BMW i3 Review: The future is electric
BMW’s answer to battery powered cars gets a tweak
ALL the car talk at the moment is about autonomous driving. If the eggheads and early adopters are right, we’ll all be handing the controls to our cars within a year. But that’s never going to happen. A realistic date for the full-scale adoption of autonomous technology is more like 20 years from now.
But electrification of cars is well under way with a growing number of battery-powered vehicles and a huge number of hybrids, especially plug-ins with more than just a token electric range.
The Chevrolet Bolt is one of the newest and best sparky cars and has just been named Car of the Year in the US, although it’s never going to get right-hand drive for Australia and Holden lost a packet on its miserable sales of the Volt that came (and went) before it.
But the BMW i3 is here and now and has just had a tweak to improve its range and dependability. It’s still way, way too expensive and too much like a science experiment than a mainstream baby car.
It’s time for another look and a test for The Tick. I have to report that one half of The Tick team is in love with the i3. She wants one for her daily commute, thinks it’s great for weekend errands and is prepared to overlook the $72,000 base price, problematic access to the back seats, long charging times from a home socket and the four-star ANCAP score thanks to a lack of pedestrian protection.
But back to the car, which is what it always was — and more.
There are the skateboard-style battery pack, oddball-but-loveable four-door carbon-fibre reinforced plastic body, electric motor with single-speed automatic gearbox and rear-wheel drive and the usual BMW suite of technology and safety equipment.
The big change, however, is a boost to the battery, which is now rated at 94 Amp-hours, giving up to 245km of electric motoring. The range-extender model tested has a tiny two-cylinder petrol engine that charges the battery but never drives the wheels. It has a basic electric range of 220km with another 150km on internal gasoline charging for a total of 370km.
BMW believes the BEV — Battery Electric Vehicle — range is more than anyone needs for a city-and-suburbs runabout, while the range extender car now has a genuine long-distance cruising ability.
But there’s also the matter of recharging.
It can take seven-and-a-half hours to recharge from a normal wall socket, compared with 10 minutes at the pumps for a petrol car, although finding a rapid charger reduces that to 3.8 hours and the best plug-in juicers can do it in less than an hour.
The car also has a claimed 0-100km/h sprint time of 8.1 seconds and a top speed of 150km/h, with rated fuel economy of 0.6L/100km for the range extender.
Its greenness is reflected in real wood and recycled material for the trim panels in the cabin, as well as efficient electric steering and aircon to reduce battery drain.
BMW among other brands talks about zero local emissions. What that means is nothing from an exhaust pipe, although the range extender makes fumes if you need its help.
However, the big deal for Australia is the source of the electricity to charge the i3. Coal-fired power stations are the bad guys and, even if you have solar panels on your roof, you’re unlikely to be charging the car from them during the day when they are most efficient. BMW, also among others, is pushing ahead with home batteries that can store solar power for something like an i3.
But, and it’s a very big BUT, governments in Australia have no plans to provide incentives for electric car buyers or home battery stations — unlike the US and many other countries — or create widespread infrastructure or have a rethink on generators.
ON THE ROAD
I’m surprisingly happy as I’m driving the i3. It’s not a grunty M car that corners as if it has magnets and punches with hundreds of kilowatts, yet it’s great fun. Skinny tyres, good steering response, rear-wheel drive and plenty of torque means it gets along quite briskly. Lots of people are surprised when the i3 punches out ahead of them from the lights or makes easy work of a 100km/h freeway merge. For me, the car is so enjoyable because its limits are accessible. You don’t have to be travelling at supercar speeds to feel involved with the action.
You also need to think ahead. Its regenerative braking means you can slow and stop without hitting the pedal, and have fun while trying to extend the distance between charges.
The cabin is also light and roomy and I like the simple instruments. It’s ridiculously easy to park, the turning circle is nearly as good as a London cab — the gold standard — and there is plenty of space for four people. The boot space is not great and the bonnet is reserved for the charger pack but they are minor things.
She is also unhappy about the basic audio, even if you can (predictably for BMW) pay a lot more for a Harmon Kardon set-up. The car is incredibly quiet at any speed and the range is fine for my needs.
THE TICK
For the sake of domestic harmony I should give an instant Tick to the i3. We’re even looking to buy one as the family zap-about. But should and could and will are very different things, even with harmony on the line.
The i3 is a good thing, even better than before. It’s a car I enjoy driving, find extremely practical and usable, and appreciate for its design goodness. The electric range is now workable and overcomes my personal anxiety about being stranded without power — but I would always go for the safety net that comes with the range-extender engine despite the extra cost.
The i3 is not perfect, the price is ridiculous but it’s important to give it The Tick because more people need to be seriously considering our electric future and how we get from A to B.
AT A GLANCE
BMW i3 range extender
PRICE from $71,900
WARRANTY3 years/100,000km
CAPPED SERVICING $920 for 3 years
SAFETY 4 stars
ENGINE 650cc 2-cyl, 28kW/58Nm; synchronous electric motor, 25kW/55Nm
TRANSMISSIONSingle-speed auto; RWD
THIRST 0.6L/100km
DIMENSIONS 3999mm (L), 1775mm (W), 1578mm (H), 2570mm (WB)
WEIGHT 1365kg
SPARE None; run-flats
TOWING Not rated
0-100KM/H 8.1 secs
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