- BMW iX3 went the furthest of any EV in Norway’s summer test.
- Xpeng X9 minivan beat its official range by a wide margin.
- Most of the 24 EVs barely strayed from their stated range figures.
Most modern EVs look like long-haul champions on the spec sheet, but the paper numbers and the real world don’t always shake hands. The Norwegian Automobile Federation (NAF) and its independent membership magazine Motor are back with the bi-annual “El Prix” range test, putting 24 electric models through their paces to see which ones live up to their official WLTP ratings, and which ones fall flat.
This round was run under the kindest conditions an EV could ask for. NAF conducted the test during the Norwegian summer, with dry roads and temperatures hovering between 12 and 18°C (53.6 to 64.4°F).
More: EV Range Claims Still Sound Great, Until Freezing Temps Hit
The standout was the new BMW iX3 50 xDrive, which covered 781 km (485 miles) on a single charge. That’s not just close to its claim, it’s 1.5 percent beyond its official WLTP figure and a hefty 11.7 percent more than its advertised EPA range.
Predictably, the new iX3 posted a much higher range figure than the model it replaces. Even so, NAF points out that the previous-gen iX3 tested back in 2021 still holds the all-time summer record for positive deviation, beating its rating by 23.5 percent with 556 km (345 miles) of range.
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As for the ultimate record for the longest range, it belongs to the Lucid Air that achieved 832 km (517 miles) in the summer of 2025. This year Lucid showed up with the Gravity SUV instead, which ran for 720 km (447 miles) before the battery gave out, falling 3.7 percent short of its expected figure.
The BMW drove the furthest, but the most impressive result of the year came from the XPeng X9. The Chinese minivan posted a real-world range of 646 km (401 miles), beating its WLTP rating of 580 km (360 miles) by 11.4 percent. That kind of overachievement is nothing new for XPeng, as the G9 SUV topped its advertised range by 13 percent back in the 2023 test.
More: This EV’s Real Range Misses By 23% But That’s Not The Worst Part
At the opposite end sat another Chinese model, the MG IM6 sedan, which managed just 446 km (277 miles), falling 11.7 percent short of its WLTP figure. Nils Sødal, senior communications adviser at NAF, said the result caught the team off guard: “We were surprised to see such a large negative deviation for this MG, especially when the other MG model, the S6, achieved a positive deviation of 3.4 per cent.”
The rest of the field stayed within a tight band, deviating from their stated range by anywhere from -5.7 to +5.4 percent, helped along by the dry roads and mild summer temperatures.
Interestingly, the facelifted Toyota bZ4X perfectly matched its WLTP figure of 506 km (314 miles) on the real-world test. However, the driver stated that the Japanese model showed 0% remaining battery 18 km (11 miles) before it actually ran dry. Keep in mind that NAF pushes these EVs to their absolute limit, driving each one until it’s completely discharged.
Below you can see the results for the full batch of 24 EVs that took part in the summer 2026 edition of the “El Prix,” ranked from the longest to the shortest range on a single charge.
Test Results
