BMW revamps "i" electric car division to focus on self-drivi

[jadnashuanh]

The i3 was never intended for long distance travel. The i5 is probably the car you may want to consider once it becomes available in the next 3-years or so. For running around town, personally, I think the i3 is spot on. It's when people try to make it one car for all occasions that it begins to fail. You can, but it takes compromises which many people either don't understand, or are unwilling to take. IMHO, BMW has been waiting for the battery chemistry to become both less expensive and higher capacity. All of the cars that can go further than the i3 are not as efficient going the distance it can for a reason...they made a choice on construction methods, materials, performance, and range.

 

[epirali]

The i3 was never intended for long distance travel. The i5 is probably the car you may want to consider once it becomes available in the next 3-years or so. For running around town, personally, I think the i3 is spot on. It's when people try to make it one car for all occasions that it begins to fail. You can, but it takes compromises which many people either don't understand, or are unwilling to take. IMHO, BMW has been waiting for the battery chemistry to become both less expensive and higher capacity. All of the cars that can go further than the i3 are not as efficient going the distance it can for a reason...they made a choice on construction methods, materials, performance, and range.

I was/am absolutely looking forward to the i5. That is part of why I am a little taken aback by the report. I seriously hope whatever it is BMW continues with production of i5, i8 and revamping i3. I understand that i3 is a "city car" but honestly there is nothing inherent that stops the car from being much more than that. In MY opinion the only things that would be needed are:

1) More range, which has already been offered (and would happen again with density increase). Even now the Rex is essentially that and the primary reason I got excited about the car.

2) A less bouncy suspension. The short wheel base is part of the "city car" design, but having suspension that is not sport yet allows too much lateral bounce is simply suspension design. The front back bounce can't be fixed because of the wheel base, but lateral bounce in a car with most of the weight in the bottom is just strange.

3) More refined acceleration/deceleration and auto cruise release, which apparently already has been addressed via latest firmware.

For me with these changes this is an excellent all around car, city or otherwise. I was really hoping for a suspension change in 2017 year.

 

[I33t]

I'm happy for the range to increase via higher capacity battery as long as they remain the same size and weight. Loading the i3 up with heavier capacity would only impact its efficiency.

Everyone will have some personal likes and dislikes of any car they buy. Trying to fit an i3 into a thought bubble as a long range cruiser is like trying to jamb a square peg into a round hole, so anyone with that intent will find more dislikes because the i3 was never intended for that.

Its like choosing a Cessna 182 for international travel. You can do it, but it was never designed for that.

 

[Brice]

The i3 was never intended for long distance travel. The i5 is probably the car you may want to consider once it becomes available in the next 3-years or so. For running around town, personally, I think the i3 is spot on. It's when people try to make it one car for all occasions that it begins to fail. You can, but it takes compromises which many people either don't understand, or are unwilling to take. IMHO, BMW has been waiting for the battery chemistry to become both less expensive and higher capacity. All of the cars that can go further than the i3 are not as efficient going the distance it can for a reason...they made a choice on construction methods, materials, performance, and range.

Exactly my thoughts.
I have to explain this a lot around me, and it's really important to make people understand about electric cars in general that with the actual market offers, you can not consider electric cars as long travelers vehicles (Except if you can afford a Tesla). They are just not designed for that purpose. i3, Leaf, Zoe, .... are all playing in the same category at the moment : suburban city cars, commuters,...
However, i3 owners are extremely lucky because of the REx. It is like if you bought an electric car that would have been released 3 years from now. Of course, you run on gazoline, but at least, you can almost consider this car for -almost- all occasions.
In that sense, I think is i3 is far far away from being a "flawed attempt". This is a great car that is doing its -almost- best at what it has been made for.

 

[epirali]

In light of this report the whole i3 focus away from innovations on electric cars is even more puzzling to me:

http://electrek.co/2016/06/14/all-new-cars-mandated-electric-germany-2030/

 

[jadnashuanh]

I think that the last decade of work BMW did on CFRP and electrification has trickled down into the rest of the corporation and doesn't need as much focus by the I-division to produce a new vehicle with similar traits. It would be foolish as a company to abandon that, but it does make some sense in fostering that philosophy across the entire organization. The proof of concept is done with the i3 and i8. Lots of that tech is now being used in the 7-series, and in the X5 and others. What and when we'll see another i-car, we'll just have to wait and see. Personally, I'd like to see the i5 be something like a combination of the i3 and the i8, where there's a fairly big battery pack, but the ability to just drive without restrictions while refilling the tank. To maximize overall range, would still require light weight, so CFRP would be important.

FWIW, Nissan is promoting a fuel cell that uses an ethanol and water mix...refill quickly and easily, and the infrastructure could use existing pumps. While getting energy that their fuel cell can use, it does give off CO2, but it's about the same amount of CO2 that is taken out of the air to produce the ethanol, so is mostly neutral (assuming you believe using cropland to grow fuel plants is acceptable!).

Anyway, hard to say for sure. It would be nice to be a fly on the wall, but that doesn't happen too often.

 

[epirali]

It also seems BMW and Audi are putting resources in hydrogen fuel cell electric. They will have infrastructure unlike us (governments are putting money in). It would be something to have a range of all electric drive, BEV, hydrogen Etc running around Europe. Specially as you say in i5 and i3/i8 descendant variants...sigh those of us in the US can watch it from afar.

 

[jadnashuanh]

Without adequate infrastructure, a pure BEV has consequences. Even Tesla with their supercharger network, if you want to travel the road less traveled, you may not be able to do it. There are gas stations nearly everywhere, and on any car designed for that as a primary fuel, probably has at least that 200-mile range (and often, lots more), and 'recharging' only takes minutes. In a utopian world, all of the roads would have inductive charging, and you could always driven anywhere you wanted, never running out of power. Not in our lifetimes. High pressure hydrogen fueling stations are few and far between, which is one major reason why TOyota severely limits where it sells its current FC cars. At a $1-2M per station, it will be hard to justify their construction for a business, at least in enough quantity to make them work all across the country (no mom&pop store in the middle of nowhere that might sell gas is going to pop a mil for a hydrogen fueling station!). The US just isn't into infrastructure. Look at Europe, you can take a fast train to almost anywhere. Except in a few places, (Boston-DC, or along parts of the west coast), if you're really lucky, you might have one choice, and most people just don't have train service. If I wanted to take the train west from Boston, often, there's only one train a day unless I want to divert to NYC first - much worse than a bad connection on an airplane. Look at our highways and especially bridges. Nobody has the guts to raise enough taxes to actually fix things, let alone enhance them.

The march to more efficient vehicles will continue. How viable they become, and how widespread they will be, especially if you consider BEV's or FC, it's hard to say. Better and better hybrids have a better chance in the next 5-years...beyond that, who knows. Maybe when Iceland is devoid of ice and the shelf on Antarctica breaks off and causes a 5' sea level rise, people might actually believe in global warming. By then, it might be too late.