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
Not looking for an i3, but something else.
I used to sell unicorns for a living, and now that I’m looking for one myself, since they’re about 12 years old, boy does revisiting things like numbers and registries remind you of how hard it can be.
I’m starting with an initial corpus of ~600 cars in the US. There were three colors, so maybe that’s 400 qualifying. Manual? Maybe 20%. So now we’re down to 80 cars. Then I want a slick-top. Oh dear. So we’re at best at 30 cars, likely closer to 20.
Then there’s an important standard item that could’ve been eliminated through options that is mandatory for me, and then at least ONE option (arguably two) that are just ludicrously expensive to retrofit in post.
So now it’s more of a priority list than anything else. Manual is required, but if the two “really want” options are on the car but it’s a dual-clutch, a transaxle swap is actually the infinitely cheaper way to go. I could also compromise on a painted sunroof versus a slick-top, since with it closed it maintains the same silhouette at the cost of weight up top (ugh), added maintenance costs and a bit less headroom for tall passengers.
Though there are a lot more non-US cars (another 1300ish). So the question of buying the unicorn if you can find it, and paying import duty is a real consideration.
If you ever wonder why some people will order some cars new and not just buy one used, this is why. When you get into the special stuff, finding the ideal used one can be close to impossible. In some cases it doesn’t even exist, or it does aside from the paint which is unquestionably the most expensive thing to change after the fact.
Spill it, what is the car you’re looking for?
2014 911 50AE in preferably Geyser Grey, or Graphite Gray (no black).
But I want…
* A 7-speed manual (no PDK)
* A slick-top vastly preferred, worst case a painted sunroof
* Any Sport Seats Plus (any variety) with the Houndstooth centers
* PCCBs (insane cost to retrofit)
* PDCC (insane cost to retrofit)
* Sport PASM
* Anything else is very easy/reasonable to change to ideal spec.
The 9A1 3.8Ls are a Goldilocks engine with virtually no powertrain issues (better water pump from 2014 onwards, one wonky cooling hose fitment), and all US 911 50 AEs are that engine in full state of tune with the X51 Powerkit. So it’s the best expression you can get of that engine. Yes, it’s not GT3 power, but it’s also not GT3 long-term rebuild costs. I already have a GT3-engined car anyways.
I don’t think those 7-speeds felt great — more an issue with there being four shift-planes than anything else — but you can replace the OEM (Jopp Group) shifter with one of the crazy all-machined setups from Numeric, and with a great weighted shift knob, have shift action that feels pretty great.
After that, EPAS reprogramming (GT3 profile) to improve steering feel, and suspension tweaks. Yet you end up with a 991.1 wide body GTS that looks as classy as possible, doesn’t have center lock wheels (5-lugs!), has the very cool Fuchs-style Sport Design wheels, and have been holding their value adjusted for inflation.
Yet only 599 of (numbered!) 1963 cars sold in the US, and people largely bought them to keep them. There’s the PCA “Club Coupe” and RennSport Reunion V (25 total cars!) which are functionally similar but come in only a single color (and RRV cars were all specced the same), but I prefer how the 911 50AE looks in Geyser Grey.
If I found the exact combo outside the US, I’d consider importing it.
I think for an “everyday” car, it does every job I want it to do. I like my Spyder RS, but I want something less psycopath alongside it for normal use.
Wow, that is a very detailed list. Good luck with your search!
I’ve decided to take PDCC off the list.
If it comes on the car, I’ll take it, but not actively search for it.
I think the reality of dealing with a hydraulic system when it’s 30 years old is going to be… both un-fun and very expensive. The pop-up spoilers on Porsches are already a bit of a thing as they tend to fail around 10 years old. So things like hydraulic drop-links is little different to why HICAS is removed from older Nissans.
My plan for a 911 50AE regardless was to install the OEM SportDesign ducktail anyways, and I’ve recently seen one, and sure enough it looks great. Eliminates the failure mode, less weight by not having the motor and hydraulics back there, and looks better.
Back in 2017 or so, I had to drop off our X5 for yet another replacement of the silly run flat tires on it and got driven home in an i3. It was an interesting ride. It was roomy and the driver was not exuberant. I got to survey the surroundings. It wasn’t an unpleasant space in which to be. But the sticker for a new one seemed pretty high.
I’m happy that you’re happy. And the 110. Holy moly! A stop sign at the ends of essentially diagonal on ramps? In my ’68 Datsun 510 wagon, visiting my aunt and uncle in Pasadena, while in college at UCSD, it was rev to about 5000 rpm, spot a gap in traffic and drop the clutch to get on the freeway heading back to mellow (back then) San Diego.
If I remember correctly, 2017-18s were the next best thing to 2019 and after, correct? I looked at them at some point, but didn’t pull the trigger. I thought the EV would be the sweet spot, but your article has changed my mind!
I started looking for one of these after one of your articles. I had totally dismissed them as just another short range disposable EV, but I was happy to be wrong.
Every single time I get in my 2015 Fit I feel the same way, and I never fail to look back at it with admiration when we’ve finished our tasks.
I have a friend with a Fit and she absolutely loves it. I might start looking for a gently use one with a stick. I don’t know if they exist.
My father in law just got one handed to him for free. 100k miles, owner claimed it was making weird noises. My fil washed the mud from underneath, noise went away. Score!
There’s gotta be more to this story? Did the person try to get it checked out at a shop and was quoted a really high price to fix it?
Or to them it was old enough they simply wanted to get a new car?
Or something else?
Guy with more money than sense was using it to take his dog to hiking trails. Taking it down dirt roads, not washing it. Idiot considered it worn out cause it has 100k miles. A Honda fit with a manual. So he told my mechanic father in law if he could fix it, he could have it. My fil washed it, put it on the rack and inspected it, fixed a oil leak, and vacuumed up the dog hair. Fil is replacing his Echo he was using as a daily with the fit. And as a bonus, it is a rust free az car.
That is an awesome win!
Heck even if it really wasn’t worth repairing, he could have a young technician learn how to break down anl car and part it out or donate it to a local mechanic program and taken a tax write off.
As they say, a fool and his Fit are soon parted. My fil figures he can get 300k out of it, which will last him til he is 80.
They do exist, but they are rare.
Hey, so, how is a car like this on a road trip? If I want to go visit somebody a couple of states over, can I charge it up, fill it up, and hit the interstate? Can I just buy gas every (some number) of miles, or is there something else to it?
I think it is speed limited when it switches to generator. In socal no big deal. Try to drive cross country? Good luck. Then again, it probably charges decently fast, so a nice break every 2 hrs to charge may nit be a bad thing. Or just rent a Canyonero for the cross country trip
It doesn’t speed limit. I haven’t gone very far, so I can’t say how it would do, but you’d have to eventually fill up every hour or so.
That sounds untenable. Best to rent a regular car for long trips.
Ah. I remember James may having hus limited, but that was in the UK, and entertainment value added
These came with a 1.9 gallon tank, but they only let you use 1 gallon of it. You can reprogram it to recognize the whole tank size though, which also doubles the gas range. Some people add a tank to the small frunk
Later cars didn’t have the limit, because the larger batteries could exceed the range of the gas tank.
Getting trapped between the doors is actually a blessing, so you can hide from all those drive-bys. Perfect LA car.
It is so exciting to hear that you are still in love with your i3.
We are so attached to ours that, after not finding a REX with the right trim spec, we ended up shipping it overseas when we relocated. Plus, i3s are oddly cheap in the US compared to their native Europe.
The car being so “hackable” made the process shockingly easy. Adding a rear fog light (usually a big expense when importing cars from the US to Europe) was barely a $50 switch replacement that I was able to do myself, plus a few lines of code.
When we went to pass the TUV, we were certain that some issue would be found that would set us back many hundreds of euros. We got more and more unsettled as we saw the tech summon somebody else, then their supervisor, then the on-site engineer. So, we approached them to ask.
The car had passed homologation without issues from the get-go. They were just trying to figure out the complex sequence of opening doors, pushing buttons, and stepping on pedals that the car requires to start the REX engine for emissions testing.
Did you have to change your charging module?
That was a big concern, but no, there was no need; the power module is fully compatible. Only the port is different (Type 1 in the US vs. Type 2 in Europe). We found a place that would swap the port, but it turns out that AC adapters are easy to come by. There are cars like the Leaf that use Type 1 in Europe. We even found an adapter for DC fast charging that works rather seamlessly.
The only thing that does not work, as expected, is anything related to cellular connectivity. So, no remote access through the app.
Cool! (And congrats on escaping the current madhouse!)
Preach David! Still loving my 2019 i3s BEV, best car I’ve ever owned.
To be fair, you just love what you have. Which is a good quality! Satisfaction is a wonderful thing.
If you have gotten the Nash Metropolitan running and were using it to commute, this article would have been titled “Why I’m Still Completely Obsessed With My Nash Metropolitan”
I like to think that the BMW as a clean cut businessman, in his early 40’s, with a spotless shave, a sharp, pressed navy blue suit, brown leather shoes and a smile full of pristine white teeth, which is only reserved for strategic uses. We find this man in a conference room behind a marble table, surrounded by others bearing striking resemblance to himself. Everything about the room and its attendees, down to the subject matter being discussed is meticulously calculated. The results are predictable. The graphs on the projector screen always point up, the prospects are always forward-looking, and anything that is discussed is always described as good. And the few odd things that aren’t, are made good IN that meeting before its carefully calculated end. Words like cordial, respectfully, imperative, and critical are uttered with dry determination, with the sole focus of striking items from an agenda.
It is a meeting like many before it, and many after it. And as it is winding down, the man at the helm of the table sees it fit to crack a mild, lukewarm joke, appropriate for the circumstance, the exact moment and suitable for the attendees to hear. He executes the joke promptly, with a precisely measured amount of warmth and humor. The round table chuckles in unison. All is exactly as planned, except!! … except our hero, the BMW, for a split second is beside himself and finds the joke relatable and hysterically funny. He laughts out loud longer, louder, and considerably higher pitched than the rest. An infinitely rare burst of of flamboyancy shrouds him for 3-4 seconds.
Silence at the table. All eyes are on him. He immediately stops laughing, composes himself, clears his throat and adjusts his tie.
Closing remarks, The meeting is adjurned.
THAT moment right there, was the production run of the i3, straddled between BMW’s recent past and future going forward.
I say this as someone who owns an i3 and is continuously starstruck by how incredible and unusual this car is, and also baffled by the world’s resistance to accepting it as a genuinely good choice for a used vehicle
For me it was the weird custom wheel / tire size with a bonus that the front and rear aren’t even the same size. I can’t see paying $1100 for a set of crap tires like the Ecopia
Tires for my Bolt are about $600 with dozens of choices and no risk that in a few years there will be no tires available.
True, it is one of the very few achieves about it. I hear allegedly Momo makes a tire that costs a fraction of the ecopias but there are two problems with this: one is that these won’t fit all i3 wheels and the Internet is torn about what wheel size on which i3 you actually need in order to use them (although perhaps David may be able to clue us in from experience?) Two is that most people who genuinely NEED the i3 in their life usually have no space to store extra tires and rely on tire shops / Costco for their replacement. I’m one of them. So alas, I’ve accepted ecopias as a fact of life..
David has an article on the topic. He bought 3 sets of the cheap tires and stacked them in his garage.
I don’t want to be in the situation of having to hoard a basic wear item like tires.
https://www.theautopian.com/how-my-new-bmw-i3s-fixes-the-i3s-horrible-achilles-heel-saving-me-thousands-on-tires/
They were ungodly expensive and rare when new, so the vast majority of people didn’t experience or see many of them. It also looks unusual and has an unusual power train you can’t ignore (unlike e.g. a rotary engine, which is functionally equivalent to a piston engine in your day-to-day life, compared to an EREV).
That’s three strikes against it on the used market. It doesn’t matter how great it is if nobody knows what it is and there’s plenty of Priuses competing with it.
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.
Having done a couple of winters in a couple eastern Cleveland suburbs, I can assure you, front-wheel-drive is better in the snow than RWD.
Depends on weight bias. I dont know about a i3 but on a vw bug, rwd works great cause its rear engine
Tires make a bigger difference than drive wheels. I commuted in Minneapolis and Saint Paul from 2014-2019 with an old 318ti and Blizzaks in the winter and that car was pretty unstoppable. I would assume the i3 is similarly capable since it has a very even weight distribution.
On at typical FWD car with 60% of the weight on the front axle FWD works fine in snow for straight line traction. It still sucks for cornering because if you spin the front wheels while going around a corner you not only lose steering control but the whole car drifts into oncoming traffic.
RWD with 60% of the weight on the rear wheels works great for straight line traction and you don’t lose steering when the drive wheels spin.
I know tires are important under these conditions. But a TV station I worked at in Cleveland went from FWD Olds 88s to RWD Crown Vics in `94. The photogs I kept in touch with said the Crown Vics were a lot squirrelier than the 88s. The station did not have dedicated snow tires for wintertime. A couple of the guys put a couple of hundred pounds of cat litter in the trunk, and apparently that helped some. And it could be a source of traction aid if they got stuck. My wife’s AWD GC and my Toyota 4×4
It would take about 300 lbs of cat litter in the trunk to give a 90’s Crown Vic a 50/50 weight ratio.
I grew up in Michigan in a time where most cars were RWD. Learned to drive in a 1982 Olds 98. It is pretty easy to learn how to control rear wheel skids with a little bit of practice in a snowy parking lot.
I’ve owned plenty of FWD cars as that is what is available today but don’t like them in snow. I especially don’t like having to back up hills when weight shift takes weight off the front axle and the wheels just spin and spin.
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.
The beauty of EREVs is that they can be
1. Cheaper
2. Lighter
3. Completely independent of problematic EV infrastructure
4. Easier to sell to skeptics, of which there are many (this point is related to the others, admittedly, but it’s important as BEV-only companies are currently burning through billions struggling to move product).
5. A way for people not ready to go full BEV to drastically cut their CO2 footprint
6. Overall better for the environment than an equivalent BEV with the same range for the many people who use the vehicle primarily for short commutes.
The strength of these points depends on the vehicle in question ^, but for vehicles like the 200kWh Silverado EV and even Rivians, it holds.
We have already reached the point where a 20KwH battery is small and cheap enough to be designed into the platform for a new car without really compromising anything else – take the RAV4 as an example.
As battery technology advances, the newest, cutting edge stuff is probably going to be the most expensive to manufacture, but if we just added a cheap, mediocre 15KwH battery pack to every new car sold, for the vast majority of drivers it would have an oversized impact on MPG, emissions, etc.
Another nice perk of EREVs is how well they work across the spectrum – the balance between gas/electric motivation can be tuned to suit the driving dynamics of the vehicle, the environment, or even the individual driver.
YES!!! The low-hanging fruit approach that was ignored for far too long.
To attain the goal of reduced fuel consumption and emissions, it is far more effective to partially electrify all new cars instead of fully electrify about 10% of new cars (2025 Q3 sales according to Cox Automotive).
Yeah, I went 200kWh.
1 – Cheaper – off lease Silverado EV WT4s are so cheap in my area.
2 – Lighter. Yeah, we don’t talk about her weight. I took 200 lbs of scrap to the recycle yard, the scale lady’s jaw dropped when she saw 8800 lbs.
3 – Completely independent as long as I stay within 200 miles of home 🙂
4 – Easy to sell – just pull the car trailer with a friend and they are sold.
5 and 6 – I feel a little guilty commuting in it, but the kid is driving my old stick TDI so my sacrifice is for a good cause.
And bonus #7 – I can run the house for a long time with her 220v 30 amp outlet.
To be clear: that’s a badass truck.
The Chevy Silverado Ev 4WT is the best ev truck option at the moment certainly in the USD market. It is the only option if you are among the minority of truck owners that need the ability to tow further than locally.
The biggest downside is how flipping huge it is, though that is true of all the current full size trucks, the heigh of the hood and top of the bed sides especially.
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!
Obsess away, I get it.
What truly makes a car cool is the owner’s ability to be boring about it for hours.
Haha so true!
I stand corrected. But at least write about its’ most genius-level feature, the 8 totally programmable buttons which allow the driver to design their own dashboard. Every car should have this.
… Don’t read the article when you see a headline you don’t like?
There’s plenty of other DT content that’s not about the i3.
*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.
I am a current socal resident, but did not grow up here, and flip a bitch was known to me on the other coast in the 90s. I’m not convinced it’s an LA or SoCal thing at all.
U-turns are kind of SoCal’s national sport.
Oh sure. Just meant the expression exists cross-country.
ILLEGAL U turns are socal’s national sport. haha
Indeed.
“ 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, so the jury is still out on the technology.
No need to do the fuel tank increase coding on 2017+ i3’s as they had a bigger battery which made for more electric range than the tank could provide.
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!
agree, my husband who isn’t a car guy when I described it said “this will be our next car”, so yes there should be more!
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.
Are these all owned by members of the Autopian? Lol
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.
Volt tank is small enough at 9 gallons to make this pretty much a non issue. I’ll do long enough trips every few months to drain it
With how little gas is needed I’d probably spring the extra $1/gallon to get the non-ethanol.
I’m in Washington, non-ethanol hovers around 5-6 bucks a gallon! I take ~1-200ish mile trips often enough I don’t worry about the fuel going too stale.
I’m in Grays Harbor and it’s a lot more common out here than King County and sub $5.
I’m up north of you in Clallam. Gas isn’t nearly as cheap for god knows what reason. Better than where I grew up on Whidbey though…