The new BMW X3 has been teased testing in North Sweden near the town of Arjeplog, to fine tune the new SUV’s traction and stability systems.

BMW HAS BEEN sharing the ice in North Sweden with Kia which recently teased its Stinger GT playing in the snow. BMW has released images of the X3 getting sideways and testing out the car’s reliability, suspension, steering, traction and stability control systems on the even surfaces of frozen lakes at -20-degrees C.

“The extensive ice surfaces of frozen lakes and the numerous remote roads with their firmly packed layers of snow offer excellent conditions for fine tuning of the settings activated via the Driving Experience Control function,” BMW said in a statement accompanying the images.

“As a result, engineers are in a position to sense the vehicle’s dynamic behaviour much more accurately and synchronize the control of driver assistant systems such as Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) or Dynamic Traction Control (DTC) even more precisely and to attune it to the vehicle as a whole.”

The rumour mill is suggesting the new X3 will share its platform with the new BMW 5 Series and should end up being somewhere between 50-100kg lighter than the current model. The engine line-up is still unknown at this stage, but it’s expected it’ll keep its current engines (albeit tweaked) and will also be available with a hybrid engine, but that’s pure conjecture at this stage.

It’s expected we’ll see the production ready X3 later this year with a global reveal expected sometime early next year.