[tommolog]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I know you are very passionate about the i3 (a good thing!); and I'm not trying to be a dick here. But I guess I missed your point then. What I don't understand is the need for this car. It has a theoretical range of somewhere between 80 and 100 miles per charge. It is targeted mainly for a city dweller; it's limited range makes that apparent. If you live in the city, my observations are: 1) most large cities have excellent mass-transit systems that eliminate the need for a personal car; 2) most city dwellers live in buildings that are not inductive to secure home charging an electric car; 3) if you live in a large city, and want to travel away from it you can only go 40 miles in the i3, which in some cities isn't very far.

So the i3 has an "optional" range extender, from what I read (I think from you actually, or Steve 26), that is meant to allow the owner to return home on a depleted battery and is it not necessarily designed for continuous gas-powered long distance travel (made obvious by the 3 gallon fuel capacity). If that is the case, then the Volt is the better choice IMO. The Volt targets a Suburbanite who does not have access to excellent mass-transit, can usually have a private secure location to charge the car, and has a range extender system that is truly designed to operate continuously as a power source for mobility. And the Volt is far less expensive.

A few months ago, with all the talk about how light the new construction techniques make the i3, I did a calculation of vehicle weight vs. range; it's posted here somewhere. My calculations determined that the Volt actually has a better range-to-weight ratio as compared to the i3 (when both cars are equipped with a range extender), which in my mind shows GM has developed a vehicle that is on the level or better of engineering with BMW (regardless of the use of CF). The Volt came to market in late 2010 with a MSRP lower than the i3 (when both equipped with a range extender).

The reason I get passionate about these things is most everyone here drinks the BMW engineering prowess Koolaid and refuses to acknowledge that the other 30 or so automobile manufacturers on the planet have as good, or in some cases, better engineering and manufacturing capabilities than BMW. BMW is excellent at self-promotion.

So from my read of the i3, its has some avant-garde styling and possibly innovative manufacturing (application) attributes, it is well packaged, but it performs on par or worse with the other vehicles in its class, is at least two years late to market, and is more expensive than the other vehicles in its class. I'm just not sure what the point is. The i3 is certainly not the "3-Series" of the EV class (i.e. the benchmark).

What I find really amusing is the recent posts about BMWs solar-powered home recharging station. I have to wonder if anyone considered that commuter cars are generally driven during the day to work, away from home and the solar station? Sure, the solar station can charge a bank of batteries during the day, then at night transfers the energy to the i3's battery. A lot of cost and infrastructure just to make a green point.

You don't need to qualify your comments by saying your "not being a dick", I never interpreted it that way. You have different opinions that's all. I'm not going to change your mind any more than you'll change mine but healthy discussions are what there forums are all about.

You touched a lot of topics let me try to offer my thoughts on some of them:

"What I don't understand is the need for this car."
I guess we don't need it any more than we need a 3-series or a Toyota Camry either yet they both sell very well and have lots of satisfied customers. You obviously don't like it but I can tell you that a lot of people do. I started an i3 blog about two years ago and have about 100,000 page views so far and the car isn't even for sale. I have had hundreds of people email and message me for information on it - believe me there are a lot people very excited about it. As for the 80 to 100 mile range, I've been driving EV's for the past 4 years now with about that same range and have driven them about 130,000 miles. I drive them over 30,000/yr and aren't a city dweller yet they work perfectly fine for me. They are actually best suited for people that live in the suburbs that outline cities and work, shop and dine in the cities in my opinion. Totally agree about living in a large city - use mass transportation. It's cheaper and more efficient. Join a car sharing service for the times you need a car.

"So the i3 has an "optional" range extender, from what I read (I think from you actually, or Steve 26), that is meant to allow the owner to return home on a depleted battery and is it not necessarily designed for continuous gas-powered long distance travel"

You are not correct about the functionality of the range extender though. It is plenty robust for continuous driving. You can certainly drive it hundreds of miles if you like, but you'll need to stop for gas every 70-80 miles or so. I expect you'll see proof of its capabilities soon from BMW. I have spoken to i3 program managers about this and they assured me the range extender is plenty powerful to maintain the cars charge for long journeys. Yes the Volt is less expensive and it should be. I happen to like the Volt very much and have personally "sold" about a dozen of them, however when you talk to Volt owners they almost all say they wish it had a greater range because they want to drive on electric even more. The i3 allows you to do that. It has an electric range that is more than double the Volt which will basically assure that most people that buy it, even with the range extender will do a very high percentage of their driving on electric.

I would need a whole post to go into the range to weight issue you brought up and I just don't have the time to explain how it's a flawed concept. I can say the energy consumed is the metric you really should be using. The volt needs 11kWh's of electricity to go 38 miles and the i3 will consume about 18kWh's to go about 85-90 miles. The i3 is drastically more efficient. In fact it will be the most efficient EV on the road when it launches.

Personally I don't dring the BMW cool-aid as you say. I've never even owned one before I leased the ActiveE. I love the i3 because of the technology in it. It's the first series production car that's entirely aluminum, CRFP & plastic, it's the fastest EV on the market besides Tesla which is much more expensive, it has electronics that just aren't available on any other EV including Tesla like brake assistant, adoptive cruise control and Traffic assistant. It has a Nav-connected range predictor (which is VERY important in an EV) that uses real time traffic conditions, temperature and topography to calculate remaining miles available and nobody else has anything like that. There are a lot of things to like about it which is why I do. You don't have to, that's cool, but it's just not realistic to say there's no need for this car, and people are just blinded by the shine of the roundel. That just isn't the case with the i3. It really is a groundbreaking vehicle.