The i3 is a futuristic 4-door. But the rear doors are "suicide" doors — they open in the opposite direction as normal doors. The car can seat 4 people.
First order of business was to top off the charge. I had to pull it up in front of the my house due to some awkward issues with my garage. The charge cable plugs into a wall outlet and rejuices the battery VERY SLOWLY.
BMW has partnered with a company called ChargePoint to provide fee-based charging around the US. Depending on the type of charge station you find, getting fresh electrons into the i3 can be a lot faster that using an outlet at home. BMW can also set you up with the fast home-charging station.
The i3 can connect to the internet and find a nearby charging station for you.
Our trip would be about 220 miles both ways, from northern New Jersey to the Catskills in upstate New York.
Cargo capacity for the i3 isn't great, but it could handle enough gear to get my 9-year-old through 2 weeks of camp.
There isn't really a dashboard. And here's where some of the affinities with the possible Apple Car start to emerge. The i3 has these iPad-like floating screens. The image quality from the backing camera was quite good!
It was a glorious day for a drive.
BMW has been selling the i3 since 2013. It comes in two versions: an all-electric model and one with a gas-engine "range extender." My test car had the range extender, which gives the vehicle a claimed 150 miles of range.
The i3 has a much more exotic sibling, the i8 supercar.
Apple CEO Tim Cook was reportedly interested enough in the i3 that ...
... he visited BMW HQ in Germany to discuss working with the automaker on the Apple Car project.
But they also know cars — this is the famous German Nurburgring race track.
Apple also has a pair of car guys on the team. And they're car guys with strong opinions. That's Jony Ive on the left and Mark Newson on the right. Both are extremely successful designers.
Newson actually designed a concept car for Ford.
We can be pretty sure that if Apple does build a car, it won't look like this.
And clearly, Apple and BMW are two brands that go together.
Google's work on the self-driving Google Car may be pushing Apple to get into the transportation space. But Ive and Newson aren't really fans of podmobiles.
They like this kind of thing ...
... and this. Ferraris and Bentleys are the rides they admire.
The Toyota Echo is a car that Ive loves to hate. He dissed it in a New Yorker profile. Newson told the Wall Street Journal that he thinks most modern cars are terrible.
Like all electric cars, the i3 is propelled by a compact electric motor connected to a battery pack.
The motor is in the back, between the rear wheels.
There's a small gas motor on the range-extended i3. It uses a 2-gallon gas tank and can keep the car rolling for another 50 miles after the batteries are exhausted.
The charging cable is stashed under the hood.
Inside, the i3 is less the Ultimate Driving Machine than the Car of the Future. The start-stop button, gearshift, and park selector are all located on that large stalk on the right. The acceleration is very electric car: quick and to-the-point. Cruising along, the i3 is pretty comfy, and the handling is surprisingly sharp for a cube-like machine running on narrow tires.
The infotainment system is controlled by BMW's unloved iDrive.
No sign of Apple CarPlay!
The glove compartment is small.
But there are lots of places in the car to stash your stuff.
That's the ChargePoint card that you swipe at charging stations to access your account.
A perfect place for your shades! The overall vibe of the interior is soft, curvaceous, and eco-friendly, with natural textures and tones everywhere. The i3 lacks most of the imposing Germanic elements that BMW drivers are familiar with.
I've driven just about every electric car on the road. From the Nissan Leaf ...
... to the electric version of the Honda Fit ...
... to the Chevy Volt, which also features a gas-electric hybrid drivetrain, similar to the range-extended i3's.
I even drove the all-electric CODA, a barebones electric car based on a Chinese platform. The company was located in Southern California and went out of business a few years ago.
Outside, the i3 updates classic BMW design cues for the 21st century. The split grille has become abstract.
And the famous BMW badge has added a cool blue rim.
The wheels are large — something that keeps the i3 from looking too compact or economical. They give it a solid stance.
On the luxury front, I've driven the Tesla Model S, in rear-wheel and all-wheel-drive configurations.
And also the Fisker Karma. Fisker, like CODA, went bankrupt. But wow, what a hot looking car!
I've even driven the amazingly sexy, blazing-fast Tesla Roaster. Driving the BMW is unlike piloting one of these more exotic cars. But it does split the different between modest electric cars, such as the Leaf, and the more luxurious cars of the future.
Uh oh! After about 80 miles, the battery was spent! But then the gas-motor was ready to take over. Notice that the i3 has calculated that we have another 63 miles of range. That's enough to get us to our destination. Then we can look for a place to recharge.
The range anxiety wasn't completely erased by the range-extender. We didn't want to get too far from fuel, so we stopped for some ice cream ...
... and some good old-fashioned petrol to top off the i3's tank.
The gas tank is located at the front of the car.
Gassing up the i3 is an experience in silly. Two bucks and less than a gallon was enough to get us another 30 miles of range. The whole refueling process took about ... 30 seconds.
Back on the road, under glorious summer skies!
After we dropped James off at camp, we needed to top off the tank again. Would you like fries with that?
The plan was to find a charging station and switch back to all-electric mode for the trip home, after spending a couple of hours having dinner. Guided by the i3, we found the ChargePoint location just fine.
The charging ports are easy to access, at the rear of the car.
It's like plugging in an iPhone. But this is where a critical flaw with the i3 emerged. To fully recharge the battery, we would have had to wait until 11:00 PM. It was around 6 PM at the time. The charge station was faster than home-charging from an outlet. But it wasn't FAST charging, the type that can get you going again in under an hour.
The charging session consumed around 2 hours and got the battery back to 25%.
But that wasn't going to get us home, so we ran the i3 in all-electric mode until the battery was drained again, then we switched back to range-extended mode. That meant another gas stop. I think I overpaid for a gallon of regular. But the tank was full again.
The i3 was easily the best non-luxury, non-high-performance EV I've ever driven. It can't completely eliminate range anxiety, but it comes very, very close. You simply have to be OK with stopping for gas every 50 miles, or taking long enough breaks to fully recharge, or get good at mapping out your journeys so you can hit fast-charging stations. This is a (mostly) electric car that can comfortably deliver 150 miles of range, providing you with the option of sipping small amounts of gas until you can properly rejuice the battery.
This would be an almost ideal platform for the Apple Car — if Apple is serious about creating a car and partnering with a big car maker. It passed the ultimate test: Could it complete a road-trip at the limit of its range? And frankly, the i3 could use Apple. I really liked the car, but unfortunately, it isn't setting any sales records for BMW right now.
