Car and Motorcycle

Styling

The all-electric BMW i3 is a marvel of lightweight aerodynamic design and electric efficiency. But, in order to succeed in the marketplace, cars have to appeal on a visual and emotional level. Opinion is divided on whether or not the i3 achieves the level of appeal granted to most Bimmers. Hannah Elliot, Forbes staff writer, said, “It’s not exactly ugly but it doesn’t exactly offer the taut, sporty appeal of a M3 or a Z4, either.”
Historically, designers have had a hard time finding an attractive design for a small electric city car—as evidenced by the design of cars like the i3, Spark EV, and Scion iQ EV. Perhaps the most successful small EV design is the electric version of the Fiat 500, especially when decked out in a striking color combination.
The i3 is short. But it's a bit taller than many other cars, and very wide for a car this length. The high seating position has been equated to that of a mini SUV. The car's dimensions are 157.4 inches long, 69.9 inches wide, and 62.1 inches high. So it's unusual from any angle, and it has so many unique details. Striking features include large U-shaped LED daylights, smoothly integrated rear lights, and a broken belt line with the rear door window lower than the front one. The BMW i3 can't be mistaken for any other car on the road.
To BMW loyalists, the biggest difference is probably in the dashboard. Or the lack of it. In any other BMW car, there's a large instrument cluster, with two easy-to-read round dials. What you get in the i3 is a smallish screen, barely larger than a smartphone. There's a 10.2-inch screen for the navigation system, but the one in front of the driver is about 6 inches wide and only 1.5 inches high. The upper part of the dashboard and the door panels are made of kenaf fibers, and it looks like something halfway between charcoal and mouse fur. Depending on whom you ask, it's either weird or cool, but everybody will agree that it's a break from the past. The material is soft and warm to the touch.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and we shouldn’t rush to judgment on 2014 BMW i3 design, until we see more of them in the wild. Maybe the i3 will look fresh and exciting in the context of the road. Maybe it could even be a cult hit. Or it might take a generation or two for BMW to get the design of an all-electric city car to have all the appeal of the company's more attractive gas-powered sedans. Performance

Our early experiences behind the wheel of i3 were not totally novel, because the i3 shares its drivetrain with BMW’s earlier test platform for electric cars, the ActiveE. The heavy Maglev-like ActiveE offered a vivid drive—but the i3 is lighter and more aerodynamic, and the aluminum chassis (with carbon fiber passenger cell) was purpose-built for the car. So it feels much faster.
BMW says the i3’s 125-kilowatt electric motor driving the rear wheels produces 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. That’s good for 7.2 seconds to 60 mph. Like the Tesla Model S, it takes off with an uncanny burst of quiet power. There are massive amounts of dialed-in regenerative braking, as there was in the ActiveE and MiniE, but the i3 feels far more stable and controlled. It’s one-pedal driving at its best. Lift off the accelerator, and it rapidly sheds speed and comes to rest, as the charge indicator shows you’re feeding the battery pack.
There’s no “creep,” so you don’t need the brakes to stay in place. The BMW i3 does offer a "glide" feature, intended to allow the car to coast (without regen braking), which can be effective on long down-sloped stretches of highway. Unfortunately, the glide feature—activated by finding a sweet spot on the accelerator pedal—can be difficult to achieve.
All in all, the i3 feels part of the “ultimate driving machine” stable, with balanced responsive steering, taut ride, and very tight turning radius. This is one exciting city commuter car, even as the light weight and thin low-resistance tires put passengers in direct contact with bumps and uneven road surfaces. Efficiency/Range

The i3 is powered by a 22 kilowatt-hour 450-pound-lithium ion battery pack, mounted flat in the i3’s aluminum drive module. According to BMW, the usable capacity is nearly 19 kilowatt-hours. Given the car's lightweight carbon fiber structure, the i3 is likely to push efficiency to 4 miles per kilowatt-hour or more—the higher end of EV capability. This adds up to a realistic driving range of about 80 miles on a full charge.
The real-world range of 80 miles is verified by the first owners of the i3, who expressed disappointment that BMW did not deliver a true 100-mile EV as suggested by the company prior to market introduction. Another shortcoming is the lack of a detailed state-of-charge dashboard meter. Instead, the dash merely shows four bars that diminish over time.

The EPA gave the i3 an official range rating of 81 miles. In terms of efficiency, it assigned these values: 138 MPGe city, 111 hwy, and 124 for combined mileage. Those numbers are for the pure EV version. The i3 with range-extender is rated at 117 MPGe combined, and 39 MPG using "gasoline only."
Very cold and hot weather should not have an extreme impact on the i3’s range. That’s because the battery pack is kept close to an optimum temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit, thanks to an active liquid thermal management system. BMW said the battery pack can either be cooled using the car’s air conditioner, or warmed using the car’s heat-exchange heating system. Like other cars with active thermal management, BMW said the battery pack can be pre-warmed before a trip to ensure maximum performance, range and battery life.
For drivers who think the on-board battery pack capability isn’t enough to assuage range anxiety, BMW sells the i3 with an optional two-cylinder, 650cc gasoline range extender.
In the United States, the range-extender turns on when the state of charge drops below 6 percent. Unlike the European version, the operator cannot manually turn on the engine to maintain a higher level of charge. In Europe, once the state of charge drops below 75 percent, the range extender can be turned on manually. Learn more about

With a tiny gasoline tank providing fuel, BMW intends the range-extender to be used occasionally, turning a single charge plus a 1.9 gallon tank of gasoline into an additional 60 to 80 miles of range beyond the 80 or so miles that the battery pack provides.

For trips beyond the range of the i3, BMW announced that it will make gasoline cars available to i3 owners as part of its BMW i3 mobility package. For situations when a customer runs out of charge and has no range-extending engine, BMW says Mobile Service vehicles will be able to assist stranded cars, carrying enough on-board power to safely get stranded i3 owners to the nearest charging station.

The range-extending engine, again, only holds 1.9 gallons of gas, so it's going to need regular fill-ups if you use it a lot. Charging
The i3 makes use of the Combo SAE J1772 connector, allowing it to charge from one the many Level 2 AC home charging station. See our guide for buying your first station.
The SAE combo cord also makes the i3 accessible to 50-kilowatt DC Quick charge stations that are capable of refilling the car’s battery pack to 80 percent full in around 20 to 30 minutes. As of July 2014, fewer than 10 public DC Quick Charging stations in the entire United States have connectors compatible with the SAE standard—but that will change over time. Besides, 90 percent or more of EV charging takes place at home.
The good news is that BMW engineers equipped the i3 with an onboard charging system that nominally can handle 7.7 kilowatts. That high Level 2 rate can be difficult to supply via household power, but even at around 6.6 kilowatts, it means an hour’s worth of charging adds about 20 to 25 miles of driving. It doubles the added range in an hour from EVs outfitted with an anemic 3.3-kW charger. Passenger/Cargo Room

Oliver Walter, project manager BMW i, in an interview with PluginCars.com at the 2013 Los Angeles Auto Show, said, “The BMW i3 is about the exterior size of a BMW 1-series, but has the interior roominess of a 3-series, and the quality of materials and luxury features of a 5-series.”
Precise measurements are not quite so clear on that matter. The trunk of a 3-series is 13 cubic feet. With a full load of passengers, the four-seat car offers a modest 9.18 cubic feet of cargo space. Yet, when the rear seats of the hatch are folded down, an additional 29 cubic feet of space become available. The car certainly has a lot more room inside than you would expect from a quick curbside view.
The quality of the interior, with its retrained quasi-Scandinavian feel, premium materials, and Teutonic attention to detail, puts the electric competition to shame. The interior of the i3, with its sculpted wood dashboard and floating navigation monitor, is gorgeous. There have been some complaints that reflections from the dashboard material generates a lot of glare on the windshield.
A questionable design decision that affects passenger comfort is the use of rear-hinged “coach” doors. If getting into the back by yourself, first you open the front door; then the back door; then you need to stretch way forward to close the front door—a process requiring even stronger yoga skills in reverse. Sure, it’s not that often that you’re sitting in the back for long without the driver getting in, but it does happen.
Here’s something else: those back windows do not open at all. No roll down and no venting hinge. Also, front passengers cannot be buckled into a seat belt if another passenger wants to get in back. The seat belts are harnessed to the small back door—try to get in while the driver is buckled, and you give him or her a squeeze. Make the mistake of closing the front door first, and the back door awkwardly squishes into the front door. Safety

The carbon fiber body of the i3 is as strong as steel, but it’s 50 percent lighter. The goal of shifting to carbon fiber is improved efficiency—and increased EV range. But is it safe?
U.S. agencies have not yet released safety ratings for the i3—but in November 2013, the i3 scored four out of a possible five stars in a EuroNCAP safety test. The small EV failed to earn the top rating after scoring 57 percent in the pedestrian safety test due to a "poor" front edge to the hood evaluation, as well as disappointing results recorded at the base of the windshield and along the "stiff" windshield pillars. EuroNCAP noted that the i3 met test requirements by offering electronic stability control as standard equipment, but that it lacked seat belt reminders in the rear of the car.
These results are not terrible, but have raised some concerns. Yet, critically, the i3 scored maximum points with good protection of all body regions.
BMW i3 uses a wide range of high-tech and network services to enhance safety. With Driving Assistant Plus, and optional feature, the BMW i3 provides collision warning—and can automatically maintain speed and distance in city traffic up to about 25 miles per hour. The optional Park Assistant makes parking more convenient.

  Price

The BMW i3, the company’s first all-electric production car—carries a starting price tag of $42,275 before incentives. (The MSRP consists of a base price of $41,350, plus a mandatory destination fee of $925.)
The i3 is eligible for the same $7,500 federal tax credit as other plug-in cars on sale in the U.S. today. Add local incentives and residents in California will be able to pick up a brand new i3 for as little as $33,000, while those in Colorado—where state legislation offers plug-in car drivers up to $6,000 in tax credits—will be able to buy an i3 for $28,775.
The official pricing of the all-electric i3 puts it toward the high-end of the electric vehicle market, making it the most expensive all-electric four-seat car on the market today. The i3 version with the range-extended engine pushes the price to $45,300 (plus destination). In other words, the cost of easing range anxiety is $3,950.
BMW executives say they expect about half of buyers to opt for the Rex version. Be advised that there is a limit to the number of green HOV stickers that are allocated for plug-in cars that have any sort of engine. The green HOV stickers, like the unlimited number of white stickers granted to pure EVs, allow solo driving in the carpool lane. But there is no guarantee that, by the time you apply for a green sticker for the i3, stickers will still be available.
There are several trim levels for the i3, including the base Mega World—and the mid-level Giga World—adding larger wheels, a partial leather interior, sunroof and satellite radio, and tacking on $1,700 to the purchase price. The top of the line Tera World, for $2,700 over base, adds full leather, unique 19-inch wheels and "anthracite floor mats." The parking package costs $1,000, while the Technology & Driver Assistant option adds $2,500 more to the total. Additional convenience and entertainment options can easily send the price of the i3 above $50,000.

The smooth, swift and silent drive characteristics of all EVs give them a quasi-luxury feel. But the i3 is the first electric car from a full-scale well-established luxury brand. Of course, the Tesla Model S is a luxury automobile, but its sticker price—which can approach or exceed six figures—puts it in a different cost category than the i3. The Cadillac ELR, also considerably pricier than the i3 and a four-seater, is a larger sports-oriented luxury vehicle—also not really in the same category as the urban small i3. Even though it costs more, it feels cheaper in terms of quality and design.
The closest competitor has yet to arrive: the Mercedes B-Class Electric Drive. They are both premium electric vehicles from German manufacturers, and they have a very similar range and price. They are both hatchbacks, although the Benz seats five and is larger than the BMW.
When you look at an i3, it’s clear that BMW did everything they could to reduce weight and increase efficiency. With the B-Class, there isn’t any evidence to suggest that weight savings were considered. In fact, the electric B-Class will weigh about 250 pounds more than a European B-Class Diesel, which means the B-Class Electric Drive should tip the scales at about 3,900 pounds.
Mercedes will also offer a full line of options and interior trim packages for the B-Class EV, the same as any car it sells. The B-Class EV has a 28 kilowatt-hour battery pack—compared to the i3’s 22 kWh pack. (Actually, with the flip of a button, the Mercedes EV's pack extends to 31.5 kilowatt-hours. That's more than 40 percent bigger. So despite the weight penalty, the larger battery pack on the Mercedes will mean at least another five to 10 miles on a full charge.
Purchase Process

Start your purchase of the BMW i3 by visiting a local dealership or clicking on the “Build Your Own” button on the Production is underway, but as BMW executives told us in November 2013, the wait for those who already placed orders could mean deliveries throughout the spring and summer.
If the i3 follows the pattern of previous new EVs to the market, the current wait of about six months will continue until the list of “early adopters” dwindles, at which time waiting lists will decrease to just a couple months. It could take close to a year before inventory is available enough to buy an i3 at a dealership, and simply drive off the lot. Until then, consumers will place orders ahead of time, and wait for a delivery.