Electric C-Class vs BMW i3 price: a marker, not a buying guide

$105,700 before on-road costs. That's the figure three Australian motoring sites have put on the electric Mercedes-Benz C-Class, and it lands right in the middle of BMW's new i3 price list.

Some of our viewers will lean in when they see that number. You've watched the premium reviews on EV by Gen Z. Maybe you came over from TechCruise26 after a few years on an e-scooter or an e-bike. Now you're wondering whether your first car with four wheels and a plug could be a German sedan. That viewer is a composite, not one person. The question is real enough to answer properly, though.

So here's what the prices tell you, and the bigger part they don't.

What the prices actually say

The Driven, CarExpert and Chasing Cars all list the Mercedes-Benz C 400 4MATIC from $105,700 before on-road costs. The Driven reports it's the only variant Australia gets at launch.

BMW's new i3 comes in two versions. The Driven lists them as:

• i3 40 xDrive: $96,900 before on-road costs
• i3 50 xDrive: $112,900 before on-road costs

CarExpert and GoAuto cover the same BMW pricing alongside the new 3 Series. CarExpert also did the maths on the gap. The Mercedes sits $8,800 above the cheaper BMW and $7,200 below the dearer one. CarsGuide frames it as the opening round of a contest between the two.

Timing lines up too. The Driven and CarExpert both have the C-Class Electric reaching Australian showrooms in early 2027, and The Driven has BMW i3 deliveries starting in the first quarter of 2027.

Put that together and you get a clear marker. Two premium brands think a mid-size electric sedan belongs at roughly $97,000 to $113,000 before on-road costs in this market. If you're premium-curious, that's the useful part. It tells you what bracket you're shopping in before anyone has driven either car here.

Why it isn't a buying guide yet

Neither car is on sale. There's no Australian review of either one to go on. And the Mercedes range figures in the coverage so far don't match from one outlet to the next, which is reason enough not to quote any of them yet.

A price list is where the conversation starts. It's not where it ends.

For a first EV, the sticker is one line on a longer list. What matters more is what the car does between chargers on the roads you actually drive. Which plugs it takes. How it behaves on your regular run, whether that's the Bruce Highway on a Friday afternoon or the drive out to the in-laws on a Sunday. A press release can't answer any of that, and nobody can until the cars are here and someone puts real kilometres on them.

I'm not going to tell you either of these is a sensible first EV, or that one beats the other. There's nothing to base that on yet.

Two things that will catch first-time buyers out

The first is the name. The new i3 isn't the little i3 hatchback BMW used to sell. WhichCar reports it's the second Neue Klasse model after the iX3, and it's a sedan. Search the used listings for "BMW i3" and you'll get the old car. Prices and owner reviews for that one tell you nothing about this one. If you're reading forums or watching older videos, check which i3 they mean before you take anything from them.

The second is options. $105,700 is the Mercedes before you tick any boxes. The Driven lists two option packages:

• the Agility and Comfort Package at $5,200, which adds air suspension and rear-axle steering
• a second package at $8,200

Add both and the sticker reads $119,100 before on-road costs. That's above the dearer BMW, so when the full spec sheets are out, compare like with like rather than base price against base price.

What to do while you wait

My take is simple. Write the numbers down and wait for the cars. Once there are real ones to drive, the sticker matters less than what the car does on your roads, between the chargers you'll actually use.

You can do the groundwork now, though. Make a shortlist that includes cars already on sale near that price, so you've got something to measure the newcomers against when they arrive. Work out which connectors each one takes and where those chargers sit along your usual routes. Then, when the C-Class Electric and the new i3 have proper Australian specs, put them in the same comparison.

That's the job Charge Nomad does while you're still shortlisting, and we built it at EV by Gen Z for exactly this stage. The vehicle catalogue holds more than 300 EVs with WLTP specs, weighted to what sells in Australia and New Zealand, and Compare Vehicles is one of the free tools. When a new car isn't in the catalogue yet, you can add it as a custom vehicle once its real specs are out. The charger map then shows which plugs suit that exact car, and you can filter by connector type, power output and network. The map, Compare Vehicles and Stranded mode are free on iPhone and Android, with no ads anywhere in the app. Charge Nomad+ adds the Route Planner, the Range Estimator and more than one car in your garage. On iPhone in Australia that's $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year, with a 7 day free trial on the monthly plan. On Android there's a 7 day free trial on the monthly plan and the price is shown in Google Play. Prices vary by country.

It won't pick the German sedan for you. It doesn't show whether a charger is free right now either, and no app should promise that here. What it does is put a car you're considering next to the chargers it can actually use.

See what the app actually does before you download it: evbygenz.com/app

If one of these two is on your shortlist, what do you want us to test first when they land?