Long-Term Test: 2015 BMW i3 – Part 1
Story and photo by John LeBlanc
The future is a funny thing. It’s always out of reach. Yet the BMW i3 is about as close to reaching out and grabbing the future of motoring, one of the main reasons we picked BMW’s revolutionary electric car as our latest 60-Day Test Drive subject.
Unlike our last long-term vehicle, the utterly ubiquitous 2015 Honda CR-V, the 2015 BMW i3 is an automotive newbie. From the way it’s built, powered, marketed and sold to how its buyers will drive it, the German automaker’s compact electric car is a unique driving and vehicle ownership proposition.
First seen as a concept in 2011, then going into production two years later in Germany, the $47,395 (all prices include freight and pre-delivery inspection fees) i3 four-passenger compact hatchback is BMW’s first mass-produced, zero emissions electric car, and the first vehicle (followed by the $152,095 i8 2+2 sports car plug-in gas-electric hybrid) to be marketed under the German automaker’s “i” sub-brand.
The i3 is also the first BMW to extensively use carbon-fibre in its body structure. Unlike most modern cars that use a combination of steel and aluminum, the electric hatch marries an aluminum undercarriage (to carry the rear-wheel-drive powertrain and battery pack) to an upper body structure made from a carbon-fibre reinforced polymer (which you can readily see in the form of the i3’s door sills), all wrapped in plastic body panels.
Even getting in and out of the i3 is different. Like some extended-cab pickups, the BMW hatchback has a pair of front-hinged front doors and rear-hinged rear doors for passenger ingress and egress. Once inside, the i3’s interior has a distinctive, sci-fi/post-modern feel, with a floating steering column (and its attached gear selector), flat panel driver’s instrumentation and infotainment displays, and the use of environmentally friendly materials throughout.
While some buyers may lament the lack of three-across seating in the back, for four adults, the i3 is a spacious, light and airy place to reside. Similar to a Smart ForTwo, the i3’s powertrain lays tucked under its rear seats and rear cargo space. With no central floor tunnel, where a “normal” car’s driveshaft or exhaust would reside, floor space is freed-up for both front and rear passengers. A relatively tall seating position gives you an excellent view of the road, aided by thin structural pillars (there’s that carbon-fibre again) and plenty of glass.
Arguably, the least distinctive part of the i3 formula is its plug-in electric powertrain.
An electric motor (charged by a 18.8 kilowatt-per-hour lithium-ion battery pack) and direct-gear transmission send 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque to the BMW’s rear wheels. Between charges, the most optimistic battery range estimates are between 130 to 160 kilometres.
The i3’s lightweight construction methodology lets the BMW weigh hundreds of kilograms less than other compact electric cars (like the 286-kg heavier $31,998 Nissan Leaf). However, our eight-week tester was the $51,395 i3 REX model — as in “range extender — which adds 120 kg of extra weight due to a 34-hp 647-cc two-cylinder gas engine from BMW Motorrad’s C600 Sport scooter. The bike motor acts as a generator to recharge the battery pack and does not send power to the wheels directly, as the Chevrolet Volt does.
So equipped, BMW says an i3 REX can travel up to 250 km before its battery pack runs out of juice and the gas engine’s tiny 7.2-litre tank runs out of gas. Battery charge times are typical: a 16-amp outdoor outlet will take around six hours, a 30-amp about half the time, and a 125-amp fast-charging station less than 30 minutes.
Of course, in a society based on vehicles having around 500 km of driving range (at the minimum) before needing to stop for fuel, even a futuristic electric car like the i3 means a change in driving and ownership behaviour.
In fact, the i3 is so different that instead of simply handing over its key fob, BMW Canada insisted that I travel to Montreal for a half-day orientation a few weeks before our Solar Orange Metallic 2015 BMW i3 REX arrived here in Ottawa.
Before a short driving stint behind the wheel of a Capparis White i3 in downtown Montreal traffic, Marc Belcourt, National Manager for BMW i brand in Canada, reiterated the i3’s uniqueness, saying 90 percent of buyers are new to the German automaker. As well, about half of i3 buyers so far have opted for the REX model and a $1,199 240-volt home charging station, which BMW Canada estimates will cost another $1,000 to have installed.
With only seven BMW i dealers across the country, in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, buying an i3 or an i8 isn’t as simple as dropping into your local BMW dealer. For example, we had to have our 60-Day Test Drive model delivered to our home in Ottawa.
We still have six more weeks to report back about the future of motoring, but the first 14 days with the BMW were focused on changing our driving habits.
At first, we were plugging the i3 in whenever it returned home. Even for drives less than 20 km. But as someone who works from the house in Ottawa — a city that is geographically compact — most of our driving trips are limited to 30 km-or-less urban hops. So with upwards of 220 km of range (130 electric/90 gas), we’ve gone as long as five days between having to plug the i3 in between charges.
In the first two weeks, the i3 key fob was definitely our first choice (our regular vehicle at home is a 2013 Audi Q5 2.0T Quattro). But save for sitting at the airport (for four days while I was away on business) and three days left at home while visiting friends and family at out of town cottages (we needed one more passenger seat and more cargo room than the compact BMW can provide), the i3 has been driven only 602 km so far.
In that time, we haven’t had to tap into the range extender’s bike engine yet or used a drop of gas. But according to the BMW i Remote App downloaded onto my smartphone, we’re averaging 16.0 kilowatt-hours of electricity per 100 km driven (about 16 percent higher than estimated). And because I can also pre-program the i3 to charge during our local 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. off-peak rate of eight cents/kWh, we’ve only spent $7.71 in energy costs.
Admittedly, passing the one-quarter mark in our 60-Day Test Drive has only scratched the surface of what driving and living with the 2015 BMW i3 REX is like.
Over the next six weeks, we’ll explore how the vehicle acts as a daily driver, both from the driver’s seat and as a mover of people and their things. We’ll also see how easily the BMW’s futuristic electric car can be integrated into today’s charging infrastructure. But more importantly, we’ll try to determine if the future of motoring is already here.