BMW i3-MiscInfo+DetailedReviewByVoltOwner(WhyBuyA Volt?!)

[MitchJi]

Hi,

After reading the review-comparisons, my only question is why would anyone buy a Volt?

Almost every quote below is a brief excerpt.

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/07/01...y-performance-advanced-lightweight-materials/

BMW i3 — Great Efficiency & Performance Thanks To Advanced Lightweight Materials

The EPA recently rated BMW’s new all-electric i3 at 124 MPGe, making it the most efficient car in the U.S. market. While this is only nine MPGe better than the comparably sized Nissan LEAF, the i3 upholds BMW’s reputation for manufacturing luxury cars that offer a superior driving experience. How BMW created a car with greater efficiency without sacrificing performance or functionality is mostly due to its holistic design approach and use of advanced lightweight materials.
DESIGNING FROM THE GROUND UP

Unlike many car manufacturers, BMW didn’t take an existing platform and adapt it to electric drive, but designed the i3 from the ground up. Its design in many ways reflects a shift away from traditional car design due to the fundamentally different way an electric vehicle operates. There is no longer an engine or radiator, usually housed under the hood, so there is no need for extra length at the front of the vehicle. Similarly, there is no longer an exhaust system or traditional transmission and thus no need to accommodate these systems under the passenger, sometimes done today through the mound on the floor that runs the length of the interior and separates driver from passenger. But there are a large and relatively hefty battery back, new power electronics, and an electric motor to put somewhere....

As for performance, the i3 is legitimately quick, accelerating from 0 to 60 in 7.4 seconds.

ADVANTAGES OF LIGHTWEIGHTING
The i3 weighs 20 percent lighter than a Nissan LEAF. Our analysis indicates this level of weight reduction would normally provide an efficiency increase equivalent to 18 MPGe over the LEAF’s 115 MPGe, but the performance benefits 8) partially reduced the efficiency benefit. Nonetheless, use of materials that enable low weight with equal or better structural performance allowed BMW to produce a high-performing vehicle while still hitting the impressive mark of 124 MPGe. In addition to the efficiency and performance benefits of lightness, use of lightweight carbon fiber composite in the i3 gave the car some benefits that are not seen in other vehicles.

Since carbon fiber composite is much stiffer and stronger than steel, it was easier for the i3 to eliminate the B-pillar, the vertical support between the front door and rear door. The front doors open normally while the rear doors are hinged at the back. These “coach doors” make it easier to load child car seats, groceries, and more, and contribute to a sense of spaciousness and accessibility.

Another interesting fact about the i3 is its low embodied emissions—the sum of all the emissions during production of the car. Carbon fiber poses a challenge from this standpoint because it is produced from a relatively energy-intensive process. Composite materials are also inherently difficult to recycle and part manufacturing currently produces a lot of excess scrap material that is difficult to reuse. However, BMW has at least partially mitigated these challenges by powering its carbon fiber production plant in Moses Lake, WA, with clean hydro-derived electricity, allowing it to completely avoid combustion of natural gas during the production process...

Chris was actually the first Volt owner in the State of Georgia. Now that his 3 year lease has come to an end, he’s chosen to replace his Volt with a BMW i3:
http://bmwi3.blogspot.com/
Before his purchase:

After driving the i3 four separate times now, I am pretty convinced it provides the driving experience I was hoping for. It's very quick and instantly responsive, has very precise steering and extremely short braking distances. The regenerative braking is nice and strong, although it's slightly weaker than it was on the ActiveE.

http://bmwi3.blogspot.com/2014/06/after-2000-miles-likes.html

After 2,000 Miles: The Likes

Now that I've had my i3 for nearly a month, I'm starting to get a good feel for what I like and what I don't. My initial thought was to do one post with both the likes and dislikes at this point, but after assembling the lists, I realized I wouldn't be able to spend enough time on each topic if I did it that way. Therefore I decided I'd do two consecutive posts, with one for the likes and one for the dislikes. I'm tackling the easy one first, the likes...


Adaptive Cruise Control With Stop & Go: This feature is really useful. It's kind of like locking in on the vehicle in front of you with a tractor beam and letting it pull you along. I've found it great for both low speed and high speed driving and the car will even come to a complete stop and accelerate again once the car in front of you does...

Charging Rate: One of the advantages of having a small battery in your electric vehicle is that it will charge quickly, provided it has a robust onboard charger. The i3 is supposed to be able to accept up to 32 amps @240V which would be about 7.7kW. I haven't seen my charge rate quite that high, but I do seem to be pulling about 6.9kW from my home EVSE. That's good enough to refill a fully discharged battery in about 3.5 hours, or give me roughly 25 miles of range per hour of charging.

The Interior: If the unconventional exterior styling has some people scratching their heads, just tell them to open the doors and take a seat inside. The interior is stunningly beautiful, with well laid out instruments and more space than a car of this size ever deserves to have. The tall body and wide stance allows the i3, which is more than a foot smaller than a 1-Series to have nearly as much interior space as a 3-Series.

The Efficiency: The i3 is the most efficient passenger car available in the US.... I actually did a blog post last week on the subject of efficiency which you can view here.

The Range Extender: I was on the fence for a long time trying to decide whether to get the REx or not. Once it became evident the BEV i3 wouldn't have a real 100 mile range that I could depend on, the REx really became a necessary decision. I'd prefer having a 100 mile EV and a good robust fast charge network, but that will take a few more years, at least here in the North East. For now, the range extender concept works perfectly for me. When I first got the car I purposely didn't charge it so I could fully test the REx performance and it worked even better than I imagined. I did about two hundred miles of driving in REx mode, mostly highway driving at 70 to 75 mph and it was perfectly capable of maintaining the charge. I still haven't had time to really test it by overworking it until it cannot sustain the charge, but I will. The good news is that I'll have to actually try to do that, because it is definitely robust enough to do anything I'll need it to, and that includes 230 mile trips to Vermont....

Collision Warning:

Hill HoldIf the BMW engineers that are responsible for the hill hold on the i3 are reading this I'd like to say something: Bravo! You nailed it!

Soft Speed Limiter:

Acceleration: I saved the best for last. The i3 is really a blast to drive. I have the REx i3 which is about a half a second slower than the BEV and have been timing myself from 0-60 in around 7.6 seconds. It's not Tesla fast, but it is a really a quick little car and is much faster and more fun to drive than my ActiveE was. The instant power in the 10 mph to 50 mph range is amazing and feels quicker than my Porsche Boxster did when accelerating at those speeds. This is indeed a fun car to drive, and drives so much better than anyone would expect just from looking at it.

 

[MitchJi]

Hi,

Dislikes (compared to a Model S the range is poor, but compared with the slightly more expensive Volt it's excellent):
http://bmwi3.blogspot.com/2014/06/after-2000-miles-part-two-dislikes.html

After 2,000 Miles Part Two: Dislikes

I have to say that overall I am very pleased with my i3. It's living up to what I had hoped it would be, and after a month of ownership I'm convinced it was the right electric vehicle choice for me. However that doesn't mean it's perfect. In fact it's far from perfect, but so is every other car out there. As much as I really love my i3, I can probably list a couple dozen things that I would have done differently. Listed below are some of the top things that I'm not particularly fond of.

The Range. So let's just get this out of the way now. I'm disappointed that BMW didn't deliver a real "100 mile" electric vehicle as they had been promising. The 81 mile EPA range on the BEV i3 and the 72 mile rating for the REx, falls a little short in my opinion. If the BEV i3 had an EPA range of 95 miles per charge or greater then I wouldn't have ordered the REx, and I think a lot of others share that opinion. I hope I'm wrong, but I believe this is going to hold back BEV i3 sales significantly. I think 82 miles falls just short of what many US customers will find acceptable for a premium electric vehicle.

No Proper State of Charge Gauge. When I first found out that the i3 wouldn't display the state of charge in numeric form, I was dumbfounded. Instead, the i3 state of charge display is just four bars that slowly erode as the range diminishes, and it displays the predicted amount of miles the car "thinks" you can travel. In other words, a Guess O Meter....

No Battery Temperature Readout. Like the state of charge gauge but to a lessor degree, this is a little puzzling. Maybe the majority of i3 owners might not really care what their battery temperature is, but I do and I know quite a few others who do too....

Glide Position Difficult to Achieve and Maintain. BMW describes the i3's glide feature as such: "The BMW i3’s accelerator has a distinct “neutral” position; i.e. rather than switching straight to energy recuperation when the driver eases off the accelerator, the electric motor uses zero torque control to decouple from the drivetrain and deploy only the available kinetic energy for propulsion. In this mode, the BMW i3 glides along using virtually no energy at all." I've only had the car for a month, but it seems more difficult to find the glide (or coasting) position and then hold it, than it was on the ActiveE. A few years ago I was talking with a BMW engineer about this and I suggested there be a switch to turn off regen completely if the driver wished. I would prefer to do this on long, high speed highway driving where I want to coast as much as possible. I was told that they probably wouldn't offer such a switch to disable it because they would be worried the driver would forget they deactivated the regen, and possibly have an accident because they expected it to engage later on. I still think this would be a good solution for maximizing efficiency by coasting at higher speeds.

Windshield Glare. The majority of the top deck of the dashboard is made of compressed kenaf fibers. The use of this material has garnered some criticism because some people think it looks cheap, and not worthy of being in a car made by a premium automaker. I actually like the look of it but what I don't like is that in direct sunlight I can see the reflection of the entire dashboard up on the windshield. After a few weeks I'm getting used to it and it isn't as annoying as it was when I first noticed it, but it definitely isn't ideal. The shiny kenaf surface does cast a pretty clear reflection on bright, sunny days.

No AM Radio. I like to listen to AM talk radio and I am a Mets fan (unfortunately). Mets games are only broadcast on AM so I was disappointed to find out that i3 doesn't have an AM radio. BMW spokesman Dave Buchko recently told Jim Motavalli the reasoning for excluding the AM radio was primarily due to interference from the electric motor: “We learned from our experience with MINI E and BMW ActiveE that the electric motor causes interference with the AM signal. Rather than frustrate customers with inferior reception, the decision was made to leave it off. HD Radio is standard on the i3 and through multi-casting, many traditional AM stations in key markets are available on secondary and tertiary HD signals.” I admit the AM radio in the MINI-E had really bad interference, so much so that I rarely listened to it, but it wasn't bad on the ActiveE. Other electric cars have AM radios and they don't seem to be all that bad. This is a little bit of a head-scratcher to me. I'm learning to live without it, but why should I have to?

The Thin Tires Can Get Caught in Pavement Grooves. When roads are paved, unless they are narrow secondary or tertiary roads, they are usually done in multiple strips. This also allows the street to remain open with one lane of traffic flow at a time during the paving process. The problem is, the line where the two sections of the new pavement meet has tiny gaps and over time the road degrades with the help of water and ice and a groove develops. The i3's tires are so thin that they are effected by these grooves and uneven pavement more so than most cars that are heavier and have wider tires.

Key FOB Doesn't Open the Hatch. This is a minor complaint, and since my i3 has comfort access I can open the locked hatch just by grabbing the hatch handle as long as I have the key in my pocket. I would still prefer to have a button on the FOB that remotely opens the hatch. There is a button that opens the front trunk, which I will rarely ever need to open...

Regen Braking Disengages During Hard Turns. I'm a little surprised with the second complaint I have with the regenerative braking. While negotiating turns, the regen sometimes disengages which will give the sensation that the car is actually speeding up. Of course it isn't (unless you are going downhill), but when you are in full regen and it suddenly disengages, it does feel like the car is accelerating when if fact it just isn't being slowed down by the regenerative braking.....

Software Bugs and Various Glitches. There have been a number of various software bugs and other issues reported since the car launched here in the US about two months ago. For example, all of the i3s with the range extender option have had their check engine light (CEL) come on sporadically. Evidently there is nothing actually wrong with the engine, it's just a software bug and BMW has just released a patch to stop the light from coming on, but it's still not something you want to see on a new car. I've also heard of a couple people have their onboard charger fail, and a few others report that the car flashed a "Drivetrain Malfunction" warning. In the cases I've heard about, it just cleared itself and the owner was able to take it to the dealer to be checked and there was no problem found. Honestly I did expect there would be some initial glitches, and it's really too early to tell if these are isolated cases or if it's an indication that there are indeed going to be more problems to come....

Minor Annoyances:
There are a few things that really don't bother me that much, but I know other i3 owners who have complained about these things:...

I'm sure I'll come up with more dislikes as time goes on, and I'll continue to post them here. Even considering everything I've detailed here, I'm thoroughly enjoying my i3. I drove it a total of 162 miles today and less than 2 miles was with the REx running. The range extender allows me to really push the range limit without worrying if I'll make my destination. Oh yeah, that reminds me of one more complaint. I want the ability to turn the range extender off if I know I'll make my destination. Twice so far the range extender turned on when I was less than a 1/4 mile from my house and once it turned on while I was pulling up my driveway! I believe the European i3s do allow the operator to turn it off manually, so that's just another feature (sunroof, programmable key FOB, REx hold mode) that we don't get here in the States. Yeah, I know... first world problems.

 

[Hillhater]

WhyBuyA Volt?!
Well the $10 k cheaper price might just help the decision for some . :lol:

 

[Dauntless]

WhyBuyA Volt?!
Well the $10 k cheaper price might just help the decision for some . :lol:

The LEAF is $10k cheaper. The Volt is supposed to cost a bit more than the BMW. BUT the Volt still has the added range on gas. Though not much, from what I hear.

 

[MitchJi]

Hi,

From $34,185
2014 Chevrolet Volt, MSRP

From $41,350
2014 BMW i3, MSRP

Bigger difference than I thought, about: $7,150.00

 

[Hillhater]

The Range extender i3 is priced over $46k ...( the version that actually compares to the Volt, and discussed above )
But I understand that the only model actually available currently is the "Launch" edition , priced over $50 k !
....and Volts are generally discounted to sell !

Edit:- ...Also compare the lease payments. ..More than double on the i3 ???

FYI....i3 pricing in Australia has just been announced , starting at AU$64 k ...

 

[Hillhater]

So,....should we re title the thread to.... (Just Buy A Volt) ?
....unless you just must have that little round badge ! 8)

 

[dnmun]

i saw my first iMiEV in portland recently. almost may be the only one. woman was stopped in line for construction so i walked out into traffic and talked to her for a few minutes.

it looked like a sensible size and style. she said they ran out at 70 miles going to the beach and got towed, gratis from mitsubishi. one per year it turns out.

the imiev they have been trying to sell on ebay for a few months at 15k finally went to best bid with reserve removed and drew a $12.9k bid. 2012 model.

what bothers me is that they have concerns about recycling the beemer so carbon fiber scored bad on their stupidity meter.

BEV are lifetime vehicles. the entire point of going to juice is to save yourself from the huge karmic load of the billions of people displaced as the oceans rise and land desertify.

why would you add more by firing up the steel mills or carbon fiber ovens to make another one when it will last forever essentially. this is not an ICE which will soon become obsolete and unaffordable.

 

[Hillhater]

what bothers me is that they have concerns about recycling the beemer so carbon fiber scored bad on their stupidity meter.
....why would you add more by firing up the steel mills or carbon fiber ovens to make another one when it will last forever essentially. this is not an ICE which will soon become obsolete and unaffordable.

I doubt any BEV is any less prone to being absolete than an ICE ,..plastic body or not.
Few cars get junked these days because of rust. ICE's can be repaired , rebuilt, or replaced relatively cheaply, but they still go the the scrapyard ( recyclers actually) by the millions,..why ?..because we are fickle consumers who like to have change and new items in our lives.
Sure an EV wont need a rebore, or a new clutch,..but it will probably need a new battery eventually, and a transmission rebuild, suspension likewise, brakes ?, even the upholstery will fall apart at some stage.....just like the old ICE !!
But worst, the auto makers marketing guys, learned long ago about model obsolescence and how to get buyers to want a new car regularly....change the "style" a little each year even if you dont upgrade the mechanicals.

 

[dnmun]

you don't know detroit.

i had a car from detroit. my first honda wagon i bot because it had 'fraternal order of police' stars all across the back window. that alone paid for the cost of the car and rebuilding the motor when i bot it in moving violations fees that were waved off by officers in 5 states in numerous traffic stops over it's lifetime.

that car was a honda that lived in detroit and it died of rust. jack goes through the body level of rust. fenders loose and rattled because the screw mounts rusted out. fatal was the rust that cracked the torsion arm and prevented it's replacement. rust..

i expect the anglo cultural attachment to having a new vehicle to express social status will be a dynamic shaped by the coming population of EV drivers in china as the new charger ring is built out around the cities. social status expression may differ there.

for me i see it as economics now. the new reality of higher and higher resource recovery costs and political instability in the primary export sources. who woulda thought the syrian rebellion would lead to total sectarian warfare at the core just two months ago?

there was a guy behind me in a cadillac convertible, like from the 70's, 5k lbs of rust waiting to happen, behind me in traffic passing a $4 gas sign. his boat eats gas at 11-12 mpg and it was costing him 35 cents a mile to follow me at 1.5 cents/ mile in the ZENN car at 35 mph.

it really does pay for the batteries if you need transportation over time as gas continues to climb. the faster the better, imo.

 

[Hillhater]

You are picking some extreme examples.... Zenn vs a '70's caddy !
Things have to change a lot to make any financial sense in my world.
If I want a BEV , here, today, my choices are...
BMW i3 , at $64k
Leaf, at. $40k
By comparison , a new Nissan Pulsar is < $20 k .
For the daily commute of 15km or so, that cost difference is over 10 years worth of fuel...and probably into battery replacement timing for the Leaf. ,!!

 

[Ohbse]

I can purchase virtually a new japanese import Leaf in NZ for ~28k AUD on the road, however it still makes very little sense to replace my existing (and much nicer to drive) conventional petrol powered toyota. The savings just can't justify the upfront cost. Petrol really needs to double in price. 2/3rds of the total KM's my wife and I do is on 2 wheels at 30wh/km I feel like that more than offsets running my 3.5L V6 daily driver.

On topic and relevant - the BMW i3 is hideous and frankly the whole thing seems like somebody retarded got involved with the design half way through. The point at which the majority of people would be comfortable giving up petrol entirely is an even 100 mile range, BMW clearly knew this (see all the original hype marketing) but still missed this target, despite having the physical room for a 350lb Petrol powered range extender, exhaust, gas tank and associated additional electrical complexity that they could have filled with additional battery capacity.

IF I were in the market for an electric BMW I would want something *much* closer to a 1M than an iMiev - why must electric powered vehicles look goofy? The obvious exception to this is the Tesla Model S which is gorgeous and despite its price tag is selling very well. Leaf, i3, iMiev, Prius PHV, Spark and to a lesser degree the Volt all look slightly awkward. What is up with grills that have been appended but then blanked off, really? Please give us a clean sheet EV that has adequate performance, adequate range or at least the option to specify range (and reduce the price for the more basic option) that doesn't look like a 3rd year design students final project.

I have zero confidence that the conventional car companies can produce something that's not horrible in the immediate future, I'm personally pinning my hopes on Tesla coming out with a slightly more pedestrian, affordable vehicle that's not an SUV. At that point the financial benefits probably still won't stack up - but I'll actually WANT one, rather than begrudgingly accept one and compromise on style/practicality.

 

[Hillhater]

^^^ +1 to those comments brother !
Even if you did buy a " virtually a new japanese import Leaf" .. what would you do for service support, let alone warranty ?
God forbid there was a serious problem needing a leaf "technician" !
You know that even the ICE "grey" imports get totally shafted when it comes to service or spares.
I dont know why, but i hold out hope that the Spark might just make it here at some realistic price...but i know,.. im dreamin' :?

 

[Ohbse]

You're right on the warranty issues - however $12-14k buys quite a lot of Leaf technician time if ever required. Frankly I would take punt and hope for no issues inside of the 3 year period, then swim in a pile of money. If I could drive a leaf with a straight face.

They're only ~$42k RRP because apparently somebody in this end of the world ordered far too many and they ended up with some stock - originally pricing was set around $70k That's a lot of dough for a 'cheap' hatch.

Both Aus and NZ get shafted BIG time on price of new vehicles relative to the US, UK or Japan. Aus then get shafted with prohibitive import laws to protect your now non-existent domestic market whereas we can get Japans cast offs (3 years old with 20,000km on the clock - hardly rubbish)

 

[o00scorpion00o]

The heat pump costs 1500 euros extra here in Europe, yes that's right, the heat pump isn't standard on a car of that price!

I've heard the Rex can't have the heat pump, this was on German forums, though a I can't confirm this but I do know it's optional.

I think the I3 is well over priced.

The Renault Zoe has the heat pump as standard and a 44 kw ac charger all for 20 k ,granted you have to rent the battery but I'd rather have the option of installing a new battery than not. Nissan offer a new battery now but you may as well lease it rather than pay for the full cost up front.