This is not your local electricity provider’s Nissan Leaf. It is not your eclectic neighbour’s Chevrolet Volt. It is not your own personal Toyota Prius Plug-In.
The BMW i3 has a base price of $42,300 (destination and handling included) and is driven up to $46,150 with a range-extending 647cc 2-cylinder. To avoid the ghastly base wheels, you’ll move to either a $1700 or $2700 trim lines. BMW calls them Worlds – Mega, Giga, and Tera – although the base Mega clearly isn’t mega at all. It can be optioned like expensive German cars can always be optioned, with $1300 20-inch wheels and $550 metallic paint and a $1000 parking assistant and a $2500 driving assistant. Even on the high-end Tera, heated seats cost $350 extra, Harmon/Kardon audio is $800, and fast charging is $700. Along with BMW’s i charging station for $1080, this all adds up to $57,130.
It’ll be rare then, a car like this. And it was, in its first three months on sale in the United States.
Total May/June/July sales equalled 1057 units, a period in which Toyota reported 5634 U.S. Prius Plug-In sales and Lexus sold 5262 CT hatchbacks.
But then in August the i3 took off, relatively speaking. BMW reported 1025 i3 sales last month, more than the 2-Series and X4 combined, more than the 6-Series and 7-Series combined.
Compared with the 51,075 Accords Honda sold in a record-setting month, that’s a small number. It’s one-fiftieth the number.
Compared with the number of Prius Plug-Ins sold, on the other hand, it’s a strong number, a number that’s 207 units stronger. Mercedes-Benz reported 51 August sales of its B-Class EV.
August was but one month, a month which follows a period in which i3s were hard to access, as there was originally a delay as cars waited for window stickers. But the i3 is turning out to be a surprising global success for BMW, a company which in a manner of speaking, co-brands itself when the nomenclature of its cars begin with a lower-case i.
It’s as if they’re saying, “We are BMW, but we are also something else.” Historically, the BMW part of that equation has been a desirable one for consumers. Apparently, the latter part of the equation is also enticing, as BMW dramatically increased production of the i3, a car for which early demand has been much stronger than BMW’s initial forecasts.
Early demand sounds like the key phrase. There is a belief that the most avid statement-making green cars have a shelf life, as evidenced by the Chevrolet Volt’s steady decline. GM averaged 2080 monthly Volt sales between September 2012 and August of last year (when Volt volume peaked at 3351 units) and just 1771 per month since then. On the other hand, the Nissan Leaf, which has been on sale for nearly four full years, has topped 3000 monthly sales in three of the last four months, having reported record sales in May and then again in August.
The i3, remember, isn’t a Volt. It’s not a Leaf. It’s not a 3-Series ActiveHybrid. It’s something entirely different, and not just because of its lofty sticker price. Maybe the olive leaf-tanned leather, eucalyptus wood, and rear-hinged rear doors prematurely gave that away.
My buddy is a salesman at the local BMW dealership (SE US) and they aren’t moving them well here. He asked me to drive one for 3 days as a part of some marketing program. They will be contacting me for a survey afterwards. I think my family is smack dab in the middle of their target market for it so signing me up is good for him. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. I’m supposed to pick it up late this afternoon.
Here are three:
Are rear passengers able to see much? It seems like the rear door hinge and pillar are right where your face would be when sitting back there.
What kind of storage space has it got in the back? Looks like it would be almost none.
Are you forced to mix leather with tweedy fabric as pictured? I don’t think companies should be able to claim a leather interior if that is the case.
After 2 days, some thoughts:
Sightline is a little wacky for passengers, but it isn’t terrible.
The space int he back fits paper grocery bags. Probably 6-7 side by side. That’s my litmus test. I bought 3 bags worth at whole foods today (I know I know) and plugged it in while I was inside; about 20 minutes. I had 6 more miles of electric juice when I was done.
I can’t speak to the interior options. The one I have has nav but no wood and mix of leather and fabric and stickers for 48k.
Can you drive it normally in range extending mode like you would in EV mode? What is the battery range?
The battery range is about 60 miles. After that the engine comes on and you have 2 gallons at 40 mpg according to the epa. I ran out the electric today and it switched with no fuss. Makes a little more noise but not much.
It is a super fun little car to drive. Like a go cart. Quick, nimble, tight, quiet. Don’t know that I’d every have 50g’s I wanted to dedicate to an electric runabout, but if I did it is pretty slick. The extender would be a must where I live because there aren’t many charging stations.
The i3 driving experience is supposed to be pretty good.
But the price is far too high and the interior is far too small. And its goofy appearance makes the Leaf seem mainstream.
That indeed is VERY costly for a small (tiny) electric hybrid.
Orange paint looks nice though, and I like those particular wheels. And the floating wood plank console.
And the range-extender has only a 2 gallon tank for an extra 80 miles of range? What were they thinking?
An engine that small only gets 40mpg?
I would expect that in range-extender mode (when the battery is unavailable), the engine is running at peak output or very close to it. In that regards, this behaves more like an aircraft engine than a car engine.
The proof is in the mileage number. 40 mpg sounds about right for a car of this weight and aerodynamics.
40 MPG sounds pretty good t me. People get wrapped around the spoke sometimes and forget that the fuel economy in range extending mode isn’t that important to a point. Like the Volt, this thing is meant to be driven as an EV 95% of the time or better. In an ICE biased vehicle like the Prius or PIP, that is running it’s gas engine constantly, MPG is more critical. Still for most, a car like the BMW or Volt will run cheaper per mile than a Prius. And the driving experience is heads and tails better than the Toyota.
80 miles should be more than enough to get you to the next gas station.
Sure, 80 miles will get you to the next gas station. The problem is, if you take it out of town, you’ll also be stopping at the next gas station after that… and the next… and the next…
A range-extender should turn an 80-mile EV into a practical car for at least modest road trips, thus making it a practical choice for a one-car single person or married couple. In the i3, it does not. Save your money and buy the next Leaf for the extra EV range.
One of the selling points of the i3 is that you can drop it off at the dealer and pick up an IC loaner car any time you want to take a trip that is outside the i3’s comfort zone.
If your BMW dealer is conveniently located, that’s a pretty good deal. If not – or if you regularly drive long distances – you probably shouldn’t buy an i3.
“If … you probably shouldn’t buy an i3.”
True, so I almost certainly won’t. But a tank just a few gallons larger would put it in contention for far more people at fairly negligible cost.
@KixStart, there’s a very easy answer as to why the fuel tank isn’t bigger — California is the biggest market for these vehicles, and California regulations say if the range extender extends the range of the car more than the electric range is without the extender, it doesn’t qualify for the biggest tax credit or the best HOV sticker. So important is the California market that BMW actually had to decrease the size of the tank from the 2.4 gallons the rest of the world gets to only 1.9 gallons because with a 2.4 gallon tank the combined range was too far.
The purpose of the range extender is so it’s there if you need it. Maybe you forgot to charge, or charging was interrupted, or you had to take an unexpected longer trip than normal. Whatever. The majority of the time, a 160 mile combined range is more than enough to get you from one charge to the next. It’s not intended to be used as the primary method of propulsion, HOWEVER, if you didn’t mind stopping for 2 minutes every hour and a half to put 1.9 gallons of gas in the car, you technically could drive across the country without having to follow any special routes to brand specific charging stations.
+1 These are runabout cars, not long-distance road-trippers. For comparison, my Z3 gets about 200 miles per tank, just driving locally. Of course, on the highway, where mileage improves to about 26 mpg, that range would be more like 260-280 miles.
EVs are kind of like LEDs. I definitely see plug in hybrids being the future, but the technology needs development. LEDs can be good, but the economics and infrastructure for them isn’t quite there yet.
When Chevy gets the Volt under $30K and can net a profit off of it, the plug in hybrid will have truly arrived.
The average new car transaction price is over $30K, so it’s probably not crucial for Chevy to retail the Volt for less than 30. Hybrids will never be really cheap, if only because they have so many extra components.
While the average new-car average transaction price might be over $30K, the average Volt-sized car does not have an ATP of over $30K. The Cruze and Corolla are bigger and sell for much less. The Mazda 2 probably has more useful interior/cargo space and sells for something like $14K.
You can’t compare apples tp oranges. Neither the Cruze or Corolla can run on electricty. Lots of people that used to drive luxury brands like a BMW have their butts planted in a Volt. No one trades in their BMW or other luxury car for a Corolla or a Mazda 2. No one.
Sure I can. It’s a Chevy and it’s a compact car and it’s got something like 50K taxpayer-assisted sales. This hardly qualifies as “lots of people” and most of the trades were (claimed to be) Priuses, hardly a “luxury brand.”
It’s a car for EV zealots. While there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with addressing that market, it’s still a Chevy and it’s still a $35K compact car. When the tax credits run out and/or the EV Zealot market dries up, it’s going to be competing with something smaller than the Prius C on space and the Avalon on price. I don’t see a bright future in that.
Almost the entire market is perfectly happy with gasoline engines and a considerable slice of the market appears not to care about fuel cost at all.
“Almost the entire market is perfectly happy with gasoline engines and a considerable slice of the market appears not to care about fuel cost at all.”
“We have these here buggy whips, and they are huge sellers. No reason to ever consider that they might be going out of style.”
@kixstart – Sure bitch about the tax-payer assisted sales for the Chevy Volt( Apples). I guess in your world the U.S. tax-payer assisted sales of the Japanese Prius is oranges.
One could argue that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the direct result of the US government’s attempts to guarantee its supply of oil.
$7,500 tax credits are a drop in that bucket.
In what way is it something entirely different? Is that just BMW PR? With the gas engine, it’s nearest to Prius, and without it’s of course a Leaf.
So where’s the big shock?
It is really nothing like the Prius. It most closely resembles the Volt. BMW hired one of the main players from GM who worked on the Volt.
It doesn’t even resemble the Volt all that much. The Volt has a car-sized, much bigger engine and is not pure serial, where this uses a tiny motorcycle engine and is purely serial (no mechanical connection to the drivetrain). The Volt is closer to the Prius than it is to this.
No the Volt is not closer to the Prius. The Prius is an ICE vehicle with electric assist. Both the Volt & BMW w/the range extender are EV’s with gas assist. Neither the Volt or i3 need the power from their gas engine to accelerate or keep them at speed as long as the battery has juice. The same cannot be said for the Prius or Plug-in Prius. The biggest complaint about the PIP is how easily and often it kicks its gas engine on when the battery still has juice.
>> So where’s the big shock?
It’s carbon fiber and aluminum. Accelerates and handles better than a LEAF or Prius.
The carbon fiber is a valid point, since there aren’t many cars (or any?) under $100k featuring carbon fiber construction.
However the aluminum and handling and 40mpg are handled by larger cars at a smaller price and without electric punishment!
But I’m not the target market for this sort of thing. I simply don’t care about economy and stylish eco-nessbaggery that much.
Try driving an electric. I definitely don’t consider it punishment. The instant torque is really addictive.
It fills a to-date empty niche. It has the same EV range as a Leaf, but the optional REX addresses the complaint many people have about EV range anxiety.
BMW proclaims the carbon fiber design as innovative, but TTAC is that it’s the only way they could achieve the decent performance & range they wanted. Thus the high price.
By comparison, a Leaf is much cheaper, but it’s made of steel and aluminum, with the same range but no REX, and a larger interior. Pick your poison.
I’ve driven one for a few days, along with the other electrics on the market. The i3 feels like an upscale Leaf, more than anything else. It’s powertrain isn’t all that different, and the driving dynamics are, well, analogous to ICE-powered Nissan vs BMW compacts, honestly.
While i3 is exceptionally nice and well thought-out inside and out, functionally it’s basically a posh Leaf for badge snobs. I do commend BMW for making the range extender optional (I got an electric car to distance myself from the drawbacks on combustion engines, and I’ll be damned if I’m do an oil change for it) and for making strides with green construction and a carbon fiber monocoque in a mass-market(ish) car, but it’s wholly too expensive to be a continued success, especially with Nissan years ahead on development and with a new, improved Leaf coming out that may have range enough to appeal more broadly and do away with hand wringing over range anxiety.
Regardless, it’s a nice car for those with enough dosh to put one in their driveway. I’d choose it over a Leaf if money were no object, if only for the lovely and daring interior design.
@bosozoku
How was it in terms of performance? I’m sure it wasn’t a sports car by any means, but was it at least fun to drive?
Wow. If they sold 50 of those things I’d call the sales “surprisingly strong”. What a colossal waste of money. But it’s a BMW or something. Of course, when I first saw one of the lilliputian appliances, I was at the dealer test driving a fuel-saving diesel X5. At $69,000 (yeah, I wanted leather and keyless entry), it gets pretty good fuel mileage for a mid-size SUV. I calculated it’ll save me $200/year in fuel alone.
Those fuel savings will help offset the higher maintenance, repair and insurance costs of the diesel. My buddy bought an Audi SUV diesel because he thinks he’s gonna save all this money. Like you, he’ll eventually figure it out!….LOL
Wow, $17 per month fuel savings…from a $69,000 car.
Irrationality, thy name is Diesel.
There’s an old saying: Penny wise and pound foolish. Worrying about $200 per year in fuel savings when spending $69,000 on a vehicle seems to fit that saying to a tee.
The diesel option makes sense in European markets with fuel prices often 2-3x those in North America (or more). But here in the States they seem to be just the latest edition of smuggy badge snobbery, the higher-end, slightly less committed “eco” badge.
So then I thought that maybe an X3 would be a better deal. But, you know, leather and metallic paint… I gave it almost as many options as a $31K Subaru Outback and I was up to $49K. And they’ll graciously give me $10K under wholesale bluebook for my BMW trade-in. I’m done with BMW.
Ugliest damn thing since the Aztek. And WAY overpriced to boot. $57,130? Are you kidding me?
First, that’s for a fully loaded one, and it’s before about $10k in tax credits. But by all means, please share with us another carbon fiber car even remotely close pricewise, let alone a carbon fiber electric car from a high end brand. Go on, we’ll wait.
i’ve driven an i3 and I have to say that while it’s not worth $50k in my book, it is a serious leap forward for EV’s. It’s probably the first EV (and I’m counting the Teslas) that really rethinks what a car can when you get rid of the IC engine. Every car you’ve ever been in has been built around an internal combustion engine and all the trimmings that comes with it and all the internal packaging issues that every car designer knows by heart. the i3 is so different in that respect, that you really do feel like you’re driving something from the future. I could see why people would want one.
A future of ugly.
“Every car you’ve ever been in has been built around an internal combustion engine”
Except for the Leaf, Tesla, and Volt.
“Except for the Leaf, Tesla, and Volt.”
Last I checked, the Volt has an ICE.
Of course it does, but Chevy supposed built it around the EV part. I may have that wrong.
They had to use an existing platform for the Volt designed around an ICE vehicle so take that for what’s it worth.
Even the Gen 2 Volt will use the same platform as the ICE Cruze, but at least it was designed with the Volt in mind, so they got it 1/2 right. Maybe.
As do many i3s. The ICE there is pulled directly out of a BMW C650 scooter, and if you order a model without it all that space it would fill is just left empty. Clearly the i3, albeit in a different way, was also designed around an ICE.
Gentlemen: Let’s not forget snob appeal. If this i3 were made by Kia, do you think people would pay 40K plus for it? But since it has a BMW name plate on it, there are those who will purchase this vehicle as an example of how smart and successful they are. Does anyone remember the story, “The King has no clothes?”
Snob appeal + environmental smugness? Seems like a winning formula to me.
Snobbery and smugness is not limited to people that buy hybrids and EVs. I see it with plenty of other types of vehicles.
Right. The i3 blends the snobbery that follows expensive German badges with environmental smugness that used to be exclusive to lower end marques, like Toyota for example. I think they’ve found a nice little niche, a subset of buyers that wants the smugness of a car that’s visibly eco-conscious but also wants the brand cachet of a high end marque to show status over the the plebes driving hybrid/EV models from mainstream brands. Brilliant really.
Amazing how all these posters act like snobs by denigrating as snobs the people who buy a BMW or Prius.
How about this: you buy what you like, and I’ll do the same. No need to constantly criticize others for exercising their right to choose.
The i3 is the first electric car that is fun to drive and unique enough looking to be identified as a green car and confirm the green status of its owner. It is arguably the most high tech car available for under $100,000 with its all carbon-fiber body, which allows a relatively small and less expensive battery to be installed while still have good acceleration and decent range, and thus appeals to the “high-tech” segment. In comparison the Tesla and Leaf, and various plug-ins look pretty conventional – i.e. regular cars with a battery and electric motor instead of, or in addition to a gasoline engine. Finally, the i3 has the advantage of the BMW badge, which gives it more status to the high income households that tend to be the disproportionate buyers of green cars. I think the i3 looks goofy, and is expensive for a in-town runabout, and hence I wouldn’t buy one, but it is very well positioned for hitting some key segments.
My favorite feature on the i3 is that the active cruise control is capable of handling stop and go traffic. In heavy traffic, all you have to do is steer. That’s worth a lot to some people.
>> The i3 is the first electric car that is fun to drive
I haven’t driven the i3, and only briefly test-drove a Tesla, but I think a Model S would spank the i3 in terms of being fun to drive.
The Tesla accelerates very strongly, but is a bit big for nipping through traffic and tight spaces. It also looks very conventional (i.e. big S-class/Jag sedan), although in a nice way.
The Tesla does not look conventional at all, it looks very upscale.
On the other hand, the i3 looks like a Toyota Yaris.
However, I agree that since the i3 windows are larger on the rear doors than the front, it is a bit unconventional, although it is not in a nice way. More like an Aztek or a Juke.
I’ve seen three so far here in Florida. One was parked in front of a ‘Wildlife and Environmental Art’ boutique, which tells you all you need to know about this vehicle.
Environmental art = sticks in sand?
Wildlife art = rabbit poop in sand?
Yeah. Effectively, “I’m a ditz with a husband who has lots of discretionary income that I have access to and I want to look enlighened about whatever is en vogue but I want to be fabulous while doing so.”
“sticks in sand?”
With that lousy ground clearance, I bet it does.
We had a metric crap-ton of these hit Denver last week for the PGA event, so it was interesting to see what it looks like with a lot of them around in traffic.
They were nice enough to drive around residential and urban streets, but they don’t make very good highway cars. The interior was a nice (if small) place to be for short drives, but I can’t imagine being comfortable in one for more than 15 mins.
Now, they i8 they had… mmmmm….
I disagree. After commuting 20 miles each way in Atlanta for a few days in one, I found the interior to be very comfortable and the car to be quite capable on the interstate. There are no real limitation on the highway, aside from the obvious range issues, where it tracks nicely, doesn’t succumb to crosswinds more than any other cars of its size, and zips along quite smartly at 80 MPH.
How much of that Atlanta commute was actually 80MPH, and how much of it was stop-start that might as well have been surface streets :p
There are probably 2 fundamental issues with my experience. Denver is extremely flat for a city, but if you head west at all, the i3 starts to fall apart a bit. The sharp increase in elevation at highway speed coupled with a large number of curves due to the nature of the road meant that the car was typically straining to keep up 80, and continuous back-and-forth means that chassis issues become apparent quicker (This is still a small-footprint, very heavy car.) Also, at 6’5, I am apparently on the high end of the operator packaging, which was disappointing from a German company.
I’m most impressed with the snap together method of its body and interior construction.
And with the means, and garage to plug it into, I think it would work well here in Chicago as a family commuter appliance.
I was intrigued to hear that while the cars are assembled in Germany, the carbor fiber in the chassis is actually made at a dedicated, hydro-powered plant up in Washington State.
So would I be wrong to assume, if the carbon fiber comes from the US, and the car is built in Germany…
It has to be trucked or railed across the US, and then shipped overseas, and then reshipped back overseas?
Doesn’t the “greeness” of the hydro plant negate itself somewhere?
Or do they not add the majority of the body until its here?
Maybe they’ve also perfected windmill ships, who knows.
Yes, Hummer, the parts and vehicle are transported for, perhaps 10,000 miles. Then the vehicle is used for 200,000 miles, saving tone of energy for 20 times the miles.
Was your expectation that electric vehicles were built in your back yard?
It’s only the dry cloth mat that’s produced in the US. So it’s not a lot of weight and could be easily shipped by fuel efficient air to Germany.
They just use cheap (and green) hydroelectricity to produce the carbon fibres in Washington. That baking process is by far the most energy intensive of the whole production, transport pales against this (btw. for conventional car production transporting coal and iron ore is also not trivial). It’s still carbon fibre yarn when it is shipped to Germany. The weaving, forming and final assembly happens in Germany.
BMW’s carbon thread plant is about 20 miles from the Grand Coulee Dam.
Now, unless the wires go directly from the hydro plant to BMW, and NOWHERE else, then the electricity used is a blend of all the electricity generating plants feeding the grid all over the west.
Just another bullsh*t eco-claim, about par for the average marketing twit whose technical education ended in the 8th grade. Of course, the average person isn’t any more clued in.
Cheap electricity rates in the area are what drew BMW, the horsemanure about the nearby dam was free for exploitation to the great unwashed masses.
BMW ships the reels of carbon fiber to Germany, where all the value-added work is performed, and the graceful i3 is born and set free into the world.
From SGL website: “The area around the Columbia River has the world’s best developed river system. The Wanapum and Priest Rapids dams provide our plant with 100% renewable energy thanks to hydroelectric power. As a result, we have the most sustainable carbon fiber plant in the world.”
Sounds like direct delivery to me…
hmm…wonder what a base with the range extender would lease for? And about the range extender, is the little 2 cylinder up for an occasional long trip so long as I am willing to make the frequent stops for gas? I actually really like it.
I quite like the i3 and, in the right circumstances, would actually buy it. If BMW has found success with this model, I’m happy.
And hey, it’s still RWD. That has to count for something…right?
This car makes a lot of sense for urban use, will guarantee BMW’s existence into the future as a premium brand and will sell very well in CA, OR, WA, NY etc. It will also spur a bunch of sub-genres and copy-cats.
You can bet the CFRP/aluminum technology will make it’s way to the rest of the line. The i8 and i3 are test-beds for their future. I’d like to see a CFRP Z5 with a reconfigured version of the i8 drive-train. The i8 power in a lighter 2 seat roadster package.