You’d think the honeymoon phase of car ownership would wear away after a while. That after a year or so, what had been framed in my mind as a larger-than-life “Carbon Fiber Wonder from Leipzig” would fall to earth and become simply my little commuter car. But no, this hasn’t happened at all. Every time I sit in my BMW i3 and go for a drive — even just a mundane commute — I think to myself, “Wow this is a great car.” Here’s why.
I’ve been wrenching hard on my WWII Jeep this past week, and before that, I was road-tripping my 1992 Jeep Comanche from LA to Portland and back. You’d think I’d be in Jeep-mode right now, and while I’m pretty much always in Jeep mode, for about an hour each day, I’m not. I’m in BMW i3 mode.
My commute should be miserable. I’m stuck in LA traffic far too often, the drivers here have road rage like you wouldn’t believe, parking is horrible, the heat is unbearable, fuel is expensive, the roads aren’t particularly scenic or well-maintained — pretty much everything about driving here should be awful. But it isn’t, because the tool I have for the job performs its task truly flawlessly.
I say this a couple of days after I had to drop my friend Brandon off at the airport (LAX). “Oh crap, I forgot to charge my car,” I told him. “Not a worry,” I continued. “I have a gas generator in the back.” Brandon then told me about the time he forgot to charge a Jeep Wagoneer S; that was a pain in the ass.
After almost three years piloting BMW i3s (a 2014 then a 2021), I’ve come to realize that EREV technology is basically the perfect solution. So many folks call it a compromise — a pointless, heavy, expensive compromise that adds complexity to a vehicle that would otherwise be rather simple. But actually, a gasoline range extender is a compromise reducer. I drive the i3 however I want; I don’t have to change my behavior at all. I plug in most days, and drive 150 miles all-electric. This suits 99 percent of my driving needs. In the edge-case scenario where I need more range, instead of carrying around a $7,000 pound battery that weighs half a ton, I carry around a little 400-pound gas generator whose oil I change annually.
The refrain I hear all too often that the average person only needs 100 miles of electric range is silly. People have been purchasing vehicles for edge-case scenarios since the beginning of the automotive timeline. Whether that edge case is your kid’s friends needing a ride home from soccer practice (so you buy a three-row), or that annual camping trip you take (so you buy a 4×4), or that canyon road you like to hit every couple of years (so you buy a sports car), or that occasional refrigerator you have to carry (so you buy a truck), this is just how people buy cars. Ignoring the edge case is ignoring human nature, and automakers do so at their own peril. The truth is that people buy cars for what they’re capable of, even if those people rarely do whatever that is; people want 300+ miles of range, and to give that to them with a technology that costs less, weighs less, and helps eliminate infrastructure worries — it’s just awesome. And I say that as someone who doesn’t have a horse in the race: EREVs are incredible.
But it’s not just the range extender technology that I love about the i3; it’s everything about the car. The interior remains a simply fantastic place to spend time, with a gorgeous eucalyptus dashboard, olive leaf-died leather seats with wool inserts, “kenaf” fibers making up the door-cards and dash, and huge windows that let in lots of light:
The carbon fiber chassis is just cool, and so are the plastic body panels. I park this thing wherever I want, and I don’t ever worry about someone opening their car door and dinging mine. I have XPEL PPF protecting the paint, and the plastic panels won’t ding.
What’s more, the car’s size and hilariously small turning circle make it an amazing city car. I can park it anywhere, I can do highly-illegal U-turns (known here in LA as “flipping a bitch”) without anyone noticing, and with the torquey electric motor, I can easily merge onto freeways as scary as the 110 and change lanes on the 405 even when there’s just a tiny gap in traffic.
The coach doors can be a challenge in parking lots, as you have to open the front door to open the rear door, and in tight spots, this traps you in a tiny space between the doors and the i3, but that’s a small compromise for such a small and practical footprint. There’s tons of room in the i3; even a child seat fits in it easily:
I bought my first BMW i3 back in early 2023, and after about a year and a half, I made a terrible financial decision and dropped $30,000 on what I consider the Holy Grail of i3s — a final model-year Galvanic Gold BMW i3S Rex with Giga World interior and Harman Kardon sound system. I thought I would regret this purchase, but in fact, I do not even one bit.
Not only is the car phenomenal at fulfilling its intended purpose, but I regularly receive inquiries from people asking if I could help them find a BMW i3 just like mine, because the inventory has simply dried up. BMW i3s are rare, and the ones you really want — 2019 and up models with the range extender and one of the two leather interiors — are basically impossible to find. I managed to snag mine just as the very last models were coming off lease, and my goodness, am I happy I did; the well is now dry.
Anyway, it has been far too long since I extolled the virtues of what I consider the greatest city car of all time, and with BMW’s new boss being one of the brains behind the i3, I figured I’d use that news peg to write an update. I still love my BMW i3. In fact, I think I love it more than ever.
All Photos: David Tracy
What I love about it is that it is a rear-wheel-drive subcompact that isn’t a dedicated sports car. There aren’t many of those around these days.
I credit the i3 with starting my curiosity on electric cars. It was all too easy to dismiss as just a (ugly) golf cart. But BMW offered test drives at the LA Auto Show and just taking it around the block was hilariously fun. The interior was amazing and futuristic.
The exterior styling has grown on me and I think it’s aging really well.
I’ll keep disagreeing with The Autopian on EREVs, though. There may have been a small window of time where they made sense, but that window is rapidly closing for all but the heaviest-duty applications (mostly just towing).
Improvements in battery chemistry and charge times make a full EV a much better (not to mention more elegant/simple) solution.
Dude. Dude… DUDE. I’m saying this with love and respect: give it a rest.
Look, I’m a fan of your writing, especially about this exact car. Because of you I bought one! And it really lives up to your encomiums. Great car. But maybe, just maybe, there are other auto topics you could explore.
Some people have said the same about my Jeep writing over the years. It’s fine if not everyone loves every topic I obsess over; it’s part of the gig!
*child seat is literally touching the back of the front seat*
“fits easily”
Lol, I have been there.
as a socal resident for most of my life, i’m not sure where the phrase flip a bitch came from, but it just made sense. Also, your i3 is basically a german prius, which is not a bad thing when it comes to navigating LA freeways since every day is basically now a bad traffic day.
“ instead of carrying around a $7,000 pound battery that weighs half a ton, I carry around a little 400-pound gas generator whose oil I change annually.”
What is the BMW list price for the 400-pound generator? And for the smaller battery that’s part of the car? Asking for a friend who wants to compare to the $7000 battery referenced above… 🙂
I was never a BMW guy and never bought into the “sheer driving pleasure” they would shill… then I bought a used 5 series and sweet baby Jesus… driving it has never not been a sheer driving pleasure. Ze Germans make some pretty fun shit, sometimes
as annoying as my 320i often was, I never hated driving it.
BMW haters have to climb mountains and perform olympic level mental gymnastics to justify the hate.
They’re just great cars, particularly if you like driving.
Did you do the mod to increase the capacity of the fuel tank? IIRC, there is some kind of software limitation on the amount of fuel that could be added to the tank (only about 1/2 physical capacity). This seems like the first mod I’d make to an i3.
Seems that the market has spoken on the BEV vs EREV vs HEV debate. Hybrid sales are on fire and EREVs have pretty much disappeared (I can only recall the Volt/ELR, the i3 and i8, the Fisker Karma and the stillborn Ram 1500).
Personally, I’d love to have a BEV but I’m fortunate to have a number of other vehicles, so range anxiety isn’t an issue for me. A used Bolt with a replacement battery is looking pretty good.
There have been no viable EREVs on the U.S. market.
David — I’ve had mine for about a year now and I love most everything about it except:
You strike me as the kind of person that would also be annoyed by those things. I’m curious what your experience has been.
The plastic panels are great; modern sheet metal is so thin anyway it’s really no better flex-wise.
As for rattles… mine is pretty decent, but every now and then there’s some weirdness that I can’t quite identify…
The flex is the whole point of the panels. That’s how & why they resist dings. (As a two-time plastic clad Saturn owner, I believe I can speak with some authority on the subject.)
Don’t get me wrong, I used to drive an Ion and appreciated it very much These ones just feel a lot less substantial than what I remembered.
“Flipping a bitch” never made any sense to me, but during my time in NYC I learned to call a multi-point U-turn that stops every lane in both directions “pulling an Inwood.”
I can’t wait for there to be more EREVs on the market.
Same!
It’s good to hear you still love it. After three years, my Maverick hybrid still puts a smile on my face.
Glad you’re still happy with it. I told you the depreciation wouldn’t matter if you keep it and enjoy it. I’m also glad that the PPF has freed you from worrying about it, and just using the nice thing that you have.
I wish it had been in the cards for me to buy your first i3 off of you, but such is life.
I’m on year two for the oil on my Volt. I’m not changing it till the computer tells me to. I’ve likely only put ~1-2000 miles on the gas engine in my 20,000 miles of driving. I’m a habitual oil changer (always go for the “extreme” service intervals) so it feels very strange. Good, but strange.
Does the car ever fire off the engine like once a month just to check it still works? I would likely use the gas motor even less than you do and not running it at least every month to keep things lubricated is a level of anxiety I don’t need.
I run it once a week for one leg of my commute (about 18-20 miles). Makes sure everything gets warmed up and circulated.
I’ll add, the car will do it automatically if you don’t run it often enough
Mine makes me start the engine every few months, which makes sense. Most times I make runs to the airport and that gives me a reason to turn on the engine, but for around town, the juice gets me there.
I always run mine once a week, just to make sure everything is staying circulated.
It’s also a good idea to make sure to go through a tank of gas every few months. Depending on your driving patterns, you could easily end up with old gas, even with the maintenance cycle. I guess this is the one silver lining of the 2 gallon tank: you can empty it pretty quick.