Second live with double range for the i3 60Ah?

[Oldsparks]

Why did you end up paying the lower end? Did the replacement go quicker/easier than originally thought so less labor costs/hours? 8,000 EU is about $12,800 AUD which is an approx. saving of a substantial $19,700 for me!! So it makes me think how can I get the cheapest shipping costs and send the car to Czechoslovakia

Do you still have the car? How did it go with the larger replacement battery?

Hi I have found a guy in the UK who replaces i3 batteries 94 £3.5K or 120 £5.5K the batteries are not new but are mostly from very low and newer models , He trades on Ebay as Tesla-online and has lots of i3 cars which he breaks for spare parts I have had dealings with him and he is a really nice honest guy and when they do a battery change they do all the necessary coding . Just thought I'd mention him.

 

[Steve Gmail]

Hi I have found a guy in the UK who replaces i3 batteries 94 £3.5K or 120 £5.5K the batteries are not new but are mostly from very low and newer models , He trades on Ebay as Tesla-online and has lots of i3 cars which he breaks for spare parts I have had dealings with him and he is a really nice honest guy and when they do a battery change they do all the necessary coding . Just thought I'd mention him.

Big thankyou! I looked at shipping my car over from Oz to Liverpool in the UK earlier this year to do a road trip around the UK/Ireland and EU and the rates were quite reasonable @ $5KAUD each way. So given I may have to shell out £5.5K ($10,600AUD) to do the battery swap as well as get the car over and back for a total of $20,600 - I'm still looking at a saving of close to $12KAUD from the BMW quote.......

 

[Clanduncan]

Hi I have found a guy in the UK who replaces i3 batteries 94 £3.5K or 120 £5.5K the batteries are not new but are mostly from very low and newer models , He trades on Ebay as Tesla-online and has lots of i3 cars which he breaks for spare parts I have had dealings with him and he is a really nice honest guy and when they do a battery change they do all the necessary coding . Just thought I'd mention him.

Now, it'd be interesting to know if he's into the coding as well when batteries are swapped out. He'd have a whole new business if he wanted to.

 

[Minotaur]

Hi I have found a guy in the UK who replaces i3 batteries 94 £3.5K or 120 £5.5K the batteries are not new but are mostly from very low and newer models , He trades on Ebay as Tesla-online and has lots of i3 cars which he breaks for spare parts I have had dealings with him and he is a really nice honest guy and when they do a battery change they do all the necessary coding . Just thought I'd mention him.

Hi - Could not find this seller on ebay. I may have screwed up my search on ebay. Apologies. Do you have a ID or something for me to find him ?


Cancel - found now - think its this one tesla_part_online - Will contact to see what can be done

 

[scepter]

This might not directly apply to this thread but might provide useful background information for US owners.

In 2017 BMW NA took six 2014 cars in when their leases expired. They upgraded their battery pack to the larger 2017 unit.

After testing, BMW sold them wholesale at auction. I bought one, paying $6K USD over equivalent 2014 cars.

Since I bought the car in 2017, other than a couple of 12v battery replacements, I have had zero problems.

Afterward, I learned that BMW NA was testing how difficult the upgrade procedure was, as they were considering rolling out battery upgrades here in the US. They later canceled the project. I don't know why. I believe that the upgrade was available throughout most of Europe.

 

[rdimonda]

The BMW i3 is one of the rare BEV on the market, where modern technologies like carbon fibre composite structure, a lightweight aluminium chassis, plastis parts etc. are used, and at the same time each HV battery installed, whether it is the 60 Ah, 94 Ah or 120 Ah type, has exactly the same external dimensions. Could early 60 Ah models because of their low range be considered to be of low value on the retail market, a further degradation of the 60 Ah battery most probably means their end. Battery degradation is and will be an issue on all BEV. But on the i3 it's not only the replacement, it's an upgrade to double range, which could be considered plug-and-play. So we will most probably see a growing market for battery replacement on the i3 in the future. E. g. Mandrill (mandrill-automotive.de) offers such an upgrade from 60 or 94 to 120 Ah, for roughly 13.6 TEuro. Together with their battery specialist Lion Smart they could tune the capacity even up to 147 Ah, using NMC911 cell chemistry, they say. This means some 400 km range, together with a better battery cell stability and lifetime, according to them. If it's preferable to invest in a car that you know well since years, or to loose about the same amount of money in the first two years when buying a new BEV, everyone has to decide on his own.

Anybody know of someone doing this in the US. My wife will not give up the car no matter the cost. We have a REX, so less battery to replace possibly.

 

[Mondomensch]

Anybody know of someone doing this in the US. My wife will not give up the car no matter the cost. We have a REX, so less battery to replace possibly.

Maybe consider buying a new-to-you used one?

 

[Oldsparks]

Hi - Could not find this seller on ebay. I may have screwed up my search on ebay. Apologies. Do you have a ID or something for me to find him ?


Cancel - found now - think its this one tesla_part_online - Will contact to see what can be done

Hi , yes that's the guy Dave is his name and they do all the necessary coding etc so car is ready to go as normal.

 

[tliet]

That's a huge difference, compared to the UK. If I look on Autotrader's UK site, there are roughly a dozen 5 years old (or younger) 120Ah i3 under £15k.

Here's an example, chosen at random: 2019 120Ah i3 with 24kmiles - £12,799.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202409254452873/

So perhaps the service is more viable in Germany. It would not be viable in the UK, for most people, taking account of the fact that you'd be putting a brand new battery in a 10 year old car?

Even so, their price won't be sustainable, even in Germany, for long. Used car prices drop too fast for them to keep their prices that high for more than maybe a year. So price reductions are inevitable.

When I went looking for a car over the summer, the nicer examples of the i3 literally lasted only a few hours, at max, before they were sold. The reason for this is that whilst in Germany BEV sales have dropped considerably, surrounding countries are gobbling up EVs like crazy. I know that the German dealership where I got my i3s from was actually surprised by the number of Dutch people buying used EVs in Germany.

In the UK, the misinformation that's being spread around is temporarily suppressing prices.

 

[mojo]

In the UK, the misinformation that's being spread around is temporarily suppressing prices.

Anti-EV content in the UK press has been here for a long time now - it's certainly nothing new. But the UK car market is odd in other ways - for example the extraordinarily high proportion of privately-owned cars being bought on finance (in effect, lots of people driving cars that they can't afford). It seems to create more of a "boom and bust" market.

But hopefully you are right and it's temporary. In some respects it's good in that it has made it much easier for people to get into the cheaper end of the EV ownership, but of course it undermines the confidence of new EV buyers, when they see the value of their new car halving in the first 18 months!