Driving the BMW i3

"HoosierHorses" (hoosierhorses)
02/01/2014 at 20:30 • Filed to: BMW, i3, electric car, review, test drive

BMW has quite an audacious goal set for themselves. The official press kit for the BMW i3 states that its design "defines the automobile of tomorrow." Moving past the fact that this sounds like something I would have heard at EPCOT center as a child, this is quite a statement. Our friends in Bavaria have set forth with the goal to completely re-envision the way a car is built - claiming that the i3 was designed and executed with zero preconceived notions of what a car should be (wheels seem to be a per-requisite - where is my flying car already?). But before we get to the design, an important question should be asked...why spend the effort?

The electric-car market in the United States is small. 2013 saw 15.6 million cars and light trucks sold. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . That said, from 2011 to 2013 that number has grown 5 times over. Head of BMW EV Operations and Strategy Jacob Harb !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! the reason for Electricity:

For us BMW i started as a project a decade ago, looking at how to 'future-proof' our business, with a blank slate. If you were to build a car without 100 years of predisposition, what would you start with? We ran around the world looking for ideas before we even started. We balanced feedback, and came up with the i3. It sounds cliché, but we really started with a blank slate, we reexamined the design process from the ground up. Sustainability and innovation are embodied in the i3 and the i8.

So BMW is entering this market - currently with 16 models in North America - with the idea that Electrical Vehicles are a future-proofing strategy. But it's only going to work if it retains what BMW stands for - that is an increasingly befuddling naming convention that nobody can make heads or tails o f a driver-centered automobile that matches performance with luxury. The "Ultimate Driving Machine." And bobsleds. There were lots of bobsleds.

Full Disclosure - BMW wanted me to drive the i3 so badly they sent me an email. Along with a ton of other people because I'm on some mailing list.

When I arrived at the dealership, I had a 4PM reservation to drive the i3. I checked in, and was told that the "cars were charging and they were running a bit behind." Thinking nothing of it, I joined a group of guys hanging around the service desks and we talked about how a car with a 100-mile range could fit into our lives. In suburban Indianapolis, the answer was a mix of "we're not really sure" and "we'd need a 2nd gas-burning car." After my 2nd cup of free coffee, I checked out the bobsledding stuff. I even got a pin. Then I did a lap around the showroom, checking out the $128k M6 they had sitting there, and wondered why anybody would spend $128k on an M6 (I mean - cool car, right? but $128k worth of cool?). Then I looked at more bobsled stuff. Have I mentioned the bobsled stuff?

If this is tedious to read, it was even moreso at the dealership. Every 10 or 15 minutes, one of the sales guys would come around and say things like "it's been 3 hours and we only have 5 miles of range" in hushed tones to the sales manager. The manager would nod sagely and say what I imagined to be "give them more coffee" and "have they seen the bobsled stuff?"

Car salesmen are not programed to tell customers no. Today, however, they did so, turning people away due to lack of charge. Let this be the first lesson of the BMW i3. If you don't have the super-stage-2 charger, these cars take a long time to charge. Like...a loooong time. It wasn't a ringing endorsement for electric. I asked if we could just take it around the parking lot. They obliged - I even got to take it down the street.

Exterior

The i3 looks like a Fiat and Mini combined. It looks like this:

Apologies - I took pictures but the lighting was so bad only a few appear in this write-up. So I'm using a stock photo here.

In person, it is an attractive, if a bit weird design. The snub nose's kidney grilles are straight facsimile - they don't go anywhere as airflow isn't really a concern here. The Audi-inspired lights are attractive. When the back half-door is opened, the pillerless entry is cavernous. It's an attractive car, and maybe most interestingly, bares no resemblance to BMW's fleet aside from the fake kidney grilles at the front and the roundel.

Interior

Inside, the focus on sustainability is as obvious as the light wood veneer that surrounds you. It's as if you're in ensconsed in Seattle. Or Washington. Or at least what I imagine those woody-type places to be like. I damn near expected a songbird to pop out of the glovebox.

Stock Again

The traditional Tach/Spedo is replaced with an iphone-sized screen that sits comfortably on top the sloped wood veneer dash. I personally found this hard to read - I'm still not sure I ever got an understanding of how fast I was going. The radio/Nav display is like an ipad which again sits on top of the wood-dash. Its display should be familiar to anyone who has experienced the iDrive system - standard BMW. It's important to note here - these are not "embedded" into the design - instead they look like two standalone devices that are simply placed on a flat surface. The result is a very clean look.

As a 6'5" guy, I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to fit into the i3. Not only did I fit, I think it probably had more room in it than my current 328. I sat comfortably. The backseat, however, was really a backseat in name only. This is a 2-adult car. It will not fit, say, a bobsled. BUT WILL IT BABY? The pillerless entry would make a carseat feasible.

Acceleration/Drive

You turn the car on, and nothing happens except a pleasant chime. No roar. No shudder. The sound of the future is a chime. It sent chills down my spine - but maybe not the kind that BMW wanted. When you hit the gas, it feels...surprisingly like a car. When we got out on the road, I punched it and it did indeed go, but my butt-hp meter wasn't exactly slammed. With an advertised 0-60 time of <7 sec, a Tesla this is not. But it's also not a golf-cart. It had surprisingly good feel on the gas, and would be capable on a highway, and certainly in and around town. With no need to shift, it's a smooth "go" that was truthfully better than I had anticipated it being.

The thing that would take some time to get used to is what happens when you take your foot off the gas: it stops. Quickly. Without needing to touch the brake. I'm not sure if it's inherent in an electric car, or if it's a quirk of th i3, but as soon as your foot leaves the gas you are slowing enough to lurch your body towards the windshield. The result is that you don't "coast" into turns or stop signs. You keep on the gas until you need to stop, at which point "light braking" means "taking your foot off" and you end up touching the brake pedal only when it's time to fully stop. The reason for this is that the car is actually recharging as it decelerates. There were two turns that I remember wanting to take with a bit of speed that ended up being slow enough to where I yelled at myself "just turn already!"

Handling

That said, I was able to actually turn with some speed at points, and the car feels great. It's nimble, and balanced - BMW has clearly put their emphasis on the feel of this car in the turns. It utilizes a revolutionary design concept - the chassis is a self-contained unit, on top of which sits the passenger unit. It's a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! With that chassis being almost entirely aluminum, and the passenger compartment is almost entirely carbon-fiber. The result is a lightweight (2900 lbs. with range extender) car that maintains a core tenet of BMW - 50/50 distribution between the axles.

Unfortunately, there is zero feedback through the steering wheel. Unlike other BMWs, this car made me feel the disconnect between my comfortable seat, and the road. The turns are quick in - the car is certainly nothing if not agile - but there was no feedback through the steering column, which was a disappointment.

Overall

Overall, this is a well conceived car that maintains a good bit of BMWs quest to provide drivers with "The Ultimate Driving Machine." The weight distribution, revolutionary "skateboard platform" (it's the first production car to use such design), and overall lack of heft make this electric engine more than capable of delivering enough quicks to impress.

The interior - with its sustainable-focused touches - is cool enough to impress your most hipster friends, even if it can only fit one of them. If this is BMW's first stab at future-proofing their business, they could have done much worse. This thing kills the Leaf and Volt. Starting at $40,000, I'm not sure the math works out to make this a "deal," especially when you consider that a super-charger (which - surprise! - BMW will come install in your house) is a necessity, and your house probably doesn't have one already. It takes only 30 minutes to charge on the super-charger. With your wall outlet? From my experience today, that could be more like 12 hours. With the Leaf and the Volt coming in at the mid-$30k range, the i3 will not be the bargain choice of EV. It will, however, be the performance choice. My suspicion is that's just fine with BMW.

DISCUSSION (3)

Battery Tender Unnecessary > HoosierHorses
02/01/2014 at 21:03

It's an EV thing. The Tesla Model S does it as well, but you can adjust the regen.

HoosierHorses > Battery Tender Unnecessary
02/01/2014 at 21:29

Interesting. I'm obviously not an EV expert, but that would take some time to get used to. I don't think you can adjust the regen on the i3, but we didn't get into that level of detail.

bob and john > HoosierHorses
02/03/2014 at 06:37

one thing that i wanna know. about the regen.
do the rear brakes turn on? as some of the other have mentioned, you probably wont touch the brakes 90% of the time...but that just seems dangerous.