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BMW i3
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23-02-2015 2:36pm#1
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This is all great info, thanks.
I don't have a commute as such as I work from home most days and then get a train the rest. My main journey would be to Dublin and back as we're living in south Wicklow. So about 60-70km and back again with ample time to take a charge.
Other than that it's just for smallish journeys, shopping, dog walks etc.
I'd love to avoid getting the REx as it adds quite a bit to the cost. If we're going cross country we could swap cars with family, rent or borrow.
I'm going off topic with my details when I would like this thread to just be about info on the i3 so I'll stop
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How big is the boot?
What's the standard toys/gadgets and trim?
How does the heat pump give additional range does it not draw power from the battery?
Maybe there's separate threads already to give simple explanations but I'm a bit lost as to what ccs, chademo and dc rapid charge all mean?0 -
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Benny_Cake wrote: »The REx is definitely useful as a bridging technology for a lot of people who like the idea of an electric car, but who are perhaps nervous over range. Granted, in many cases the range extender will be used little if at all, but anything that gets people out there driving electric vehicles is a good thing which will hopefully drive costs down, promote the development of charging infrastructure, etc.
I really like the look of the i3. Way out of my budget range (I've had the Leaf just under a week and love it anyway), but I'd imagine anyone who buys it will have few complaints.
I love the leaf too. It's a beautifully built car. The i3 has some lovely equipment although a lady has one at work and it's TINY, lol. One of the reasons the leaf was the only option was it's size. There is no way my giant dog could fit in the boot! The BMW is super fast but seriously, look at the wheels, ultra skinny.. they may be energy efficient but they are just horrible. I suppose it depends on your requirements and personal preference. Still haven't had anything that can beat me off the lights in my gorgeous leaf, surrounded by leather with an energy efficient Bose sound system. loving it! 0 -
Still haven't had anything that can beat me off the lights in my gorgeous leaf, surrounded by leather with an energy efficient Bose sound system. loving it!
Yeah the Leaf's Bose setup is pretty good. I have the optional Harmon/Kardon system on the i3 and it's not as good as the Bose system, primarily down to the Bose having a proper subwoofer.0 -
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draiochtanois wrote: »This post has been deleted.
Me too
Would you get the REx again if you were buying today? I get the feeling from the guys on SpeakEV, that its the popular choice mainly due to the reassurance of having the engine there for emergencies rather than any regular need.
I was thinking that it'd be an idea to start an i3 thread - glad to see its already in existence Not sure how many other i3er's there are here though ... 0 -
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draiochtanois wrote: »This post has been deleted.
I love it to bits. It's one of the greatest vehicles ever made. 18,500km down and I can't stop driving the thing. The i3 is something special. I've rolled around in a lot of nice cars including an E90 M3 at one point (while studying in Bavaria... so Autobahn... 'nuff said) but nothing compares to the fun of driving an i3 in the city. It's not about going fast it's about the responsiveness, sharp handling in traffic and general pleasure of driving.
There are just some wonderful moments I've had with the i3 like the look of utter shock on a Ferrari 458 drivers face when I leaped off the lights in front of him. And of course the thumbs up from his girlfriend
Nothing on the road (bar the i8) gets the attention the i3 does. Some incidents in the last week alone:
Around midnight last night I took a spin out to Tesco in Blanchardstown to pick up some caffeine. When I came out there was a crowd of american tourists taking selfies with the car. Don't know where they came from... they just appeared in an empty car park.
Then there's the lady who followed me for 5km to the rapid charger just to ask about the car. And the guys who ran out of a garage to stop me while I was turning in their lane. And a ton of nice/awesome/cool car comments :cool:
Good points:
It's like the Model S in that you will never be able to drive anything less. Driving the i3 is an experience so far ahead of other vehicles that I now literally sulk when I pick up a new 5 series at the car rental desk because it feels like an old tractor by comparison. I'm trying to get BMW to offer DriveNow car sharing access to i3 drivers 'cause I'd really like to drive one when I travel too.
I've gone from loving the interior but being a bit meh about the exterior to loving the whole package.
One pedal driving with regen is AMAAAZING.... it's like the car is telepathic. You maintain the speed and position on the road you want absolutely effortlessly.
Torque is awesome. The thing bounds up the Dublin mountains like an alpine goat. I put my foot down on the steepest uphill gradient I could find and the car rocketed from 50km/h to 120km/h in a matter of seconds.
Grip and handling are great, all around views with all the glass and the high seating position is great too. Drove my dad's Leaf this weekend and the windshield felt like looking through a porthole. Contact patch on the tires is bigger than the contact patch the Cooper S has and the i3 despite being tall has a lower center of gravity. Oh... and perfect 50/50 weight distribution.
The car fits four 2 meter tall adults in comfort. Cargo space with the seats folded down is impressive, I've carried everything from a washing machine to a 600kg UPS unit in the back with ease.
It's under 4m long with an incredibly tight turning circle, you can park in spaces normally reserved for Smart ForTwos.
Connecteddrive is almost 100% reliable. Nissan's Carwings is not remotely as good.
It's the most efficient EV on the road. I get numbers about 20% better than the mk1.5 Leaf.
Range in the city is slightly better than the Leaf.
It costs nothing to run.
It's bigger on the inside! More passenger space than a 3 series. It's taller and wider than a qashqai or ix30.
Automatic driving in traffic and automatic parallel parking. HD reversing camera.
Bad points:
It's like the Model S in that you will never be able to drive anything less. Driving the i3 is an experience so far ahead of other vehicles that I now literally sulk when I pick up a new 5 series at the car rental desk because it feels like an old tractor by comparison. It will ruin all other cars for you.
The suspension is hard... it has to be to stop the car leaning like a sailboat. But it still means potholes are not fun. The stiff tire sidewalls don't help (again another necessity of the design). I swear I can feel the car running over a penny.
It's totally silent. Much quieter than the Leaf which has inverter whine and low speed motor noise. You might think this is a good thing but I've had too many people run out in front of me at this point.
iDrive sucks.... don't get me wrong it's better than most of the alternatives, but I want Android Auto and CarPlay. The last compatibility update for the bluetooth was for the Galaxy S4. The maps don't have any of the rapid chargers, don't update over the air unlike the Leaf and don't add the chargers to the maps when you charge unlike the Leaf.
BMW tried to be too clever with the charge timer and basically just broke it from the factory. All I want is the f*ing thing to charge only on the night rate but that's not possible unless I set a departure time which I don't want to do as it's not good for the battery balancing when I don't use the car near the departure time. When you set off-peak charging it schedules charging for the end of the off peak period not the start, and stops charging at the end of the off peak time regardless of whether it's fully charged or not... which is just stupid.
The standard of my driving has disimproved significantly. I'm hitting the damn accelerator like it's a morphine pump. Planning on doing some additional training and the RoSPA advanced drivers test to get my skills back in line.
Range on the motorway is slightly worse than the Leaf.
Even the upgraded HK sound system needs a subwoofer. No heat pump on the REx and BMW missed a trick leaving a heated steering wheel out.
Paranoia about people closing the rear doors in the right order.Would you get the REx again if you were buying today?
Err... that's a tough one. Financially it's definitely not worth it. Between losing grants and adding VRT it's a €10k option that also increases your tax. The problem is that since I got the i3 ESB has added only two working CCS chargers. My positive experience with the Leaf's rapid charging infrastructure had me actually change to a BEV at one point, there's nowhere in Ireland that can't be reached in a chademo equipped EV.
The good news is that for travel outside Ireland, which is what I originally envisaged using the REx for, CCS has gained very wide availability in a short period of time. Hundreds of chargers have sprung up in months across the UK and Germany.
The current problems with the rapid charger network are firmware issues for CCS on the new DBT chargers which have them refusing to charge CCS vehicles and ESB poorly siting CCS chargers. The firmware issues are easily solvable. However by the end of next month, there will be ten CCS chargers ringing Dublin but no CCS on the M1 between the Airport and Banbridge on the other side of Newry so we can't reach Belfast on rapid charging. There will be three CCS chargers all within literally 2km of each other at the start of the M1 at the end of this month yet they can't spare one charger for Drogheda :rolleyes:. Limerick is similarly unreachable with the last CCS equipped rapid located at Roscrea. The Cork and Galway routes are doable but a bit seat of the pants with long runs between rapids.
I've been fairly patient with ESB up to now but I may lose my composure at the next EV owners meeting if ESB doesn't at least present a plan to rectify the CCS situation.I get the feeling from the guys on SpeakEV, that its the popular choice mainly due to the reassurance of having the engine there for emergencies rather than any regular need.
According to the statistics BMW has collected from the telematics the only time the REx motor runs for the majority of people is the automatic maintenance cycle every 2000km or so.
The problem is that for the SpeakEV people who are mostly in the UK the REx is a £3.5k option that has no effect on grants or road tax. And Ecotricity has gone from having a terrible CCS network six months ago, with less rapids than Ireland and most of them down for maintenance to literally hundreds of fairly well maintained chargers. Coverage in Scotland and Wales is still piss poor for everyone but that's a different story.
I think I've covered all my usual moans.
Would I buy the i3 again? You betcha!0 -
Err... that's a tough one. Financially it's definitely not worth it. Between losing grants and adding VRT it's a €10k option that also increases your tax. The problem is that since I got the i3 ESB has added only two working CCS chargers. My positive experience with the Leaf's rapid charging infrastructure had me actually change to a BEV at one point, there's nowhere in Ireland that can't be reached in a chademo equipped EV.
I thought the difference was about 7K? Seems to imply this from the BMW site (both are OTR prices):
http://www.bmw.ie/ie/en/newvehicles/i/bmwifaq.html
(See 'What is the starting price for a BMW i3?')
For me, it seems the only option if you want to use it as your only car. They do have the option though of usage of a 1 Series for 21 days which may just fill the gap until the CCS network is there.
Which interior package did you go for ? The Suite is my favoured option but of course pricey.... in fact, I'm having trouble trying to remove any of the Options from my spec, they all look so good 0 -
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I thought the difference was about 7K?
I purchased under a different price list where the starting price for the BEV was 32k. My i3 got built to the newer standard though as the factory had switched over.For me, it seems the only option if you want to use it as your only car. They do have the option though of usage of a 1 Series for 21 days which may just fill the gap until the CCS network is there.
BMW has yet to tell us how BMW Access will work. Despite some BMW owners paying for it more than a year ago.Which interior package did you go for ? The Suite is my favoured option but of course pricey.... in fact, I'm having trouble trying to remove any of the Options from my spec, they all look so good
I got Suite with all the options bar the eDrive sound. Suite delayed the build significantly. You can go for the cheapest interior and order the wood dash as a €400 spare part.Deleted User wrote: »While the I3 might be more efficient than the Leaf there isn't any difference in range, in fact the Leaf probably has slightly more range and will have about 25-30 Kms more in 2016.
In everything but motorway driving at more than 110km/h the i3 has a slight range advantage over the Leaf despite the 10% smaller battery. The i3 and Leaf will trade places a few times over the next few years in range.Deleted User wrote: »If you want a fun car that's cheap as chips to run and a better quality interior than the Leaf then the I3 would be the car to get, it's certainly well built and is the more advanced at this time, it's just a pity BMW didn't make a longer range cheaper I3. They would have been far better off adding a larger battery and forgetting about that fancy expensive carbon fibre.
The CFRP process was half the reason for developing the i3. BMW is already rolling out CFRP reinforced frames across its model range, resulting in lighter, more fuel efficient vehicles. The original intention was a more energy dense chemistry in the battery, however there were a few failed experiments which ended with catastrophic battery failure, several early prototypes spontaneously lit themselves on fire. BMW decided to go with a much safer chemistry. The consequence was increased cost for the battery and reduced capacity.
I'm told the new battery is a similar NCA chemistry to Tesla's (in fact based on cells Tesla used for one of the drivetrains they designed for a third party, and from the same OEM).Deleted User wrote: »I wish the E.U would have have supported ChaDeMo and insisted that there be a CCS to ChaDeMo adapter made like Tesla provide for the model S. There isn't an advantage at this time to CCS and there is no evidence that the I3 can support more than 45 Kw DC charging that I can see, I can only find quoted DC fast charging times the same as for a ChADeMo EV.
I've seen a stock i3 charging at ~90kW with my own eyes.
I wish the EU would ban chademo. CCS is the european standard. The combined connector is a much more elegant solution with less internal and external space required on the car. It's also more resilient and has a better MTBF. CCS connectors are rated to 150kW. chademo required a new standard to go beyond 50kW. CCS' more flexible ethernet based HomePlug GreenPHY communications protocol is less dangerous and easier for engineers to work with than chademo's direct CAN bus connection. Chademo cars will have to fake a CAN bus in a few years when the cars switch to a mix of deterministic ethernet and ethernet based MOST.
There will be more CCS rapids than chademo in Europe by the new year.Deleted User wrote: »The I3 also scored less in the crash tests than the Leaf and Zoe and has a smaller boot and you can only sit 4 passengers. This is all what I'm reading. But then again I don't think the i3 was aimed at families.
The i3 is aimed at the dual income no kids market. That the Leaf beat the i3 in NCAP is due to mistakes in the paperwork by BMW. A lot of the safety equipment was not expected to be fitted to as much of the fleet as it actually has been and was not counted toward the NCAP score. Based on the real sales numbers the "Safety Assist" score would have been in the mid to high 90s rather than 55%. The i3 scored higher on the most difficult crash tests such as partial front impact. I will admit that the i3s pedestrian score was accurate and fairly terrible, which is largely down to the shape and height of the bonnet.0 -
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This really shouldn't be a leaf versus i3 thread. It's what annoys me most about the Facebook group. Seems like anyone who decides on a Leaf will defend it to the hilt and try to piss on anybody going with a Zoe, i3 or whatever. Just for my tuppence worth, most people would be going with some sort of finance to buy either and it's worth noting that BMW are currently at 3.9% apr and Nissan at 7.4% so it negates the difference in price a little.
Anyway back on topic I've put down a deposit on an i3 after finally making my mind up. Should collect in next two weeks once grant paperwork is sorted and charge-point installed. I cannot wait! 0 -
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s.welstead wrote: »Base model just with metallic paint and alloys. So the standard grey cloth interior. TBH i actually like it better, leather seats are a pain really especially with dogs.
Only other extras is the aux heater and DC charging. Everything adds up quickly with the options :eek:
Yeah, the Standard interior makes a big difference to cost vs the Suite. Aux Heater + DC sounds like essentials.
I'm a demon for the Options lists though 0 -
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s.welstead wrote: »Base model just with metallic paint and alloys. So the standard grey cloth interior. TBH i actually like it better, leather seats are a pain really especially with dogs.
Only other extras is the aux heater and DC charging. Everything adds up quickly with the options :eek:
You picked out the essentials. The only other options that might be worth the money are the Pro Nav and Real time Traffic (you wouldn't believe how handy this is and it covers the whole country).
You don't need to order Real time traffic and a few of the other options with the car, you can buy them anytime after purchase on the connecteddrive store, but you'd need to have Pro Nav to be able to buy most of the options later.
One nice option they have in the UK and are due to bring here later this year is Online Entertainment. Basically Spotify competitor RaRa's library of 15 million tracks or whatever streaming through the onboard modem (not through your phone). Also replaces Spotify on your smartphones, Sonos and Desktop, all for roughly the same cost as a Spotify subscription.
https://www.rara.com/static/site/GB/en/faq.html
Deleted User wrote: »What's the "aux heater" ? heat pump ?
Yup.0 -
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