We’re only halfway through March 2026 and the EV world has already served up some genuinely jaw-dropping announcements. Ferrari. BMW. Mercedes. Rivian. Somehow they all decided to make their moves in the same two-week window. Here’s what you need to know.
Ferrari Luce: Jony Ive Designed the Inside of a 1,000 HP Ferrari EV and It Shows
Ferrari has been teasing its first electric car in stages, and in February they pulled back the curtain on the interior. The designer? Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson through their studio LoveFrom. Yes, the guy who designed the iPhone drew the inside of a Ferrari.
The car is called the Luce, and the specs are suitably absurd: roughly 1,000 horsepower, a 122 kWh battery, 880V architecture with 350 kW charging, and about 330 miles of range. The full exterior reveal is set for May 25 in Rome. Italian deliveries start late 2026, and UK pricing is expected to top £500,000. Not exactly impulse-buy territory, but this thing is going to rewrite what people think an electric car can be.
BMW iX3: 400+ Miles. 400 kW Charging. New Everything.
BMW’s Neue Klasse platform has officially arrived, and the iX3 is its first real-world proof of concept. This isn’t a tweaked combustion chassis with a battery dropped in. It’s a clean-sheet EV architecture, and the numbers show it.
The iX3 50 xDrive puts out 463 horsepower, hits 60 mph in 4.9 seconds, and is rated for up to 400 miles of EPA range from its 108 kWh battery. The charging speed tops out at 400 kW, which means roughly 175 miles added in ten minutes under ideal conditions. BMW also built a new central computing platform into it called the Heart of Joy, which runs with 1-millisecond latency — 10 to 50 times faster than current systems. It starts around $60,000 and arrives in the US this summer.
Mercedes VLE: Someone Finally Made a Minivan Worth Getting Excited About
Minivans don’t usually make the news. The Mercedes VLE is not a usual minivan.
Revealed on March 11, the all-electric VLE is the kind of thing that makes you reconsider what a family hauler is allowed to be. There’s a 31.3-inch 8K screen in the headliner. The air suspension reads Google Maps ahead and lowers itself on highways to extend range. Rear-axle steering lets the back wheels turn up to seven degrees, giving a massive people-mover a turning circle you’d expect from a compact car.
Under the skin: a 115 kWh battery, up to 409 horsepower in the dual-motor version, and 435 miles of WLTP range. It’ll charge at up to 500 amps DC, adding 221 miles in 15 minutes. Six to eight seats depending on how you spec it. US sales kick off for the 2028 model year. TechRadar called it “the Rolls-Royce of the minivan world,” and honestly, that’s not far off.
Rivian R2: The Affordable Rivian Is Actually Happening
For anyone who loved the look of the R1T or R1S but couldn’t quite stretch to the price tag, Rivian had some welcome news this week. The R2 is officially launching this spring, starting at $57,990 for the Launch Edition.
That gets you all-wheel drive, 656 horsepower, 609 lb-ft of torque, and up to 330 miles of range. It’s smaller than the R1 series but built on an all-new platform Rivian developed in-house, which should help them hit margins they’ve been chasing for years. The timing matters too. At under $60,000, the R2 goes right after the heart of the mainstream SUV market. This is the one that decides whether Rivian becomes a real volume player.
BMW i3 Sedan: One More From Munich, Just Because
While everyone was focused on the iX3, BMW also quietly announced the first official specs for the i3 Sedan, another Neue Klasse vehicle. It’s packing 469 horsepower and a full debut coming in the next few weeks. A full electric 3-Series equivalent on a purpose-built EV platform is a big deal for BMW loyalists who’ve been waiting for something that doesn’t feel like a compromise.
Details are still trickling out, but if it inherits the same architecture as the iX3, the range and charging numbers should be similarly impressive. Watch this space.
Two weeks. Five cars worth actually getting excited about. 2026 is shaping up to be a genuinely interesting year for this industry, and we’re just getting started.
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