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I commented on that story. This is how I responded:
"The electric i3 is the most important BMW of the moment, the car that resulted when the German brand strained the whole of its R&D effort and $3.7 billion through a filter of sustainability and efficiency. Ironically, the car became a resource pig, sucking the company's other product budgets dry and watering down its more mainstream offerings. BMW has risked its entire business on the development of this car, so it had better be amazing."
You really don't need to read any more than that to understand the authors position before he even sat in the car. BMW has risked it's entire business on the i3? Are you kidding me? BMW could scrap the entire i brand tomorrow and continue along without and problem. Have you looked at their annual sales? They are setting records nearly every year. I know you must be a little smarter than to think 3.7 billion went into the i3 and BMW won't use any of that R&D on other models, like carbon fiber and aluminum for light-weighting their core models. The lessons learned from developing the i brand cars will benefit their entire brand and keep them out in front technology-wise for the next decade. It's very unfortunate you could get something like this approved for print. Journalism just isn't what it used to be...
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