Tesla vs BMW i3 test drove both back to back.

[Zextraterrestrial]

That was my biggest complaint when I test drove the i3. When you swerve back and forth the car seems unstable and like it's going to roll. I'm sure the extra thin tires don't help.

I was wondering how much of it was due to the tires. It felt pretty good and quick turning into a turn for the first direction but if you then switch directions as you would for a slalom it felt pretty unsettled. I didn't try swerving back and forth too dramatically since I was w/ my wife too and that car would definitely make her carsick especially compared to the Tesla.

odd that they claim it has a low cg. it would be nice if it felt like it actually did. our 535i has much less roll and it is a bit sloppy

 

[AmpedRealtor]

I saw an i3 in person yesterday. I was not impressed at all. The first thing I noticed as I went to open the door was the protruding inside pop-up door lock. What is this, 1992? And the dash board, oh my gosh, it looks like it was designed by someone right out of school and without any practical experience. The plastic push-buttons in the center for radio, climate control, etc., look incredibly out of place and unattractive. The iPhone-like dash display and the iPad mini-like center screen (not even a touch screen, BTW) are propped up on the dash and look like an afterthought. They are also incredibly small, especially the speedo. The car looked flimsy, for lack of a better word. From the skinny tires to the almost non-existent front crumple zone, I was left with some doubts about the car's safety.

The sales experience was terrible. We were greeted by an older gentleman who obviously knew nothing about the i3. He misstated several facts. He gave us the wrong interest rate on the BMW financing, which is 2.99% (he said 3.99%). He did not know if the car would get HOV lane privileges, stating "that's a state issue". Don't you think you need to know this answer in order to properly sell the car? He had no idea how the REX worked and couldn't answer whether I could plug into a NEMA 14-50 outlet. I got the deer in headlights look.

I am so glad I have a Model S and didn't have to deal with this nonsense.

 

[HyperMiler]

Turns And REx

I was wondering how much of it was due to the tires. It felt pretty good and quick turning into a turn for the first direction but if you then switch directions as you would for a slalom it felt pretty unsettled. I didn't try swerving back and forth too dramatically since I was w/ my wife too and that car would definitely make her carsick especially compared to the Tesla.

odd that they claim it has a low cg. it would be nice if it felt like it actually did. our 535i has much less roll and it is a bit sloppy

Because the weight is light and the center of gravity so low, they can use a rather comfortable suspension without creating much lean in turns. Given that the seat height is almost SUV style, it feels at first like it would roll in curves but it actually is quite zippy and responsive, with a well controlled hint of oversteer under moderate acceleration.

Not your low slung sports coupe but fun to drive, nevertheless.

To optimally use the REx engine, you need to set it to maintain battery charge when the battery is still full. Simple reason: it produces only 25 kW, i.e. it can maintain cruising and moderate uphill but any power surges beyond that for passing or starting will have to come from the battery. Which can only occur if it is not completely empty. When the battery is empty, performance is 25 kW (37 or so hp).

So not ideal, but doable for the occasional countryside excursion.

Would a much larger battery be the much better solution? I certainly think so. But there's a Tesla for that... .

 

[David_Cary]

Agreed. Of course a larger battery is better but costs money.

The i3 is not about cross country trips. How many people actually take those. I've done a few in my life but none in the last 20 years (and I'm 44). Cross country trips are not a reality for most people. What a Rex does is allow the occasional longer trip and removes range anxiety. I have a vacation house 120 miles away and I can't go in my Leaf. The Rex does that perfectly.

I suspect the Rex concept makes a 20kw car acceptable for 90% of people as opposed to the 10% that the Leaf is acceptable for.

If you really want to take a once in a life cross country trip, rent.

The math is pretty simple, you can make 4 20kw cars for the price of a 80kw car given the engine "costs" just a few kwh. Now I realize the i3 isn't cheap but the Rex concept with a Leaf converts the US to 95% EV driving the quickest.

 

[smorgasbord]

BMW already said the REx will get a green sticker from the start (even though journalists keep projecting otherwise).

BMW was right: http://transportevolved.com/2014/04/29/bmw-i3-bevx-approved-coveted-californian-green-hov-lane-sticker-finally/

Right now, the point may be moot since all of the CA Green Stickers have been granted - unless some bill passes to increase the number from 40K to 85K. Personally, I hope they don't extend it since the carpool lanes are already too crowded and I know many of the Volts on the way home are running on gas, burning more than the Prisuses they pass.

 

[CarlK]

Yes I agree not to issue more green stickers to any cars that potentially will use gas on the freeway. Especially the plug in Prius which has only 10 miles of battery range. I bet you none of the ones you see in the HOV lanes are not burning gas.

 

[TSLA Siempre]

i'm a new model s owner. just happened to take the i3 for a test drive recently out of curiosity. i'm not impressed with the i3 at all. driving dynamics are average. fit and finish are substandard for bmw. weird styling all around from the exterior to the interior. the user interface and controls are all over the place. car is super small. in short, the car feels cheap. id be surprised if bmw has any significant sales of this in the US.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

i'm a new model s owner. just happened to take the i3 for a test drive recently out of curiosity. i'm not impressed with the i3 at all. driving dynamics are average. fit and finish are substandard for bmw. weird styling all around from the exterior to the interior. the user interface and controls are all over the place. car is super small. in short, the car feels cheap. id be surprised if bmw has any significant sales of this in the US.

I totally agree with the above. The BMW i3 w/ REx will drive a theoretical distance of 180 miles before needing to be charged. You can't simply keep filling up the gas tank and keep driving like you can with the Volt. The little i3 REx engine is not powerful enough to sustain the battery once it has been depleted, and I don't believe it can drive the wheels independently. By the time you add a few basic options to the i3, like navigation and tech package, you're up to $53,000. After seeing the i3 in person, I would much rather spend an additional $17,500 and get a base Model S 60. It goes farther, charges faster, and kills the i3 in every other category.

 

[Ardie]

I find it hard to accept that fellow electric car lovers are bashing the i3.

The i3 is an electric car. A battery-powered car. We electric-phobes should be praising the i3, even if it doesn't measure up to the impossibly high watermark of the Model S.
For those of us who aren't quite ready to go all-electric, you can get it with the Range Extender gas engine option to mitigate/reduce/alleviate/eliminate range anxiety.

The basics are that the i3's battery has the capacity to go "80 to 100" miles (which is closer to 80 if you do a considerable amount of freeway driving), and the range extender engine will power a generator to let you go for "80 to 100" more miles.

Soooo, after "80 to 100" miles, the range extender kicks in and supplies -only- enough juice to keep the battery at a pre-determined level of charge (6%). There's enough gas on board (1.9 gallons!) to let you go for another "80 to 100" miles, with the 6% being enough to tolerate your jackrabbit starts and moderate hill climbs. The gas engine has enough horsepower to maintain that 6% even if you drive at a speed of 70-75 mph until it runs out of gas in an hour and a half.

So, after you've driven 80(batt)+80(gas) miles, your battery is flat and the gas tank is empty.
You can refill your gas tank (2 gals), and go 0(batt)+80(gas) more miles, and you can keep doing this from LA to New York.

Eventually, you will get tired of this and plug in to a charging station to recharge your battery to 100%. It will take 3-1/2 to 4 hours, unless you have the DC Fast Charge option, -and- you find a DC Fast Charge station. Then it is Tesla-like, charging up in less than 30 minutes.

No, it isn't a Model S with its massive 250 mile range.
No, it isn't a Chevy Volt with its not-so-electric 35(batt)+350(gas) range.
Its a balance between range, price, and green-ness.

I suppose BMW could pull out the 250-lb engine and put in 250 lbs more batteries (which would be about a 50% increase in kWh), giving a range of about 125-150 miles, and *that* could be a game-changer -- except for the fact that the price would increase by about $15,000 for those extra 40-50 miles. (The ballpark figure of $15,000 comes from my foggy memory of reading about the BMW ActiveE's 22 kWh battery costing roughly $30,000.)

$3,800 for the range extender (+80 miles) vs. $15,000 for the bigger battery (+50 miles).

I don't think such a pricey battery add-on option would sell very well today (not that BMW has ever been afraid of high-priced options), but there's no reason to believe that BMW won't do it sometime in the future when prices start dropping. Unlike the Volt where their design has the electric motor is married to the ICE, the architecure of the i3 has the ICE completely optional. Some time in the future BMW might squeeze more batteries in, and the range extender option may ebb away as consumer confidence decides that they can do without it.

So the i3 is a good starting point for those of us who want to go electric -- more electric than a Prius or a Volt, less expensive than a Model S. And you can get two BMW i3s (loaded) for the price of one Tesla Model S (loaded). That is kind of hard to ignore.

-- Ardie

 

[ecarfan]

I suppose BMW could pull out the 250-lb engine and put in 250 lbs more batteries (which would be about a 50% increase in kWh), giving a range of about 125-150 miles, and *that* could be a game-changer -- except for the fact that the price would increase by about $15,000 for those extra 40-50 miles. (The ballpark figure of $15,000 comes from my foggy memory of reading about the BMW ActiveE's 22 kWh battery costing roughly $30,000.)
$3,800 for the range extender (+80 miles) vs. $15,000 for the bigger battery (+50 miles).
I don't think such a pricey battery add-on option would sell very well today...

I think it would sell very well if BMW had decided to make an attractive long range EV (styled similar to their beautiful ICE vehicles) that was COMPELLING to drive and to look at.

They could easily have done so but they choose not to, IMO because BMW is terrified of eating into their ICE sales.

Much of the target demographic that BMW markets to could certainly afford a beautiful $55K EV that goes 150 miles. But BMW deliberately decided not to build such a car because it would take away sales from their traditional cars. Instead they deliberately built a very quirky looking car that is range limited and has no mass market appeal.

All other car companies except Tesla are faced with the dilemma of being forced towards EVs (because of govt mandates for fleet fuel efficiency or reduced CO2 emissions and because of increasing demand from buyers) but are resisting every step of the way. Which is why Tesla will continue to take market share from them for the next decade.

Once Tesla starts selling the Gen III vehicle other companies will wake up but they will be years behind.

 

[CHGolferJim]

I hope you're right, ecar.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

So, after you've driven 80(batt)+80(gas) miles, your battery is flat and the gas tank is empty.
You can refill your gas tank (2 gals), and go 0(batt)+80(gas) more miles, and you can keep doing this from LA to New York.

Someone may want to inform BMW's salespeople about the above, if true. I was told the opposite by a BMW salesperson here in Phoenix. He said that after you drive the full 180 or so miles, you must recharge because the gasoline engine lacks the output to charge the battery and propel the car once the battery has been depleted. He said, "It's not a like a Volt where you can keep on driving just by filling up the gas tank."

So which is it?

 

[green1]

I find it hard to accept that fellow electric car lovers are bashing the i3

I don't think people should automatically start showering praise on any vehicle that just happens to be electric. It sounds like people have valid complaints about the i3, and just glancing at it tells me that BMW aren't serious about it, I'd they were it would be styled like one of their ICE vehicles. The large manufacturers need to get away from this idea that efficient has to be ugly. Tesla has proven this isn't true, but the big manufacturers have always done it that way right from the first hybrid.

 

[Turmania]

I admire BMW for going all the way with i3 but not with the i8. but i3, is perfectly accapteble if you do around 70 miles a day, if your work is close by, friends and family members close by, picking up kids from school and etc, its probably the best economical solution.

But Model S, is a different leaugue to I3, when is a pure city car, where as Model S is a cruiser. They serve completely different markets.

Anyhow, the more EV cars out there, there would be more charging networks built and as well competition would serve us best in the long run.

 

[Electroman]

For 70 miles I can do that in a Leaf for half the price, with 5 adult seating and 4 real doors.

Why should I pay $600/month for a 70 mile EV ?

My beef is with the insane BMW tax. After all it is only a Beemer and not a Tesla -

 

[CHARGER]

I can't knock the i3, but for me the Supercharger network, and the ability to drive, for free, throughout the US and eventually Canada on it, is Huge.

 

[AustinPowers]

Silly as its like comparing a Skoda to a ferrari. Actually even worse than that...

Funny, because apart from performance, a Ferrari would lose against a Skoda in every category :smile:

By the way, I have a scheduled i3 testdrive next friday as well as an e-Golf test drive the same day. Will be interesting to compare those two as they are far more comparable than i3 and MS.

Oh and as for sales figures, here are the current ones for Germany (Jan-May combined):

Model S: 344
i3: 1,167
i8: 32

 

[AEdennis]

I can't knock the i3, but for me the Supercharger network, and the ability to drive, for free, throughout the US and eventually Canada on it, is Huge.

Couldn't you already travel Canada for free on the Sun Country Highway? Just need dual chargers on an S to make it in better time... After all, they've already done this trip in a Roadster.

 

[Ardie]

Someone may want to inform BMW's salespeople about the above, if true. I was told the opposite by a BMW salesperson here in Phoenix. He said that after you drive the full 180 or so miles, you must recharge because the gasoline engine lacks the output to charge the battery and propel the car once the battery has been depleted. He said, "It's not a like a Volt where you can keep on driving just by filling up the gas tank."
So which is it?

AmpedRealtor,

You *can* keep on going by filling up the gas tank.

But there are caveats.
The American version of the BMW i3 is crippled by its American-version software, prohibiting the gas engine'd generator from *recharging* the battery; it only *maintains* the battery's charge at about 6%. The electric car runs off that 6%, and there is enough buffer to allow for short-duration high-demand inputs from the accelerator pedal, such as hill climbs or dusting a Prius.

So it can't recharge the battery from empty to full. The software won't let it.
But it can maintain the battery, and keep on going (and going, and going...) as long as you don't overdo it.

The gas engine is powerful enough for you to drive at 70-75 mph, without depleting that 6%. If you go faster, say 80 mph, the i3 will let you do it (for a while), and the battery charge will dip down to 5%,4%, 3%, to some point where the i3 will cry "Uncle!" and deliberately slow you down, transferring the gas engine's resources from the accelerator pedal to the battery to bring the battery's charge back from the brink of wrack and ruin.

A hypothetical 450 mile trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco will require:
(a) Stopping 5 or 6 times for gas, and
(b) Keeping your speed around 70-75, tops. (This could be difficult. 80 is the new 65 on the I-5).

This hypothetical trip involves the mountainous "Grapevine" just North of Los Angeles, and will require climbing from sea level to over 4,000 ft (~1,300 m), which will rob *any* battery of a good chunk 'o range that you didn't count on. So that first stop may come earlier than you had planned. In the same way the car will slow you down if you are speeding, a long uphill climb may slow you down to 35-40 mph. Hey, the i3's gas engine is only 35-ish horsepower. There are trade-offs here.
Even if you gobbled up all your battery *and* your gas tank and had to gas up in Gorman, the downhill run ought to provide a nice long ride all the way down to the Jan Joaquin Valley on the other side may, through the magic of regenerative braking, recharge the battery by a significant amount.


Bottom Line:
When you are driving off the battery, you have a 170-hp electric motor at your fingertips.
When the battery is empty (okay, 6%), you are using a 35-hp gas engine to run a generator to feed the battery, so you have 170 hp for short blasts, but only 35 hp for the long run (and "long run" is relative when you only have a 1.9 gallon tank).

[Opinion]
It ain't no Model S. But it sure beats whatever's second.
[\Opinion]


-- Ardie

 

[liuping]

A hypothetical 450 mile trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco will require:
(a) Stopping 5 or 6 times for gas, and
(b) Keeping your speed around 70-75, tops. (This could be difficult. 80 is the new 65 on the I-5).

This hypothetical trip involves the mountainous "Grapevine" just North of Los Angeles, and will require climbing from sea level to over 4,000 ft (~1,300 m), which will rob *any* battery of a good chunk 'o range that you didn't count on. So that first stop may come earlier than you had planned. In the same way the car will slow you down if you are speeding, a long uphill climb may slow you down to 35-40 mph. Hey, the i3's gas engine is only 35-ish horsepower. There are trade-offs here.
Even if you gobbled up all your battery *and* your gas tank and had to gas up in Gorman, the downhill run ought to provide a nice long ride all the way down to the Jan Joaquin Valley on the other side may, through the magic of regenerative braking, recharge the battery by a significant amount.


Bottom Line:
When you are driving off the battery, you have a 170-hp electric motor at your fingertips.
When the battery is empty (okay, 6%), you are using a 35-hp gas engine to run a generator to feed the battery, so you have 170 hp for short blasts, but only 35 hp for the long run (and "long run" is relative when you only have a 1.9 gallon tank).

[Opinion]
It ain't no Model S. But it sure beats whatever's second.
[\Opinion]


-- Ardie

Actually, for that hypothetical trip, I think the Volt beats the i3. Almost 40 miles in pure EV, then just one stop for gas along the 450 miles, and you can drive 85MPH the whole way.