Carrying Cargo 'n Things with Our i3's...

Coming into i3 ownership from a larger car, one of my pre-purchase concerns was decreased usability for day-to-day tasks that require carrying stuff that might be out of the ordinary. So I'm starting this thread in hopes that we can share some of the more unusual loads our i3's have carried.

I'll start with something simple: propane cylinders.

These things are heavy when they're full, and not something I want knocking around in my hatch. It took me a couple of tries to come with a solid yet simple solution, and here it is.

All that's required is a 4-foot nylon strap, about 3/4" wide, something you'd find at an outdoor store for lashing things to a backpack. And I picked up a couple of soft rubber Wundermax door stops from Amazon. I won't declare the door stops essential, but they certainly take some of the stress off the strap and hard points.

I use the child seat anchor at the back of the passenger seat in combination with the rear corner cargo tie-down loop. After that, it's easy-peasy, and I just nudge the cylinder up a little bit to make sure it's resting solidly on the wedges.

I've found the box that holds 10 reams of copier/printer paper (empty, of course) perfect to stabilize an otherwise squirrelly LPG tank in the trunk.

A bale of straw for my Halloween decor. Ya, the privacy hidey flap thing closes completely!

A 5kw generator (in the box), but I don't have pics.

But a bale of hay??? Who can compete with that???

Fisher99 said:

A 5kw generator (in the box), but I don't have pics.

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Wait, isn't a 5kW generator called a REX?

So am I mistaken? I didn't find many posts regarding "bikes" or "bicycles" searching this forum, so surely I'm not looking hard enough.

Today I rode my folding Xootr Swift to pick up my i3 from service. The Swift has 20" wheels and isn't a compact folder like a Dahon or Brompton, but I was nevertheless surprised how much space it took up. Upon arriving home, I took a few pictures, of it laying down, of it standing up, and for comparison, I stuffed a "regular" bicycle in to see how well it fit.

The normal-sized bike in the photos is a "large" 19" frame with 700x40c rubber, so equivalent to a fat tired road bike or gravel bike. These are larger diameter wheels (+tires) than most anything other than a 29" mountain bike. The wheelbase is a longish 1125mm -- in between many road bikes (shorter) and mountain bikes (longer) of similar sized-frames. With the front passenger seat forward and the seatback upright, this bike barely fit -- the wide "mountain bike style" flat bars had the grip just touching the rear glass when I closed the hatch. Point being, I think most road bikes and 27.5 or 26" mountain bikes ought to fit -- laying like this -- with a little more room, but large-framed 29" mountain bikes will probably pose a problem.

(...and yes, lowering the seatpost, loosening / offsetting the stem, and removing the rear wheel would of course all help the cause!)

Xootr Swift


Xootr Swift upright


2015 Raleigh Misceo iE, 700c / 19"

eNate said:

Fisher99 said:

A 5kw generator (in the box), but I don't have pics.

Click to expand...

Wait, isn't a 5kW generator called a REX?

[snip]

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Well, technically, since mine is an ie/REX, it would be a backup REX...

I managed to fit an 8.5 foot by 4" cardboard tube in the car. You've gotta fold down both rear seats to get it on the diagonal between the front seats and under the console, but it's possible. A front passenger would need to shift his/her feet a little maybe, but not to the point of discomfort. (If you need closure on that anecdote, the tube contained an 8 foot long strip of tile transition ramp for matching uneven floor surfaces -- special order at Home Depot. I only needed 30 inches, but 8 foot is what it comes in.)

robthebold said:

I managed to fit an 8.5 foot by 4" cardboard tube ...

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Darn! I used to just squeeze 10' copper into my allroad, kind of like you're describing, except resting on the passenger side corner of the dash. I hadn't really thought about it until your post. Shoot. It's either going to be out the i3's window, on the roof, in in the Flex.

eNate said:

Darn! I used to just squeeze 10' copper into my allroad, kind of like you're describing, except resting on the passenger side corner of the dash. I hadn't really thought about it until your post. Shoot. It's either going to be out the i3's window, on the roof, in in the Flex.

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You might still get it in with the front passenger seat fully reclined. I'd give it 60/40 odds that it would fit corner to corner.

Essential i3 accessory: a cargo net! Basically a net made of bungee straps. I bought this one at a motorcycle shop some years back. It fits perfectly with the four rings in the boot and stops your shopping from rolling around

I have a recumbent, folding tricycle that I regularly carry in my i3. That was a deal breaker...if it didn't fit, I wouldn't have bought the car! FWIW, it's an IceTrike Adventure model. My ICE can sit in the garage with a battery maintainer on it for months between uses. The vast majority of my driving is local, less than 10-miles, so the i3 is ideal. When I do need the ICE, it might go for a few thousand miles before finding its way back to the garage.

Here's a load that has a low "wow factor" and isn't going to win any awards for specialousness, but it is representative of our typical morning trek: two boys, their backpacks, a trumpet, my work bag and overnight bag, lunch bag, dry cleaning, and some miscellanea. This is close to max load for the i3 trunk -- maybe fill it out with a couple of heavy winter coats.

Here's some mystery cargo.

eNate said:

Here's some mystery cargo.

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Your custom cargo extender. Shows how much additional cargo volume is available in the space where the REx engine would be.

alohart said:

Your custom cargo extender.

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Shoot, too easy Art! That's right, my cargo is more cargo volume. I should have flipped it upside down. :/ Would that have made it more difficult?

eNate said:

Shoot, too easy Art!

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Especially for a fellow BEV owner who has considered such a cargo extender. Unfortunately, shipping costs to Honolulu make the cost way more than I want to spend.

I also wonder about how such an extender would work in practice. How accessible is the extra capacity? The cargo area carpet would need to be lifted, right?

If one placed a small heavy item on the carpet over the extended cargo compartment which has no hard cover, would the carpet support the heavy load?

Seems like the ideal solution would be to cut a hole the size of the opening to extended cargo area in the original carpet and CFRP (2014) or aluminum (>2014) cargo area floor. Attach the cut-out CFRP or aluminum piece to the extended cargo area with hinges to make an extended cargo area cover. With this modification, the extra cargo area could be accessed without lifting the carpet, and the hard cargo cover would support cargo.

I'll post a new thread with a review in the next couple of days.

https://www.mybmwi3.com/threads/review-wokeby-trunk-extension-for-the-i3-bev.16779/

alohart said:

eNate said:

Shoot, too easy Art!

Click to expand...

Especially for a fellow BEV owner who has considered such a cargo extender. Unfortunately, shipping costs to Honolulu make the cost way more than I want to spend.

I also wonder about how such an extender would work in practice. How accessible is the extra capacity? The cargo area carpet would need to be lifted, right?

If one placed a small heavy item on the carpet over the extended cargo compartment which has no hard cover, would the carpet support the heavy load?

Seems like the ideal solution would be to cut a hole the size of the opening to extended cargo area in the original carpet and CFRP (2014) or aluminum (>2014) cargo area floor. Attach the cut-out CFRP or aluminum piece to the extended cargo area with hinges to make an extended cargo area cover. With this modification, the extra cargo area could be accessed without lifting the carpet, and the hard cargo cover would support cargo.

Click to expand...

For me , ideal solution is building a similarly volumed extender, dropping a massive subwoofer and amp in it, putting the alum cover back on and never looking back. I dunno, maybe something like a 700RMS sub, just dumping massive bass.

I find this little car so practical for carrying cargo, I've really never considered adding more space. I fill it both in volume and weight loaded. It's amazing. I cant remember how many rolls of romex I was able to fit last time.....50 rolls? probably. lol. I need to remember to snap pictures next time. 800lbs of cargo is a cakewalk.

I ought to put this in a new thread titled "BMW i3 Runflat Tire..."

My wife's runflat has run flat again. Bridgestone DriveGuards cost a fortune and don't seem to last that long. But this one got her home. Puncture is in the sidewall so can't be patched. Looks like I could carry two of these in the i3's cargo space (to and from the tire shop -- not as spares!!) and maintain my family duty rating of four passengers. Single tie-down strap to the rear floor loop, and with the tire angled all the way out so that the inside of the hatch just touches it when it closes. (Two tires would be standing straight up, and I'd use both left-side tie-down loops.)

Ok, this one was basically a cargo carrying fail, saved by desperation. That's a whole lotta disassembled bike piled up in the back, plus the kids. TL;DR is below.



First off, shout out to BicycleBlueBook.com in San Jose -- if you want a used or potentially new bike for cheap, add them to your list. They're on eBay and they ship, too. This is my third bike from them in the past year. They're not perfect, but many of their bikes are a really good deal.

I loaded up my SeaSucker folding cross bars + Yakima BOA bike mount and a pair of bike helmets, along with some of the usual payload: my overnight and messenger bags, one kid backpack, some parts for a school science project, along with both kiddos, for a jaunt from Oakland to San Jose to pick up a bike.

With the lockdown and all the "free" time, I decided to pick up an electric bike for my wife for riding around our hilly neighborhood. Our bike rides together always involve loading up the mountain bikes and driving to a trail, and I was thinking it would be awesome for her to have a utilitarian bike as a means, something she can use instead of the car, without it being "a bike ride."

Anyhow we arrived at Bicycle Bluebook and I rang the COVID-approved doorbell with my elbow for our pre-paid pick-up. The first thing I notice is the 500-mile used Trek I'm being handed is the Wrong. Friggin. Size. They had it incorrectly listed as a Medium (17"), which would have been right at her threshold of being too big; in actuality it was a Large (20") which wasn't even close to cutting it for a 5'6" woman.

As an aside, I don't know how it is in other areas, but my county has deemed bike shops "essential service" status under transportation. As far as I know, they're closed as walk-in showrooms, but are permitted to service bicycles and can sell bikes, and the ones I'm familiar with are doing online purchase / in-person pick-up. Granted, we've driven into the neighboring county, but seems similar rules are being followed. During our 45 minutes we were there five other like-minded customers pulled in to complete similar transactions -- one in a brand new Model Y. 8o Nobody else got the wrong size bike or required disassembly to get them in their vehicles, so as you're about to find out I was just double-blessed with stupid luck / inept planning this day.

The employee there sincerely apologized for the size listing error, and swiftly refunded my PayPal. But I had had my eye on another bike they listed with all of 2 miles on it, a Raleigh that they took as overstock from another bike shop. I gave him the oh woe me and he disappeared inside. When he returned he politely chopped the price down to within $200 of the used Trek's price. In keeping with policy, he emailed me a new "invoice," and I paid "online" -- from my phone, 6 feet from their front door, all legit and contactless. It wasn't the deal I was hoping for, but nevertheless a steal for a last-model-year essentially new bike.

I wheeled the new bike over to the i3 and installed the Sea Sucker crossbars on the roof, grabbed my Yakima Boa, and... WTF? The Yakima round bar clamp diameter is different than the Sea Sucker! Yep, today's SECOND size discrepancy! I don't know how this significant detail escaped me. The Yakima High Road racks that I normally use with these crossbars have done away with the familiar Yakima clamps / brackets, and use straps instead, so this was the first time I've run into this problem.

Well dang, now I've got this full-sized 48 pound bike, 700x50c wheels / tires, full fenders, and I'm one person short of a fully loaded i3. Visions of both boys strapped into the front seat scooched all the way forward, faces up close to the dash, just wasn't cutting it for a 30 mile drive home.

I don't want to make this ordeal out to be an unmitigated disaster, but I busted out a 5mm allen wrench and removed the stem, so that I could remove the fork, so that *clink clink clink* I could drop pieces of the headset all over the parking lot. Thankfully the ball bearings were caged and they more-or-less stayed put. Both wheels and the seatpost removed, and we managed to squeeze just about everything back in the car to where my youngest had a comfy wheel to lean against / doink him on the noggin for the schlep home. The cargo bay lid slid into the gap between the front passenger seat and door. Only one minor tire scuff mark on the headliner! I left the naked crossbars attached to the roof; there was really no good place to put them inside.

Moral of the story is... make stories! Today was the first day my 8 year old excitedly wrote a complete full-page journal entry without much cajoling. Guess who got the first ride on my wife's new bike once we cobbled it back together?