rules.

MEPs are currently under no obligation to disclose whether amendments, questions or other parliamentary work were produced with the help of artificial intelligence.

Irish Renew lawmaker Barry Andrews, who chairs the Parliament’s development committee, said it was already clear that some MEPs were using AI to draft parliamentary questions, speeches and amendments.

“That is their choice and I fully understand given our workload,” Andrews said. “But for me personally, these are core democratic functions which voters elected us to perform.”

Parliamentary employees are subject to separate internal guidelines on using AI, obtained by POLITICO , although the April 2024 rules are already due to be redrafted. The rules require staff to label AI-generated work with an “AI-assisted” disclaimer and prohibit them from entering sensitive information into public generative AI systems.

The guidelines also warn that inaccuracies produced by the technology risk creating or spreading misleading information or material that misrepresents the Parliament.

The new platform

EPGenAI Hub has already been presented to MEPs and staff at workshops, including one on Tuesday that promised to demonstrate “practical, everyday applications that will help you work smarter and faster,” according to an email seen by POLITICO.

A beta version reviewed by POLITICO allows users to choose between models operated securely within Parliament’s own infrastructure and more powerful services hosted externally.

The locally operated options include Meta’s Llama, OpenAI’s GPT-OSS and Mistral Small. Users can also access externally hosted models including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet.

The rollout will also open the institution further to American AI companies, even as Brussels pursues a parallel effort to reduce the bloc’s dependence on U.S. technology.

That sits uneasily with the Parliament’s own drive for greater digital sovereignty. In recent months, the institution has replaced Google with the French search engine Qwant and disabled built-in AI features on MEPs’ tablets over cybersecurity and data-protection concerns.

The Parliament’s press service said that the AI models offered may change in the coming months.

“The model offerings are undergoing revision, especially in light of availability of open-source and EU sovereign models from sovereign cloud providers recently contracted by the European Commission,” the service said.

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LONDON — Andy Burnham’s political success depends on his ability to turn Britain away from the wave of nationalist populism that gave the world Donald Trump.

That has not stopped the U.K.’s incoming prime minister from studying the president’s rise, and — deliberately or not — embracing some of his methods for the political battles with the British right that lie ahead.

“Trump is very unpopular in Britain,” said Luke Tryl, executive director at More in Common U.K., a think-tank and polling agency. “But even people who really don’t like him will say, at least he does what he says he’ll do.” Just being seen to be active in this way is something Burnham “can learn” from insurgent populists like Trump, Ttyl added.

Burnham, the new leader of the center-left Labour Party, takes over as U.K. prime minister on Monday. He has been catapulted into power by his colleagues, who fear being wiped out at the next general election after months of missteps and scandals under outgoing premier Keir Starmer.

The far-right populist Reform UK party — founded five years ago and led by Trump ally Nigel Farage — has stormed the board in recent elections across the country, shattering Labour’s traditional strongholds and leading opinion polls nationally for more than a year.

Labour MPs hope Burnham can be the fresh-faced outsider to revive the party’s wilting relationship with the increasingly cynical voters it has lost. He has been clear for years about the party’s task: If Labour fails, British politics, he says, are in danger of following the United States and electing the most right-wing government it has ever seen.

Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, whos party has stormed the polls, speaks on the second day of the inaugural CPAC Great Britain summit in London on July 17, 2026. | Carl Court/Getty Images

“Whether we like it or not, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage have been effective in connecting with people who feel politicians have neglected the place where they live,” Burnham wrote with his co-author Steve Rotheram in their 2024 book “Head North.” In order to deliver for millions of working-class voters, they wrote, Labour must “take the fight to the radical Right on the very turf that they claim to hold.”

That starts with channeling the anger of the rejected outsider. There are signs that what drives both Trump and Burnham is a personal resentment at the political elites who once sneered at them — and a desire to upend the old hierarchy of snobs.

Many commentators have spoken of how the president’s experience suffering the scorn of America’s wealthy and powerful elites in his previous role as a real estate mogul and celebrity motivated his political mission. Critically, Trump’s ability to convey that sense of being dismissed by the establishment resonated with voters who feel cast aside by the same elites.

Burnham, if anything, has been even more direct than Trump about his own hang-ups. In “Head North,” Burnham, who was Greater Manchester mayor at the time, and Rotheram, the Liverpool mayor, described being treated like “second-class citizens” in their previous roles as MPs by the elitist politicians in London: “We want you to know how it felt to hear those sneering voices in the corridors of power.”

In this passage of their book, Burnham and Rotheram were addressing their grandchildren. Many voters in their northern homelands already know what it feels like to be ignored by the center.

Burnham never misses the chance to portray himself as an outsider from the working-class former industrial areas in the North of England, and his positioning can work, according to analysts. With his regional accent, he seems “authentic” and not like a member of the London establishment to many voters who backed Labour two years ago but have since walked away, said political consultant Deborah Mattinson, who was the party’s director of strategy before the 2024 election.

People react as a person holds a cardboard cutout featuring an image of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been effective communicating with those who feel mainstream politics has failed them, outside Windsor Castle on September 16, 2025. | Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images

Mattinson has been working on new polling and focus groups for the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. “The bottom line is that people are very angry and very impatient,” she said. “These critical working-class voters are even more impatient for change — and they are cynical about the ability of politicians to deliver it.”

Talking to everyone, all the time

Farage dominates the coverage of politics in the British press while Trump’s hyperactive social media use now often sets the news agenda around the world.

Burnham doesn’t have the same reach, but has proven comfortable using direct channels to connect with his public. He regularly posts selfie videos that are often light-hearted and chatty in style, as he presents an informal image designed to show voters he is just like them.

“Trump and Farage are just constantly communicating with people,” said Tryl from More in Common. “They just speak directly. I actually think being multi-channel in your approach — making use of X, TikTok, Instagram and all of those channels — is really important for reaching people.”

If Burnham does manage to connect with voters, what does he want to say?

So far, policy details are sketchy. But his blueprint for Britain, as proposed in “Head North” at least, contains at its heart a radical transfer of power out of London and to communities and regions around the country. Burnham believes replicating the way he ran Manchester for nine years as mayor can transform the U.K. and bring hope to forgotten communities.

Mattinson and Tryl both found evidence that the devolution agenda could be appealing to voters, who feel their areas have been neglected by London.

But they were equally sure that he must not lose sight of the overwhelming priority for the public: Reducing the cost of living. For many families, daily expenses have risen to unsustainable levels, with inflation racing in the years since pandemic lockdowns and wages failing to keep up.

In the U.S., Trump has paid a political price for the impact of the Iran war on the cost of living at home. Burnham would do well to take note: It is by far the biggest issue for British voters, according to numerous polls and focus groups, and fuels a frustration that frequently boils over into anger among voters who backed Starmer in 2024 in the hope he would improve their lives.

“There is a real appetite to see action very quickly within the first six months of his premiership, particularly on the cost of living,” said Tryl. Devolution might play well with voters but Burnham “has to relate it back to the bread and butter issues,” added Mattinson.

Burnham’s tiny window

Voters are increasingly ready to embrace radicalism. POLITICO’s focus group in Makerfield, Burnham’s new parliamentary constituency, conducted by Public First last month found voters were cynical about the ability of any politician to improve their lives.

Worse than that, there’s almost a nihilistic instinct creeping in.

A member of staff takes down England flags at No. 10 Downing Street in London on July 19, 2026 ahead of Andy Burnham taking over as prime minister. | Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images

More in Common regularly asks poll respondents whether they think Britain’s institutions should be preserved and improved, or instead left to burn. “Currently we still have a majority in the ‘preserve and improve’ — 60 percent,” Tryl told an audience in Westminster last week. “But 40 percent are in the ‘just let them all burn’ group, which I think is quite a sobering statistic.”

While Trump himself is not popular, many focus group participants approve of the fact that he at least seems to get things done and to do what he says he will do, regardless of the opposition he encounters. “People have a real craving for a leader with strength,” Mattinson added.

Burnham has “the most minuscule of windows” to convince Labour’s lost supporters to give the party another chance, Mattinson said. “He is going to have to burst onto the stage and look like a new government and look like a different government,” she said.

Burnham has said he wants a more consensual style of politics, working with rival parties on the left and the right to find solutions, instead of scoring political points. But the biggest risk for him seems to be that impatient voters won’t be prepared to wait for the culture to shift before seeing results.

Perhaps Burnham has already learned from Trump that he needs to make an instant impact when he takes over, in the way the president did at the start of his second term this year. “I am ready,” Burnham said when he formally took over as Labour leader on Friday. “I have a plan.”