Looking for I3 owner in San Francisco area on March 05

[eNate]

Do I have to bring the car with me or can I ride my bike?

 

[eNate]

Hey other bay area forum members, just wanted to follow up to say this is legit. I just finished up an interview. It might be worth your while to reach out. They're in town through Saturday. It's not i3 -specific, other than what you bring to the table. If you have some strong ownership-based opinions about what an EV should or shouldn't be, this is a good (maybe even productive) forum to influence future products.

Do I have to bring the car with me or can I ride my bike?

A: It depends.

 

[eNate]

So this was interesting...

I didn't get a reply or PM to my post on this thread, but I also sent an email asking for more info and whether I needed the car with me. He replied that they wanted me to drop in to a hotel conference room in San Francisco right then (a day early), which didn't fit my schedule.

I got a follow-up email from another person for a different interview:

"Time can be varied depending on the flow of the interview but basically this is what to expect..

0.5 In home interview, 1.5hr Driving interview, 0.5 follow-up conversation

What all is involved in a driving journey?
-We just want to see the daily life of the driver, the respondent just needs to drive, where they go normally with their car in daily life"

The next morning an interview team arrives at my home by Uber. Laptop, video camera, tripod, recorder, and multi-page interview booklet. They don't say who they're working for but a lot can be implied. They offer me a thank-you gift -- a gift box of Song Jeol liquor. I have no idea what it is, but it's quite lovely.

They set up in my literal construction site and proceed to tag-team me with a bunch of open questions -- where I see EVs in 5 years, what they should look like, likes and dislikes of my i3. They seemed to take a big interest in my Ford Flex. When I opened my Google Maps timeline to show they what my driving typically looks like, they were very interested and took pictures of that. They asked life priorities and aspirations, and questions about the family.

After nearly an hour of this, we piled in the i3. Video camera rolling, they asked a bunch of questions about the infotainment system, how I use it, and what I think is missing. We then proceed to drive my commute to work.

During the drive, I talked a lot about the nav system, how it's actually useful to me, and why I run it and Gmaps or Waze concurrently. We played with Pandora and tuned some radio stations. I demonstrated some touchpad text input. They commented on the sunroof and the quick preset buttons.

Upon reaching work I showed them where I plug in, and we stopped briefly at a Level 2 charger. The front seat interviewer promptly locked the back seat interviewer in the car.

After that, we climbed back in, they put everything away, and I drove them back to SF so they could head off to their next appointment.

This morning, a nice little $375 credit hit my PayPal account. Frankly, I would have done it voluntarily, but I'm not complaining.