BMW i3: living with the future
It’s commonly said that electric cars are all well and good in the city, but cease to make any sense once you get outside of the M25. “It’s like the wild west out there” one user said to me, describing the lack of either operational charging stations or station chargers that actually fit the cars.
As a result, many EVs are bought by wealthy environment-conscious owners who only intend to use them for small trips, and keep a petrol car for more serious journeys. From the beginning of the “I Project”, BMW has sought to develop cars that are not just entertaining runabouts for the well-heeled but are capable of being a serious alternative to the petrol 5 Series parked in the driveway.
I had a spec-d up version of the i3 for 10 days, covering around 400 miles, including drives out into the countryside as well as big cities. The version of the car tested here was the new range extended model, specifically the i3 REx 94Ah. It features BMW’s updated battery, capable of 196 miles in “everyday driving conditions”, as well as a small petrol engine that increases the total potential range to 276 miles.
With prices starting from around £27,000, the i3 is Britain’s joint-second most popular electric car, alongside the Renault Zoe and behind the Nissan Leaf. Both the Zoe and the Leaf are considerably less expensive, costing around £13,995 and £21,680 respectively for the most basic models.
This particular variant of the i3 came with all the trimmings, and sells for just over £40,000, but it’s a little less once you include the UK Government’s £4,500 grant for buying green, as well as the potential funding for a charging point at your house and not having to pay road tax. Then there are the savings made from using electric power, which could cost you as little as £3-5 per charge depending on your energy supplier. Just over 1000 i3s have been sold in the UK since the first variant went on sale back in 2013, and 60,000 worldwide.
The extra cost is not just for the BMW badge, the i3 is widely recognised as a revolutionary car and is a showcase for a variety of technologies that go far beyond electric power. The German car maker invested heavily in its aluminum and carbon fibre chassis, producing a lightweight shell that helps the i3 achieve its spookily fast acceleration - 0-60mph in 7.2 seconds.
It’s spooky because the i3 makes no noise at all - you can barely hear the whirring sound you get from most EVs and hybrids - instead you just get the advantage of the instant and consistent torque that comes from electric power.
Despite the potential for great speed, the i3’s famously serene “Space Odyssey” feel cabin, combined with the energy-consumption focus of the onboard displays, encourages eco-friendly motoring.
But if you are unable to restrain yourself from driving like the wind, BMW has handily fitted two settings that force you to rein in your energy consumption. Putting the car into ECO PRO mode slows acceleration, while ECO PRO PLUS restricts the i3’s top speed to 56mph and switches off energy-intensive comforts such as aircon.
Instead of a traditional dashboard with dials, the screen in front of you displays a semi-circle indicating whether you are drawing power out of the electric engine, or charging the battery, or using the petrol motor. The moment you take your foot off the throttle, the i3 begins to slow down quite quickly, due to the force of the energy rejuvenation mechanism that charges the battery using kinetic energy from the movement of the vehicle.
Making best use of this requires a bit of behaviour-change, as you have to anticipate the need to slow down further ahead in your drive, which is better for both your energy consumption and other motorists. BMW’s engineers have called this “one pedal motoring”.
Even the manufacturing process itself took advantage of low carbon technologies. The advanced light-weight chassis was constructed in an American factory that uses energy from hydro-electric generators and the rest is assembled in a low-carbon low-water-consumption plant in Leipzig, Germany.
Improved battery life, and the range-extending two cylinder petrol motor, mean that “range anxiety” was not a concern during this test. The only downsides from this particular trial was the usual complaint about the availability of charging facilities. My closest rapid charger had a queue to be used one evening and was not operational the following day meaning I drove to Suffolk and back to London using petrol power only, visiting three petrol stations to fill the car’s small tank. Suffolk is a beautiful place, but is not awash with charging stations for electric vehicles. Most owners of the i3 would be able to install their own charging station at home, or charge it off the mains, making this less of an issue.
There does seem to be at least one way in which driving the cars of the future is a similar experience to driving the cars of the past. If you’re lucky enough to own a classic car you’ll find that people stop you in car parks to tell you about how they once owned your car, or more likely, their dad did.
The rarity of the i3, and EVs in general, means if you do make the switch to electric, you may find that you become part of a community of enthusiasts based around charging points. There’s a lot of nattering between users at the communal charging stations in petrol stations and supermarket car parks, usually comparing notes on recharge times and experiences of being caught out when the stations have turned out not to be working.
My relatively short time with the i3 REx wasn’t long enough to take full advantage of all the features of this extraordinary vehicle. It looks like a car from the “future of cars” section of kid’s science book, and it lives up to that image. You get a taste of things to come, with all the comforts and high-end design features you would expect from a BMW, plus the advantage of cheap electric driving.
It’s proof that electric cars can be fun and comfortable as well as good for the environment, and it makes the returning to the world of the internal combustion engine feel like a massive step back in time.
Follow Ashley on Twitter: @Ashley_Coates.
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Ashley Coates drives 400 miles in BMW’s latest EV offering, the range extended BMW i3 REx 94Ah.