BMW i3 test drive

[archie_b]

Test drive of the i3 is at 11am 5/29. Will take pictures and post later that day.

Did find out BMW is offering 2.99% APR to purchase and lease is $499 a month with $4,174 due at signing. No mention on miles per year, but I assume it is 10,000. Not as bad as what Cadillac wanted for their ELR, but still very pricey.

Mitsubishi dealer in Chicago called today to advise still no lease information on I-Miev yet.

 

[JoeS]

archie_b, during the test drive you will see how great the i3's regeneration is; however, for hypermiling we often want to pop the car into neutral and simply coast without having to concentrate on maintaining the 'zero-energy' spot with our foot. When I drove the i3 if found it very difficult to 'shift' the car into Neutral while underway - perhaps you can try it.

Associated with this, I've subsequently found out that there are supposedly a number of different Drive modes - you might try those out and let us know what they're all about.

Have fun, and be sure to compare the usable volume with the back seats down between the i3 and our i-MiEV.

Test drive of the i3 is at 11am 5/29. Will take pictures and post later that day....

Whoops, just realized I didn't get back to you in time.

 

[archie_b]

Finished test driving the BMW i3. I did not take any pictures as there are many available on line.

I drove the Giga model which is the middle of 3 models. Here are my observations:

Fit and finish: Outstanding
Interior noise: Very Quiet
Acceleration: Extremely fast
Visibility: Excellent
Handling: Excellent, a little firm
Comfort: Excellent
Seating: 4 adults
Cargo: seats up smaller than i; seats down about the same
Price as tested: $49,600

The BMW is light years ahead of the i-Miev in every category, especially fit and finish. But you really have to PAY to get this level of quality. Lease rates are $499 per month for a 36 month lease with $4,700+ due at signing. This makes the effective lease rate over $600 a month, without taxes. 2.99% is also available to purchase the car up to a maximum of 36 months. One thing I give BMW dealers credit on, this one had four already in stock and available plus six more enroute.

To answer JoeS question on drive modes, you are correct there are three and they are easily selected at any time. I drove in two different modes: Eco Pro and Eco Pro +. Very little difference between the two. The + mode reduces climate controls and power available which in turn provided the best range (up to 110 miles). The main display in front of you displays speed and a indication of whether you are in power or regen mode directly under the mph display. If you punch it from a stop (which I did not do) the i3 is quicker to 30 mph than any 2014 BMW.

What I did not like: regen. There is one setting; full on, drag you to a stop, watch out for being rear ended. The regen is VERY aggressive! It will actually bring you to a dead stop. It is NOT driver adjustable. Dropping into neutral is possible, the shift knob is to the right of the main display, not on the floor, but you would have to be careful not to click it one more which is reverse. The shift pattern, D,P,N,R is quite different. I should mention this was a European spec car so maybe North American production models will be different. I doubt if BMW recommends shifting while moving.

JoeS mentioned trying to find the zero energy or "sweet spot" with your foot while driving. This would be an acquired skill which I tried but certainly did not master on my test drive. Let up a little too much and into full regen you go. The BMW slows down so fast, with no brake lights to warn those behind, that I would truly worry about being rear ended. Especially in stop and go traffic.

They did not have a range extender test car available. Here is the interesting point on that: the gas tank is 1.9 gallons. For this option add just under $4,000 to the price of the car. This would not be a car to take on any type of long trip. The Volt has a large enough tank so that at 42mpg you can go a descent distance before having to refuel.

Bottom line; if price is no problem this would be a great car. However, for not much more there is the Tesla model S. Very hard to compare the BMW to the Mitsubishi as, while both EVs, they are in very different classes. Hopefully BMW will learn that to get drivers to give up gas, an EV must not cost significantly more than a comparable gas car. Overall I would have to rate this the same as the Cadillac ELR; great car but overpriced.

Archie

 

[g4qber]

would be interesting to see what would happen if you shifted into reverse
would the car allow it?

I've tested the electronic e-brake / park brake on the Volt and LEAF.
with volt 1 has to keep finger on the switch to keep it activated and it is very smooth and gradual
with LEAF, car beeps at you then locks on the rear disk brakes and car comes to complete stop.

similar thing occurs with MkVII Golf and BMW X3 as these vehicles have auto hold function.

one thing that put me off the BMW 1 series was that the stop/start function would start the engine when foot is off the footbrake.

my driving style is like this
1. dead stop with footbrake
2. put into neutral
3. pull park/e-brake
4. remove foot from footbrake
5. relax.

hence I went with the blumotion golf at the time, cos it was a manual and engine would only start when clutch was depressed.

 

[PV1]

I happened to park next to a demo i3 a few months ago at the convention center. While outer dimensions are similar, I think the i-MiEV has much more interior room and better visibility.

For shifting into reverse, the i-MiEV doesn't apply any power to the motor until 6 mph or less. I don't recommend doing it, but the i-MiEV has protection built-in. The LEAF just drops to neutral and beeps at you. I would hope a premium EV would have the same protection.

I spotted one on the lot of the local BMW dealer. Didn't stop and look at it, though I was surprised to see it.

 

[user 1835]

For shifting into reverse, the i-MiEV doesn't apply any power to the motor until 6 mph or less. I don't recommend doing it, but the i-MiEV has protection built-in. The LEAF just drops to neutral and beeps at you. I would hope a premium EV would have the same protection.

The Smart Fortwo Electric Drive shift selector allows pushing up from D into N while moving any speed. The shift selector stops at N and will not go into R (or P for that matter) without depressing the override switch on the selector knob. While I rarely if ever use this feature, it is available on the Smart.

 

[Barbagris]

The BMW slows down so fast, with no brake lights to warn those behind, that I would truly worry about being rear ended.

Euro i3's illuminate brake lights at certain conditions, AFAIK.

...Around town, this means that it’s possible to accelerate from the lights, hit 30 mph and then slow back down to a stop without touching the brake pedal. To let other road users know what’s going on, the i3′s brake lights illuminate at lower speeds when regenerative lift-off is applied.
At higher speeds, the i3′s adaptive regenerative braking is less severe, allowing you to slow less aggressively at 70 mph than you do at 30 mph when lifting off the throttle...

http://transportevolved.com/2013/11/12/bmw-i3-first-look-part-one-design-and-driving-experience/

 

[WyVern]

RE: brake lights on regen - I seem to recall reading about an international standard that dictates any vehicle decelerating at more than 0.7m per second must display its brake lights. I doubt BMW neglected this, our iMievs regen is not strong enough to require this.

As an aside, a braking feature of BMWs saved my life many moons ago when I approached stationary traffic at far too an enthusiastic speed. The BMW ahead had to emergency stop, also having been caught out, and his brake lights began to strobe indicating the emergency. It was this strobing that made me realise what was about to go wrong and I was able to take avoiding action.

Had the strobing not occurred I have no doubt the result would have been a very large accident with me centre stage.

 

[aarond12]

The regen IS adjustable, but only by changing the entire driving mode. For example, if you're driving in "Eco Pro" mode, the regen is very aggressive (very similar to our "B" mode) and will actually take you to a complete stop. Unlike our i-MiEVs, the i3 does illuminate the brake lights when the regen is at a certain level.

The i3 is a nice car -- I test-drove one two months ago -- but it ain't $50K nice, or even $40K nice. It's too small. Because of the WIDE door sills, the interior space was about the same as the i-MiEV! The rear seats even looked more cramped, thanks to a non-removeable cup holder/arm rest between the rear passengers. Even if you had three little kids to ride in the back of the i3, it's not possible without one of them having to sit on the arm rest.

A $499 lease means I could get seven i-MiEVs at my current lease rate. The i3 is definitely not 7x better than the i-MiEV.

 

[JoeS]

...The shift pattern, D,P,N,R is quite different. I should mention this was a European spec car so maybe North American production models will be different. I doubt if BMW recommends shifting while moving.

archie_b, thanks for the nice report. I had a bunch of people in the car (including the factory rep) when I drove the i3 and all I focused on was getting the car into zero regen - I did indeed shift into N many times, but I found it very awkward to reach around the steering wheel to do that. I didn't notice any different shift pattern as I thought I was alternating between D and N while the car was moving. One question I asked was whether BMW had any plans for an additional battery pack as a range extender (instead of the ICE), and the answer was no. Love my i-MiEV, and if I were shopping for another EV the i3 BEV offers no advantage as a local daily driver, IMO. Perhaps the i3 REx makes sense for a single-car owner - but it doesn't qualify for the coveted HOV lane sticker.

 

[RobertC]

Two BMW dealerships within driving distance of where I live have added Level 2 charging stations. They are free with a ChargePoint card.
I charged next to the BMW i3 last night and I see that it is similar in size to the MiEV. The styling of the BMW i3 is definitely different, but I really like the big wheels and tires. When I get a chance I will have to take a test drive.

 

[archie_b]

BMW offered me an extended test drive of the i3 so I took them up on the offer. Like Joe S I finally figured out how to modulate the accelerator to get to zero regen and let the car glide. Not easy, but the longer I drove the easier it became.

The most amazing thing I found about driving the i3 is the ability to drive using only one pedal, the accelerator. Once you figure out how to modulate to get to zero or light regen, coming to a stop without using the brake is easy. One way to look at this is the i3 is a pure EV, not an EV made to mimic an ICE car. No creep when you put it in drive or reverse, no gradually deceleration.

After 3 days and 220 miles I averaged 5.2 miles per kwh. No freeway driving at 65 mph but more than half was at 55 mph highway speed. The only negative, and this is because I keep forgetting, is the car defaults into comfort mode upon start up. If you forget to change it back to eco pro or eco pro+ you use a lot more energy. I still do not like the ride quality. With 19" tires I expected a nice riding car. The i3 rides very firm so pavement problems are felt when driving. The i3 came to me with all four tires down 3-4 psi from the factory spec of 33 front, 41 rear. Don't know if the dealer was trying to make it ride smoother or just didn't check. When I brought all tires up to spec, not over, ride quality remained about the same.

Prices continue to drop on the i3. Lease rate is now $399 with a reasonable amount down. Another good sign is residual value has increased by 7%. The salesman indicated he expected pricing to be even better starting in November. 2015 i3 production starts January 2015. Only model year change is expected to be in the VIN number.

The i3 is a really nice EV. Interesting and fun to drive, good visibility, great range. Price, while better, remains a problem for me.

Archie

 

[JoeS]

archie_b, thank you for the review. Very high regeneration with an electric vehicle is a wonderful feature for both city and mountain driving which so many manufacturers have failed to take advantage of (most notably, the Fiat 500e). Once you have experienced it, you never want to go back! Since I like to have my cake and eat it, I would sure like to also have a zero-regen mode for highway driving, or at least be able to shift easily into Neutral (like the i-MiEV) which the BMW i3 fails at miserably.

Despite being a stick-shift ICE driver all my life, I actually prefer the i-MiEV's creep mode. No reason why an EV could not have this either menu- or switch-selectable for custom-tailoring to an individual driver's preference.

Hopefully as time progresses more and more manufacturers will crawl out of their comfort zone of trying to make an EV act like an ICE car. BMW has certainly taken a great step forward in this direction with their i3 - I especially admire their venture into carbon composites on a mass manufacturing scale.

In a few years this driver interface will be a moot point, anyway, as self-driving cars will cater to this smartphone-obsessed distracted-driving (or not-even-driving) generation - and just in time for us old geezers who will have their drivers licenses taken away. :twisted: