My local dealer was having a big test drive event today, with refreshments, donations to the USA team, and some BMW swag. They also had 2 I3's for people to test drive. It was interesting--you could test drive any car they had, and my anecdotal evidence suggests that at least 90% of the people there only wanted to drive the I3..including me.

I was able to take it out for about 20 minutes by myself. If this is the future of autos, it is going to be a lot of fun...but also somewhat different. the I3 is an urban car, with an 80 mile range unless you get the range extender/generator which doubles the effective range. The car has a 'coolness' factor inside and out, and it clearly is aimed at a very different audience than Tesla. Tall, very quick off the line with strong regenerative braking (which will take some getting use to) and very sharp/fast steering. Inside is all recycled materials, again going for the cool factor. Good sight lines. Not a huge amount of storage space, but not terrible. Plenty of room for people inside, front and rear.

a loaded I3 will go for about $50k or so, before tax credits which in Cali bring it down by $10k. If I had $40k kicking around would I consider one of these--sure. I talked to a couple people who work for the dealer and it sounds like they are getting a lot of orders for the car, which does not surprise me. I strongly urged them to take a page from the Tesla handbook and build out a network of supercharging stations. If BMW is serious they are going to have to do some infrastructure work to help get these cars out there and used. They do have a program like fiat that if you own one and need to do a long trip, they will loan you a traditional 3 series, but that is not a long term solution.

I also had a word with a salesman there that I know, and he was bemoaning that Tesla is killing them on the big dollar, big cars. The dealer had tons of 5, 6 and 7 series cars in inventory. If you haven't noticed, for example, the new M5 is taking a real beating in the marketplace, and I'm sure the other big bimmers are as well. In the bay area, Tesla has the number one market share in the $100k+ luxury segment. The market is speaking loudly about where it wants to head, and I'm sure BMW and the others are listening as they lose market share.

Anyway, it was a fun event, and the I3 is a cool urban electric car imo.

 

Awesome review!

I think the i3 was never supposed to be a performance-oriented BMW, but instead an EV with driving characteristics of a BMW.

I think because of this, BMW will sell many of them. My dealer just got one in recently, I'm looking forward to checking it out soon.