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Originally Posted by afadeev
All good points.
Alas, there is the third, and possibly the most critical one that needs to be considered, the cost.
As long as BMW continues to charge more for larger capacity batteries ($1.2K premium for 94Ah over 60Ah), the higher cost will deter some buyers.
Thus, any range gain customer pull will be offset, or negated, by higher vehicle costs.
There is a big difference with "more" range and "enough" to be competitive.
Anther +25% range bump (from 94Ah to 120Ah Samsung batteries), to ~130 miles, will do nothing to pull customers away from either Bolt of Model 3.
To bring to market a meaningful increase in range, BMW needs to redesign and elongate the i3 frame to make room for more batteries. There is no indication that any such effort is underway, at last not in time for MY'18 refresh.
i3 has already got longer range than Leaf, yet it is trailing it badly in sales, roughly 2.5 : 1. Leaf is much cheaper, starting at $30K vs. i3's $42K. Evidently, that has a HUGE impact on sales.
Increasing the cost with marginally longer battery capacity risks making i3 that much less competitive in the marketplace!
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When the EV market matures people will value other things than range and price. Now you have "EV buyers" but soon you will have "budget EV buyers", "premium EV buyers" and so on. Just like on ICE cars now. People still buy a 340i when they can get a Nissan for much less.