Would you buy it again?

[i3Alan]

I don't know which "other" cars you are comparing, but held up to a BMW 3 series, I would say it is an improvement. After owning BMWs for 40+ years, I can honestly agree with the BMW description:"The footprint of the 1 series, the interior space of the 3 series and the luxury and amenities of the 5 series." To me the car is exceptionally well fit and finished, but I would be interested in what you feel in compares poorly to.

Having owned Toyota (4), Lexus (2), Volvo (2), Saab (2), Ford (3), Honda (2) and Mercedes (1) cars before my first BMW, the i3, I can say BMW is far short on a number of items, even as it is by far the MOST enjoyable car I have ever owned. The Mercedes was a total joke with crap for climate control, cruise control, door locks, radio, and even worse for reliability (I will NEVER own another MB product!). My Camry Hybrid and Lexus GS and current ES hybrid had far more luxury than does my i3, with few exceptions. My last Volvo 850 handled better than my i3 in cornering, and much the same with braking (awesome). The Toyotas, Lexus, and Volvos had far superior climate control (virtual set and forget for months at a time). The comfort access of the i3 is good, but does not work as well as any of my other cars in that there are delays I did not have on the other vehicles. The i3 horn is a joke with delay turn on, inability to "tap" a quick beep, and a not very loud monotone. The worst horn of any vehicle I have owned. The sun visors are a joke with NO usefulness on the side window, and lots of gaps forward. I also do not like the delay on nearly every control: horn, windows, door locks, wipers, high beams, etc. None of my other cars had such operation delays, and even though they are slight, the delays are obnoxious. The iDrive is great, but clumsy by comparison to the Lexus controller as it requires watching the display to use, for the most part.

As I said, this is the most enjoyable vehicle I have ever owned, but it does have certain, if minor shortcomings in as far as it compares to other vehicles. It is missing many features my last few cars have had standard like memory seats, voice command, rear seat lights, roll down rear windows, rear arm rest, adjustable head rests, adjustable lumbar support, various trip computer features, lane departure warning, spare tire, and others. Many of the missing luxury features can be attributed to EV requirements for extreme weight savings, and I am fine with that. Also, answering your question, I have ignored the extras the i3 has, like bat-out-of-hell acceleration, nano-turning radius, CFRP body and plastic body panels, great interior layout, one-pedal driving, etc.

 

[stumbledotcom]

Yes, absolutely. I took delivery in May, 2104. The car has been back to the dealer only for updates. No mechanical issues.

 

[SSi3]

YES! I've only had the car 3 days and i'm in for life! :lol:

 

[Stevei3]

Absolutely. The car performs well for us as car #1 in our household.

Regards, Steven

 

[roofless]

Would we buy it again? Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer:

We've owned the i3 Rex for about 8 weeks. It's my wife's car, so I haven't driven it much. My wife has been using the i3 to commute about 60 miles a day (round trip), all highway, and she loves it (the i3, not the commute , even though it's more of a city car. She would not hesitate to buy the i3 again.

I like the i3 overall, but I find the steering to be bit skittish, especially on the highway, which I attribute to the skinny tires. This doesn't bother my wife, so maybe it's something you get used after using the car every day. The tires are inflated to the recommended pressures, and although someone in another thread suggested that reducing the pressure of the front tires a few PSI might help, I don't want to do that since it's my wife's car and she's happy with it as is. However, if we go anywhere that involves highway driving, we always take my car, and I would not buy an i3 as my only car if I had to drive on the highway much.

We both miss some of the amenities that were sacrificed for the sake of lighter weight (power/memory seats for example), but the benefits of owning an EV outweigh those trade offs. We wish the Homelink option was available on all trim levels -- we would have considered getting a Giga instead of Mega to get that option, but neither one of us liked Giga's two-tone seat color scheme. We also miss the larger screen of the Professional Navigation system that we had in our extended test drive i3 (a Giga) -- the smaller screen of the base navigation system doesn't support split-screen display (music on one side, map on the other), which we didn't know until we took delivery.

 

[jadnashuanh]

Everything in life is a tradeoff. Given the design considerations baselined for the i3, I think they did a great job. For short trips, something like the multi-contour seats I have on my other car with something like 15 different bits that can move with memory is maybe more important. The i3 has essentially three adjustments - height, F-R, and seat back angle. The steering wheel may require one more to adjust it's two-axis movement potential. IOW, not much, and easily accomplished, should it become necessary. They chose to use power where it was useful, or safer, like adjusting the mirrors. IT's really tough to get the passenger's side mirror adjusted without it or a helpful accomplice sitting there, for example. ANd, in the city, especially in some places like Europe's smaller city streets, folding mirrors are almost required, and then, you'd already have the motors to do that...not a big leap to give user adjustments, too.

If you precondition the interior before you drive it off, something like a heated steering wheel becomes less of an issue if it is no longer cold. TO save energy, and to be safer, keeping your core temp up and minimizing cabin temps means a seat heater is almost necessary (Saab, for example, felt that way and didn't produce any modern car without it - and, it got turned on automatically when the temps were low as did the rear-window defroster, at least on the last one I owned!).

Are there things I'd change, probably, but are they enough to turn me off and not be happy with what I have, no. Some love the door setup, some hate it. To get a useable door opening on a conventional style would mean the vehicle would need to be longer to accommodate the door pillar necessary to anchor the door and still have them large enough for ingress/egress. That wasn't in the design guidelines...keeping things compact, light weight were.

Some feel that the lack of a sunroof option in the USA is a major issue...I find that the cabin is quite light and airy, and would miss the headroom, not counting the added expense. I'm probably in the upper 90-percentile on height, especially torso length, so that is a major concern, but obviously not for everyone.

Germany has some quite strict rules about toxic materials and recycling. Probably far more than many other countries in the world. They made a conscious decision to use less polluting and more sustainable materials, and this goes against some people's vision of luxury. I view it as useful and justifiable. I think one reason why they don't have more colors for the leather options is that many dyes tend to be somewhat toxic, and if you want to go lighter, bleaches are as well. It's much easier to use one closer to what occurs naturally when you complete the natural tanning process.

IOW, I doubt that most aspects of the car have not already been evaluated, and the decision justified based on the design concept, as to why they are like they are. It is natural that not everyone thinks the same way as their priorities and education level are not the same nor are their local situations. As I started out...everything is a compromise...I think they made good choices with the i3.

 

[Sparky]

Spot on.

 

[Jeffj]

I posted something on the Facebook group about one of the design tradeoff's that I think BMW made regarding the battery capacity (~22kWh). I think BMW was overly conservative from a financial viewpoint when they decided on the final battery capacity. If they had gone for 20-25% more capacity, they could be selling a true 100 mile range car right now, rather than falling into the trap of stating 100 while everyone knows its really 80. In other words they would have had a great differentiator and the psychological impact of having a 100 mile car. The extra battery capacity would have added to the cost and price however, and I suspect that the financial guidelines for the vehicle ended up eliminating it - its a delicate equation to find the correct price point.

As Jim pointed out, the incredible volume of design decisions that go into making a car are mind-boggling. With the i3, its even more staggering, since they started with a clean slate. While that sounds easier, in many ways it actually makes the design harder because literally everything has to be thought through again, and the ramifications of design choices have to be re-analyzed rather than just building off of learning from previous cars (e.g. lets use an xyz suspension - we did that on our XXX vehicle and we have all the engineering and costing metrics on file).

Given everything, yes, I'm delighted with the car. From my perspective they got an overwhelming number of decisions correct. Individual consumers can always point to a specific feature that would have been better for them (e.g. battery capacity for me), but I bought the car anyways and would buy it again given the current state of things. In 2 years time, there will be new choices and I'm hopeful that BMW will have continued to make advances to preserve their position in the market.

 

[MichiganI3]

After owning my i3 REX for 10 months, 7100 miles, and with its first winter season completed I say: YES, most definitely. Great car.

 

[websterize]

My best commuter automobile to date: 80% highway (with a lot of traffic) and ~45 miles round trip. The HOV sticker shortens the drive home by 10-20 minutes most days.

 

[jadnashuanh]

Keep in mind that a bigger battery means either taller vehicle or longer one and higher weight! So, as you can see from the Tesla, which has over 3x the battery capacity, it does not get three times the range by any means. And, longer to recharge, or, a more expensive, bigger heat source (bigger cooling) charging circuit. THen, consider how many places, the public EVSEs often aren't big enough to recharge the i3 at its current full capacity and to do it at home would mean fewer people may be able to install one either (it was a stretch for me to add a 40A circuit without many thousands of dollars of mods and a LOT of hassles).

Given that the average used in the many year trials leading up to the i3's release, the average commuter when 34-miles...the capacity of the i3 easily handles that even on its worst day.

More than a couple of hours in the i3, and I want a bigger vehicle. Running around town or commuting, no problem.

 

[Blue20]

I would seriously look into leasing instead of buying.

 

[i3marc]

Yes!

My commute is 100 miles each way, I don't have the fast DC option and I have a pure BEV because the standards for DC are still shaky and I also don't want any oil changes etc...

I am kinda amazed people chicken out for a 20 miles each way commute when mine is an order of magnitude greater.

Of course I brought due to the higher tax break and because I put 1000 miles each week on the car.

 

[MikeS]

i3marc - I cant imagine how you manage to get 100 miles out of the car on a regular basis! I struggle to get 85 at the moment (temp around 16 deg C) and in winter (around 0 to 4 deg C here) I would only get about 60miles.

 

[i3marc]

i3marc - I cant imagine how you manage to get 100 miles out of the car on a regular basis! I struggle to get 85 at the moment (temp around 16 deg C) and in winter (around 0 to 4 deg C here) I would only get about 60miles.

California climate and a little boost on the way back.

I get 115 miles in the morning and about 95-98 in the evening so I stop halfway and boost myself for 1/2-1 hr.

My blog details those adventures.

I am at 5800 miles already after 7 weeks of ownership.

 

[archieb]

Yes! I have a 3 year lease on a 2014 BEV Mega for $284 a month.

Completed my first truly long trip today, 92 miles with 10 miles remaining (guesstimate this morning was 106 miles). 75% rural highway (55) with the temperature in the mid 50s. Could have charged up at my destination but I arrived with more than 50% of the charge remaining so decided not to.

While I enjoyed my Volt for the 3 years I had it, I find the i3 superior in most aspects.

 

[JTM]

We did the first long trip in our BEV yesterday. It was a 98km trip so not being used to what the car could or couldn't do went in eco pro via the old highway - a few more twists and turns and occasional townships. This made the trip 110km but arrived with about 30% SOC and 53km remaining and efficiency of 12.2km/100km. Recharged at colleagues house and, due to building confidence in the car, returned via the main highway 100-110kph, occasionally hitting 120kph with AC on. Went to comfort mode and lights on at about half way home. Trip home was the predicted 98km @14.5kWh/100km and arrived with still about 33% SOC and 42km of range remaining. This is exceeding my expectations. I'm just getting a stronger sense day after day that I do not need to baby this car- it is quite resilient and was as much a pleasure to drive on the highway as it is in town. Ideal temperature of 23 degrees C most of the day.
JTM

 

[jadnashuanh]

Driving a single, longer route verses more short hops should give you better maximum range since once the cabin is conditioned, it doesn't fall off of that each time you stop and have to start from zero again. It comes down more to your speed that has the bigger impact, and the ability to maintain a steady speed. Regen helps, but will never offset what can be achieved during a steady state. ANd, remember that the range estimate is based on the last 18-miles of travel, so unless the conditions are the same and your driving style remains the same, it is likely incorrect. It's a rolling average based on current status and past uses.

 

[planetf1]

Yes . Easily. Had the car 6 weeks and loving it. Moved from leaf
REX is the killer feature, despite only using 6l so far. Better fittings, tech, performance too.

 

[ultraturtle]

....would you purchase (or lease, whatever your case may be) the i3 again? ...!

Absolutely. I'm actually quite surprised that even after a year and a half of these cars being offered for sale, no automaker (including BMW, unfortunately) has even attempted to surpass it.