Discussion
Here is my car, for anyone interested. I also don't mind taking some abuse!
I do over 20k miles a year (90 mile ,motorway commute) so running costs are important to me. Before the i3, I had a 1.6tdi Octavia with DSG. It was a good car, did about 60mpg on the commute but very dull.
My brother has an i3 and I was impressed with his and he also had a similar commute so I knew what I was getting into. The car was quite expensive to buy but is very cheap to run. Fuel cost has dropped from about £2000 to £750.
I have had the car since September and still really like it. The things I like:
Very smooth and quiet drive train, very quick (especially to 45mph) relaxing to drive, one pedal driving is intuitive and easy, pre-heating in the morning is hugely useful, very rarely go to the petrol station now, all the tech integrates well, decent enough ride, £2.80 charge is just about doing my 90 mile commute at motorway speeds and in summer it should get more like 120 miles, harman kardon stereo is good, overall quality is good, heated seats are powerful. So quite a lot!
The things I dont like:
Whilst is it quick and the pedal response is instant, it is not the most involving. I actually like the design but it is not the prettiest thing! I do think it is very clever what BMW have done to design a carbon/plastic cabin free from any mechanical 'gubbins' . The resulting flat floors in the front and back and the large windows make a small car feel quite spacious for example. The design starts to make sense when you understand this.
Going electric has been very easy (we have an xc60 also). I plug in at night and a full charge takes about 4 hours. However, this is the Rex version with a 600cc scooter engine that acts as a generator to charge the battery. It will come on with 6 miles range left, but can be turned on manually once battery is down to 75%. I think it is a brilliant solution. It effectively means the car can just keep going. I dont use it much at all, but it also gives piece of mind.
[pic]
i3 by Chris Cox, on Flickr.jpg[/pic]
[pic]
i3 2 by Chris Cox, on Flickr.jpg[/pic]
I do over 20k miles a year (90 mile ,motorway commute) so running costs are important to me. Before the i3, I had a 1.6tdi Octavia with DSG. It was a good car, did about 60mpg on the commute but very dull.
My brother has an i3 and I was impressed with his and he also had a similar commute so I knew what I was getting into. The car was quite expensive to buy but is very cheap to run. Fuel cost has dropped from about £2000 to £750.
I have had the car since September and still really like it. The things I like:
Very smooth and quiet drive train, very quick (especially to 45mph) relaxing to drive, one pedal driving is intuitive and easy, pre-heating in the morning is hugely useful, very rarely go to the petrol station now, all the tech integrates well, decent enough ride, £2.80 charge is just about doing my 90 mile commute at motorway speeds and in summer it should get more like 120 miles, harman kardon stereo is good, overall quality is good, heated seats are powerful. So quite a lot!
The things I dont like:
Whilst is it quick and the pedal response is instant, it is not the most involving. I actually like the design but it is not the prettiest thing! I do think it is very clever what BMW have done to design a carbon/plastic cabin free from any mechanical 'gubbins' . The resulting flat floors in the front and back and the large windows make a small car feel quite spacious for example. The design starts to make sense when you understand this.
Going electric has been very easy (we have an xc60 also). I plug in at night and a full charge takes about 4 hours. However, this is the Rex version with a 600cc scooter engine that acts as a generator to charge the battery. It will come on with 6 miles range left, but can be turned on manually once battery is down to 75%. I think it is a brilliant solution. It effectively means the car can just keep going. I dont use it much at all, but it also gives piece of mind.
[pic]
i3 by Chris Cox, on Flickr.jpg[/pic] [pic]
i3 2 by Chris Cox, on Flickr.jpg[/pic] Edited by covmutley on Sunday 28th January 21:58
Justin S said:
Was discussing with the wife about going electric for her 40 mile commute, but a bit expensive, although BMW used ones show quite a plummet in value quite quickly , which is good in a way , but worrying in another.
Sometimes the £5k govt grant can make them look like they have lost more. I got this on a PCP to protect myself on the future value. My prediction is that used values will firm up as diesel taxes bite and EV's become more mainstream. Perhaps I will be wrong. It did only really work financially because of mileage/fuel saving. Some people (not refering to you) do seem fixated that an EV must be cheaper before considering one. But as I have said, it is quite a lot better than my Octavia and overall costs are the same .
Edited by covmutley on Sunday 28th January 22:32
I'm at the other end of the commute extreme with a 5ish mile round trip with most journeys these days knocking about town. I've been drawn to a second hand i3 as seems an ideal solution, just not 100% on the looks and the lure of something more PH friendly is still strong.
I'll be following with interest to see how you find it
I'll be following with interest to see how you find it
I did 43k miles over 3 years in mine, loved most minutes of it. It's a different driving style but you get used to knowing how best to exploit the power. The only negatives were how badly winter temps affected the battery range and dealer support.
Towards the end it did feel that everything was slowly coming to the end of its shelf life. Battery life was definitely worse and performance was slower, plus trim didn't feel as solid. Every so often the electric would do something strange but be fine the next day. I'm glad it was a lease car and I could hand it back.
Towards the end it did feel that everything was slowly coming to the end of its shelf life. Battery life was definitely worse and performance was slower, plus trim didn't feel as solid. Every so often the electric would do something strange but be fine the next day. I'm glad it was a lease car and I could hand it back.
TallTony said:
I did 43k miles over 3 years in mine, loved most minutes of it. It's a different driving style but you get used to knowing how best to exploit the power. The only negatives were how badly winter temps affected the battery range and dealer support.
Towards the end it did feel that everything was slowly coming to the end of its shelf life. Battery life was definitely worse and performance was slower, plus trim didn't feel as solid. Every so often the electric would do something strange but be fine the next day. I'm glad it was a lease car and I could hand it back.
Interesting. There are quite a few on the i3 facebook change who have done quite big mileage and experienced no drop in battery performance. bmw apparently set the battery management to be quite conservative.Towards the end it did feel that everything was slowly coming to the end of its shelf life. Battery life was definitely worse and performance was slower, plus trim didn't feel as solid. Every so often the electric would do something strange but be fine the next day. I'm glad it was a lease car and I could hand it back.
some people on there were even reporting increased range- bmw have apparently been upping the battery range at service time, because all the data they are collecting has been showing the batteries are coping well.
Interesting, I definitely didn't find that. I did drive mine hard, perhaps that was the root of the problem and the difference to others. The Facebook group are a good lot, some are very much gearing their experience to maximising the mileage from a charge which I found bizarre (talk about saving pennies), whilst there also were some real geeks who delved deep into the car's capabilities.
A very interesting car and I'm glad I had one.
A very interesting car and I'm glad I had one.
Look forward to reading the updates! These really intrigue me. I would love to go electric for my commuter and I think it would have to be a REX but I have always struggled to understand the concept of having to carry around a petrol engine that is rarely used, suffer the inconvenience of lost space and also having to pay for its upkeep.
So some question on the engine;
Whats the performance like in engine only mode. Does it sit comfortably at 75mph / motorway speed?
Does it need an annual service?
Are there any known risks with having an engine that rarely gets used?
So some question on the engine;
Whats the performance like in engine only mode. Does it sit comfortably at 75mph / motorway speed?
Does it need an annual service?
Are there any known risks with having an engine that rarely gets used?
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 29th January 08:33
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 29th January 10:54
covmutley said:
I got this on a PCP to protect myself on the future value. My prediction is that used values will firm up as diesel taxes bite and EV's become more mainstream. Perhaps I will be wrong. It did only really work financially because of mileage/fuel saving.
Great cars - and one of these would really suit the wife given her job commute/mileage. However the lease prices were very, very high when I looked, more expensive per month than my 440i Convertible, which didn't make much sense to me.Is there somewhere I should be looking for better deals? Leasing makes most sense given how her work compensates for car usage.
So some question on the engine;
Whats the performance like in engine only mode. Does it sit comfortably at 120mph?
The car only does about 94mph, so no! The engine doesn't work like that either. Doing 70mph on the motorway, it will not keep up and so you lose range. This isnt a n issue however. If doing a long journey i just press a button to turn the rex on when just below 75% and drain it until there is enough range in the battery to finish the journey. it is so easy. i suppose on a vey long journey you may have to stop twice as the fuel tank only adds 80 miles range. But this is a longer journey where you dont mind stretching your legs for 2 mins.
Does it need an annual service? It needs servicing but not annually. 3 year service plan for the car was £238.
Are there any known risks with having an engine that rarely gets used? I don think so. But if you dont use it all, it will apparently turn itself on and run to prevent issues occurring. I havnt experienced this
[/quote]
Whats the performance like in engine only mode. Does it sit comfortably at 120mph?
The car only does about 94mph, so no! The engine doesn't work like that either. Doing 70mph on the motorway, it will not keep up and so you lose range. This isnt a n issue however. If doing a long journey i just press a button to turn the rex on when just below 75% and drain it until there is enough range in the battery to finish the journey. it is so easy. i suppose on a vey long journey you may have to stop twice as the fuel tank only adds 80 miles range. But this is a longer journey where you dont mind stretching your legs for 2 mins.
Does it need an annual service? It needs servicing but not annually. 3 year service plan for the car was £238.
Are there any known risks with having an engine that rarely gets used? I don think so. But if you dont use it all, it will apparently turn itself on and run to prevent issues occurring. I havnt experienced this
Edited by acer12 on Monday 29th January 08:33
[/quote]
Edited by covmutley on Monday 29th January 10:57
acer12 said:
Look forward to reading the updates! These really intrigue me. I would love to go electric for my commuter and I think it would have to be a REX but I have always struggled to understand the concept of having to carry around a petrol engine that is rarely used, suffer the inconvenience of lost space and also having to pay for its upkeep.
So some question on the engine;
Whats the performance like in engine only mode. Does it sit comfortably at 120mph?
Does it need an annual service?
Are there any known risks with having an engine that rarely gets used?
Top speed is 94mph...So some question on the engine;
Whats the performance like in engine only mode. Does it sit comfortably at 120mph?
Does it need an annual service?
Are there any known risks with having an engine that rarely gets used?
Edited by acer12 on Monday 29th January 08:33
The performance on petrol is basically the same as with electric only as the engine is generating electricity to run the batteries instead of powering the wheels. The only issue comes when you end up with zero charge in the batteries as the car basically goes into limp mode. But you then build up speed and back off letting the regenerative braking build up some reserves in the battery, do that a few times and the battery gets some charge allowing the car to behave as normal.
I wouldn't have an i3 without the REX. My commute was 56 miles and I often got caught short during winter time, plus it removed all range anxiety.
had ham said:
Is there somewhere I should be looking for better deals? Leasing makes most sense given how her work compensates for car usage.
Not that I found, no. I had to wait nearly 5 months for my car to be made, so maybe they just dont need to put them out on supported leases? Mine is on PCP at 1.3%. covmutley said:
TallTony said:
I wouldn't have an i3 without the REX. My commute was 56 miles and I often got caught short during winter time, plus it removed all range anxiety.
Just to clarify for people, this will be on the first i3's with smaller battery. I am now in a 3 series and miss the i3. There was something so novel about the power delivery with no gear changes, plus I loved the relative silence.
I think these are mega awesome. When I was considering switching my 335i for something a bit newer, we went along to look at the 330e and were mighty impressed. The salesman then twisted my arm that I should test drive an i3 a car I really didn't "get" but I was blown away by how good it is.
That said, it's a very hard car to make the sums work for. Add in the range anxiety and I'm just not there yet
That said, it's a very hard car to make the sums work for. Add in the range anxiety and I'm just not there yet
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