The M340i Is Gone. BMW’s Engineers Walk Us Through The 443 PS M350 xDrive And Its Coming Drift Mode

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The G50 BMW M350 xDrive replaces the M340i with 326 kW (443 PS), all-wheel drive only, and a rear-drive mode coming by OTA update.

The M340i is gone, and its replacement drops the “i” and gains 10 in the name. The new BMW M350 xDrive is the M Performance version of the G50 3 Series. I spent an afternoon with it and two of the people who know it best: Sebastian Rothbart, the G50 product manager, and Georg Burkhard, who is responsible for the car’s driving dynamics. The video above runs close to 50 minutes. Here is a taste of what’s in it.

Same 3 Series As The i3, Different Heart

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BMW sees the combustion 3 Series and the electric i3 as one car with two powertrains. They share the colors, the tech, and most of the cabin. The proportions are where they part ways. The M350 has a longer hood to make room for the B58 inline-six, and a shorter wheelbase because it doesn’t carry a battery. It also sits lower than the i3. Sebastian explains in the video how that affects trunk space and rear legroom, and the answer is less one-sided than you might expect.

It Finally Looks Like It Means It

BMW wanted the M350 to move closer to the full M cars, and you can see that from the front. The model gets the M yellow lights. They are exclusive to the M Performance model, and you can’t option them on a 330 or an i3. The lighting logic is different between Europe and the US, which we show on camera. The car also gets the black M mirrors that used to be reserved for the M cars, plus a high-gloss black spoiler and quad exhaust tips. That last point stands out, because the non-M Performance G50 models hide their tailpipes completely. I’ve complained to BMW before about quad pipes on everything, but on this 3 Series, somehow, they make sense.

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Output is up to 326 kW (443 PS, about 437 hp), a clear jump over the M340i. Part of the gain comes from a 48-volt motor built into the fourth-generation ZF eight-speed automatic. The M350 is all-wheel drive only, and it comes with a standard rear differential lock and a new front strut brace. Georg also answered the question I care about most: what happens when you turn DSC fully off. The short version is that the “Drift Moment” function sends 100 percent of the power to the rear axle. It will arrive for all cars as an over-the-air update in July 2027. Georg had just returned from winter testing in Sweden, and the way he describes it in the video is worth hearing.

What We Don’t Tell You Here

The video covers much more than this: steering changes that make the car calmer in Comfort and sharper in Sport, the Adaptive M suspension, wheel and seat configurations, a custom Routines app, the new Amazon-based voice assistant, and a surprise about the sunroof that won’t please everyone. I also climbed into the back seat at 1.9 meters tall to see whether I’d fit.

I’ve already driven a camouflaged prototype at BMW’s Miramas proving ground in France, and my first drive review of the M350 xDrive prototype covers the full story. The short version is that it’s a better car than the M340i, and the gap to the G80 M3 has never been this narrow. This video fills in the parts a drive can’t, with the engineers explaining how they got there. I’m now waiting for a production car to find out whether that holds on real roads, and I suspect BMW M would rather people didn’t ask the M3 question out loud.