The LA Auto Show: Driving Impressions & Details Learned

It's been a long time coming but I finally got to drive an i3. I've actually been getting tired of having journalists contact me and ask me for my opinion of it on the road compared to the MINI-E and ActiveE and having to tell them I haven't had the opportunity to drive one yet! So did it live up to my (high) expectations? Yes, it did. It's certainly not "the perfect EV," but in my opinion, it does do more things better than any other electric vehicle that costs less than $70,000. And yes, the $70,000 is the threshold mentioned because slightly above that, (actually $72,240) is the starting point before incentives, for the least expensive Model S you can buy in the US.

Lined up for test drives

Price is worth mentioning here because since the i3 has launched there have been endless comparisons between it and the Model S. My contention is that they are both excellent electric vehicles and while there will be inevitable comparisons and even some cross-shopping, they are really vastly different cars and if they weren't both electric would never be compared. The i3's base price is $42,275. That's $29,965 or about 40% less than a base Model S and that alone should end the need to compare them. However I feel it was important to touch on this because everybody else is. These are both excellent EVs, but they serve different masters. The one thing fascinating about the Model S is that it's such a great electric vehicle, that every other electric vehicle that comes along will now be compared to it, well done Tesla.

The back up camera video is extremely clear

In addition to my test drives I had the opportunity to sit down and interview just about every BMW representative there and I will do a future blog post dedicated to at least one of those interviews. However, here I'm going to focus on my thoughts on the driving experience and answering the many questions about the i3 I've received in the past few weeks in the form of comments, personal emails or posts on the BMW i3 Facebook page or in the BMW i3 forum, both of which I am the administrator of.

Tera World interior is all leather

BMW had fifty identical i3s at the LA Auto Show for test drives. They were all exactly the same color, had the 20" wheels, the top of the line Tera World interior and had every available option the i3 will offer. I later found out from BMW NA i3 product manager Jose Guerrero that these cars were actually the very first i3s to roll off the assembly line and that they were pre-production vehicles and European spec so they had to be updated with US charging ports, navigation software and other small modifications so they could be used here in the US for test drives. Also, after the LA Auto show these cars will gradually filter to dealers all over the US so depending on where you live your local BMW dealer may get one soon for demonstration and test drives.

What about the range extender?

Harb addresses the ActiveE drivers

Unfortunately none of the cars had range extenders so I can't answer many of the REx questions I've had like: "How quiet is it?  Can you feel the vibrations when it's on?  What MPG does it deliver?" I did learn some new details which I'll discuss later in the post though. I will say this though because the question of how robust the range extender is has been a common theme on every website that has an i3 discussion. At a private event on Thursday that BMW held for the ActiveE drivers that question was brought up and Jacob Harb, BMW's North American manager of sales and strategy for electric vehicles said he wanted to straighten out the confusion around a comment that a BMW representative once said, and that was that the REx wasn't meant for daily use. Jacob said you can certainly use it every day if you need to, but that BMW didn't envision the car being used by someone that has a 120 or 130 mile daily commute. The car could do it, but if your daily driving needs were this extensive then perhaps a different vehicle might be a better choice. He was then asked about taking it on a long drive and refilling the tank and continuing to drive. Again he said that BMW doesn't really envision people using the car like that all the time, but technically it's perfectly capable of doing so. He even said that technically speaking, you could drive an i3 from New York to LA simply by stopping for gas every 50 or 60 miles and refueling, and then qualified it by saying, "But I don't know why anybody would want to do that."  And personally I agree.

Driving in LA:

I stopped for quick photo op

I actually had the opportunity to drive the i3 twice, and do a ride along once so I probably spent a collective 20 miles in the car. I had a press pass so I registered for a press drive and then at the ActiveE event we were all allowed one test drive, plus I rode along when fellow Electronaut Todd Crook took his turn. On the first drive BMW handed me a course that they wanted the press to follow. It was basically a 3 mile loop that had you driving five blocks and turn right four times and you ended back where the ride originated from which was the Staples Center parking lot. You were alone, so you could of course vary from the course if you "got lost."  Being from New Jersey and never having driven in LA before I found it difficult staying on course and accidentally drove a little longer. It was pretty much what I expected it to be. Very quick, (we were told it does 0-60 in 7.0 seconds) very quiet (quieter than the ActiveE for sure), it has very responsive steering, an amazingly short turning radius and the braking was probably the best I've ever experienced. I practiced some emergency stops in a parking lot and the car stopped in exceptionally short distances. I can't wait to see official road tests when they measure braking distances. I predict it will deliver some of the shortest braking distances of any car on the road today.

The optional wide nav screen looks great

I really didn't get the chance to push the handling because of the LA city environment but I did have some fun weaving in and out of traffic, sprinting from streetlight to streetlight and mashing the accelerator to the floor at every opportunity. I don't know how it will do auto crossing (yet), but I give it an A+ for making the most fun you can out of city driving. I even tried out the Parking Assistant and it worked perfectly. I also purposely hit every pothole there was - and incidentally LA doesn't have nearly as many of them as we do in New York, and the car absorbed them without a problem and I didn't hear any unusual rattles or noises that I've read a few other journalists report when driving over bumps. The regenerative braking was about 10% weaker than it is on the ActiveE, but it's still by far the strongest regenerative braking on any electric vehicle. I'd say the Volt in low driving mode and the Model S are tied for 2nd, but the i3 has stayed true to BMW's promise of having the strongest regen in the industry which really allows for "one pedal driving." Like on the ActiveE there is what BMW calls a glide mode (basically the ability to coast to improve efficiency). By slightly easing back on the accelerator, the motor decouples and the car freewheels. While this isn't what you would normally need in a city driving environment, it will come in handy at higher speeds on the freeway. By easing back a bit more on the accelerator the motor then reengages and the regenerative braking grabs. 

Lift the armrest & you can slide across

The seats were comfortable and supportive and felt like they would do fine holding you in place during spirited driving but definitely don't grab you into place like seats in a sports car would. This, plus the lack of a center tunnel on the floor does allow you to easily slide across to the other side of the car and exit out of the passenger side if you wanted to, which I did just to see how easy it would be. The back seats have plenty of room for two big adults. I even brought along three passengers on my second test drive to see how we all fit and if the extra 600+ lbs would effect the driving dynamics. The car was slightly slower as you would expect but the handling felt just as good as when I was driving alone but again, I couldn't push it much on the streets of LA but I did make some rapid lane changes at about 40 mph and the car felt precise and planted even with the full load. 

What was learned: 

As I mentioned above I've had a lot of people ask me i3 questions recently and I promised I'd do my best to get answers once I drove the car and had the opportunity to speak to the program managers again. Without listing the specific questions here the answers to most of what I've been asked:


-The range extender engine is liquid cooled, but it's a different system and coolant than what is used for the battery management system. In fact, the i3 REx has three separate cooling systems. One for the BMS, one for the passenger cabin and one for the REx engine. The battery pack uses air conditioning refrigerant and the REx engine uses conventional liquid coolant.

-Waste heat from the REx is not used to heat the cabin.

-In the US the heat pump is standard on all BEV i3s, but it's not available on the i3 REx. BMW doesn't believe it's a necessary option if you have the range extender.

-Yes, you can certainly precondition the cabin (heat or cool) and the battery even if you have the REx. (Two people from the UK asked me this so evidently there is inaccurate info somewhere there)

-European delivery will not be offered on the i3.

-There are no optional interior color choices. Each interior level only comes in the color shown. So you can't for instance get the Terra World with gray interior, it only is available in the brown leather like the pictures shown above.

-The REx does not turn on until the state of charge is under 5%. It is robust enough to maintain the charge under all but the most strenuous conditions. You can manually shut it off so it doesn't turn on at all for instances when you know you'll make your destination on battery alone. If you do so it resets once you turn the car off and on again. This way you can't forget you shut the REx off.

-The REx has start/stop technology and shuts off when you are driving under 10mph unless the SOC is so low that it needs to stay on to get the car to 5% SOC. This is so that the car remains quiet at low speeds and while parked. This means you can't park the car with the REx on and let it charge up for a while.

-There is no speed limiter when the REx is running, but there is when you choose Eco Pro+ mode. In Eco Pro+ mode you are limited to 56 mph. Jose Guererro showed the ActiveE group a picture of the speedometer he took while driving an i3 with the REx running and he was going about 70-75mph (I don't remember exactly) he also said the car was maintaining the charge without a problem at that speed.

*UPDATE: The US i3's will not be speed limited in Eco Pro+ mode like I wrote above. The European i3's are though, and the car I drove was a European spec i3, so when I put it in Eco Pro+ mode the speed restriction display showed, which is why I reported it as such.

-Heated seats are optional, and this was a bit of a head scratcher: You can't precondition the passenger cabin with heat unless you get the seat heater option. I don't get that at all, but that's the way it is. Anyone who lives in an area that has cold temperatures during the year simply must get the heated seats option in my opinion or they will regret it later.

-The rear seats fold down completely flat and split 50/50. 

-Comfort Access is standard with Giga and Terra World trim packages, as is the sunroof.

-The battery pack is comprised of 8 modules which each have 12 individual cells. The cells are supplied by Samsung but BMW assembles the modules in house.

-You have to get the Parking Assistant package to get the rear view camera, it's not a standalone option.

-US orders will begin in January, not in November as previously reported on InsideEVs.com

-i3s bound for the US will begin production in March, likely arrive in the US for delivery sometime in April.

I was also asked to take some specific pictures, here they are:

Taken by my friend Andre

There were 6 CCS quick chargers there

The display while DC fast charging

One battery module contains 12 cells

There is one more thing that I learned. For some reason, BMW has decided to omit a state of charge gauge. My head nearly exploded when I found this out. Both the MINI-E and ActiveE had state of charge meters and quite honestly it's all I use when I drive. I never use the predicted remaining miles, or the bar graph. I love the simplicity of a simply number, from 0 to 100% to tell me how much energy I have to work with. I am not alone either, when the other ActiveE drivers found out they were as shocked as I was. In fact we brought it up and protested so much the i3 management team promised they would revisit this. I'm going to dedicate my next blog post on this topic, because I don't want this post to be all about the SOC. Other than this topic, most everything else was extremely positive. The car drives as great as I had hoped it would and BMW announced to the ActiveE group that as a thank you for our participation, they would be making a special edition i3 that will only be available for us, and our cars will be some of the first i3s delivered to the US.  I hope I got to everyone's questions and requests. Please leave any other questions in the comment area and I'll answer them if I can.

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US i3 Orders To Begin in November

Photo Credit: The Car Addict

InsideEvs.com recently reported that Jacob Harb, BMW's North American Manager for Electric Vehicles, told them that i3 orders for US customers will begin in November. That means we'll soon get information like pricing for options, warranty details and hopefully what leasing deals will be offered.

BMW has reported strong demand for the i3 in Europe with over 8,000 pre-orders already and the car won't even be available for another month there. Here in the States we'll have to wait a little longer. All BMW has officially said is that the i3 will launch here in the second quarter of 2014, and recent rumors have been pegging the launch for April or May which would mean early to mid Q2.

Photos courtesy bmwblog

California dealers have also been telling their customers that they will be getting i3'\s for display and even test drives, and that there will be as many as 50 i3s at the LA Auto Show in late November for driving events. That would make a lot of sense since the LA Auto Show is one of the big auto shows in the US and California is the number one market for plug in vehicles. 

One factor that can influence the i3's popularity in the US is its EPA range rating which hasn't yet been announced. I have maintained for a long time now that I would be very disappointed if that number comes in lower than 90 miles per charge. Unfortunately judging from the early test drive reports from some reporters like John Voelcker of High Gear Media, it may in fact be lower than 90, and may even be substantially lower than 90 miles per charge. I'm not going to go into this too much just yet because it would just be conjecture. Once the EPA rating is announced I will have a detailed post up within a day, I promise because it is a very important topic to discuss.

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BMW i3 Interior Pictures Captured

Super-thin seats of the i3. They'll save weight but will they be comfortable and supportive?

There have been dozens of i3 spy photos captured over the past couple years since BMW has been field testing mule i3's in hot and cold weather climates. Until last week the cars have been camouflaged with a blue swirly cover that effectively disguises the body lines beneath it. However they have all been exterior pictures. Nobody has really been able to capture any interior pictures at all, until now.

An Autokarma follower happened upon a parked i3 on the streets of Leipzig, Germany which didn't have its interior completely covered so he snapped some shots with his cell phone. Although much of it was covered, the seats are completely visible and we get to see them for the first time. They are surprisingly thin, no doubt to save weight. The picture of the rear seats is kind of dark but what you can take from it is there will be plenty of rear leg room which is uncommon in a car of this size and much more than there is in a BMW 1 series like my ActiveE. In fact, I'd say it looks like there is at least as much room in the rear seating area than there is in a 3-Series. This would confirm what BMW NA electric vehicle program manager Jacob Harb said at last years LA Auto Show, that the i3 would have about as much interior passenger room as a 3-Series even though the exterior dimensions are much smaller.

The rear seats will have plenty of legroom

Now that BMW has pretty much shown the whole exterior and are leaving pre-production i3's on the streets of Germany it can't be long in my opinion before we get to see the whole car. I had previously assumed BMW would hold off to the Frankfurt Auto Show to reveal the production i3, but recent reports have claimed it will be much sooner than that and I'm beginning to believe that will be the case. All the better!

Practically uncovered i3's now roam the streets in Germany. BMW is still obscuring the funky look of the rear window though.

The video above is brief but you can see the interior a bit and even an armrest which people have asked about. It was shot by Joachim Kerscher in Sittenbach, Germany. He just happened to see the car drive by his house so he drove around looking for it and found it parked here. 

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World's First BMW's i3 Test Drive: I Get The Honor!

It may not be the color I'd choose, but I can say I'm the first person outside of BMW to drive an i3!

It had to be somebody. There can only be one person who gets to be the first person to do something. BMW's first production electric vehicle, the highly anticipated 2014 i3 has had a couple of journalist "ride alongs" where they were passengers in test mule cars, but nobody outside of BMW had been given the keys to a pre-production i3 and been allowed to drive it. Until yesterday.

BMW's North American Headquarters

I spent most of last week at the NY Auto Show and a good deal of the time there at the BMW display. I had the opportunity to speak with many of the top BMW executives as well as many of the BMW i program managers. It's no secret that BMW's US headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, NJ has had half a dozen pre-production i3's for a few months now. In fact, BMW recently announced they have made a few hundred pre-production i3's rfor final validation. While at the show, I had been asking every person I spoke to one question: "So when do I get to drive an i3?" I think I must have asked that 20 times. My persistence paid off big time. On Thursday Jacob Harb the Head of Electric Vehicle Operations and Strategy for BMW of North America came up and and asked me, "What are you doing Sunday?" "Sunday? Sunday's Easter so I'll be at my parents' house with the rest of my family, but...aaa... what do you have in mind?" I replied. He then went on to tell me if I wanted to drive a pre-production i3, I could. The only thing is I had to do it 8:00am Sunday morning. The entire BMW campus in Woodcliff Lake would be closed and no employees would be there so they could control the whole event. I would have one half hour to drive the car all over the campus (which is very large with huge empty parking lots) and could drive the car as spirited as I wanted to. Needless to say, I accepted!

My security badge

My parents live in Fairfield, NJ which is only about 25 minutes from the Woodcliff Lake Campus so this was easy to arrange and really didn't impact any family plans because it was so early. The rules were I would be allowed to take one picture of me with the car and it couldn't show any of the interior which was completely production-ready. I was given a one day security badge to allow my access to the campus and there would be one employee there to ride along with me. I had to sign some documents that would restrict me from revealing very specific functions and details, but other than that I was free to write or say whatever I wanted to. The Woodcliff Lake Campus is really perfect for this as it's in a rural area surrounded by trees and security booths at all the entrances. Nobody could see what we were doing or take pictures of us.

I arrived at the campus at 7:45am and followed the directions to the technical center where the car was to be. When I arrived there was a familiar face waiting for me. It was Dave Mustac, the technical coordinator for the ActiveE and Electric Vehicle Aftersales Specialist. I kind of felt bad that he had to come here for this on Easter Sunday, but he said he lived close and really didn't mind. I hope that was the case. The car was inside so we had to go in and get it. When we got to the room where it was, I was stunned to see six i3's all gathered together in there. Three of them had the blue swirly camouflage that we've been seeing and three others were painted bright yellow. Not exactly the color I would choose, but for this I didn't care what color it was. I assumed I would be regulated to one of the camouflaged ones, but the first car in line was a yellow one and Dave walked over to it as I followed.  The bright yellow color kind of reminded me of a crash test car, but these obviously aren't being used for that.

It was a BEV i3 although there were three with the range extender option also. He handed me the keys and smiled saying, "I know you've waited for this for a while now," and he was right. I pulled out and the first thing I did was drive on the main road that circles the campus. There were long straight-aways and I could really see how much punch it had. It didn't disappoint! It's definitely much faster than the ActiveE, obviously the result of it having the same power while being nearly 1,300lbs lighter. After circling the campus I pulled off into one of the large parking lots which was completely empty and I did some autocross-like maneuvers. It has remarkable poise even with the thin tires on 20" non-production wheels. They held tight on even the tightest turns and barely even squealed as I pushed the car to the limit. 

After about 40 minutes Dave reminded me we did have to wrap things up. I noticed I used 30% of the charge but didn't look at the mileage when I started (I was too excited) so that's not much help with the expected range. The instruments - which I can't really talk about were very impressive and I think will be well received. Please ask questions below and I'll answer whatever I can but remember there are a lot of things I can't comment about. Special thanks to Dave for taking time out of his Easter Sunday to come and make sure I didn't leave the campus with it! I can't wait till I get the next opportunity to take one for a longer (and maybe unsupervised) drive!

UPDATE: For those that haven't figured it yet, this was an April Fools joke. Unfortunately I haven't had the privilege to test drive an i3...yet. Hopefully I'll get to be one of the first that does, but we'll have to wait to see... Special thanks to follower Chris Llana who did the photoshop work for the picture above. I know he spent a while on it and it definitely tricked a good amount of people. I even got emails from some people asking if I could tell them info on the car!

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BMW i3 Concept Coupe Revealed

BMW i manager Oliver Walter introduces the concept i3 coupe at the LA Auto Show

BMW surprised a lot of people at the LA Auto Show and introduced a new variation of the i3, a 2 door coupe to compliment the 4 door hatchback that will launch towards the end of 2013. This new coupe is currently only a concept, but if BMW feels enough people would buy this variant, it could easily go into production.

It shares the same drive platform as the 4 door i3, so most of the engineering is already done. All BMW would have to do is make the different passenger cell and attach it to the same drive platform that the 4 door will be using. Now I'm sure it's not exactly that simple, but I am also confident most of the drive platform would be exactly the same.

The i3's life-drive platform

In fact, Oliver Walter referred to the "i3 family of vehicles" when addressing the crowd of ActiveE drivers at the LA Auto Show. I interpreted this as a sign BMW may use the i3's drive platform to make multiple different offerings.  Since the CFRP passenger cell is literally glued to the aluminum frame which houses the entire drivetrain and batteries, it wouldn't seem to be very difficult at all to offer multiple passenger configurations, provided there was a demand for different offerings.


Many of the people I spoke to were very excited about the coupe, even more so than for the 4 door which is going to be the initial i3 offering. While I liked the look of the coupe, Personally I'm more interested in the utility of the 4 door. The access to the rear seating area is so much better with the coach(suicide) doors on the 4 door. Getting in and out as well as loading and unloading cargo from the rear seats will be infinitely easier with the coach doors and I don't think it takes away from the styling at all, especially since there are no outside door handles for the rear doors. I also think another reason why many others were so excited about the coupe was because looked closer to a production car than the four door i3 does. Lets face it, the 4 door concept car is getting a little long in the tooth and people are getting tired of looking at the glass doors and roof. It was introduced about a year and a half ago and other than a different color interior there has been no changes to it. I get a lot of inquiries about when will BMW show us the production version. The concept coupe has a new, refreshed interior that quite honestly looks stunning and ready for production. I suspect this is very close to what the production i3 interior will look like and I hope BMW doesn't change much because it looks awesome as it currently is.

BMW North American manager of sales and strategy Jacob Harb was also at the event and he spoke for a while and then fielded questions from the ActiveE group. There really wasn't any new news offered. We talked a lot about the range extender option as well as DC quick charge. There was also a lot of discussion on the tires BMW seem to be using on the i3. They are tall and thin and don't look like they would be good for aggressive driving. The concept coupe at the show had 175/60 R20's on the rear wheels and 155/60 R20's on the front. No doubt the different tire sizes were a concept-only feature but the tall and thin nature of them had people wondering if too much road holding will be sacrificed in the name of efficiency. We also talked a lot about the use of run-flat tires. I can say with certainty the ActiveE drivers there, and many others that I have spoken to do not want run flat tires on the i3. I hope BMW got the message and decides not to use them. They are loud, harsh and heavy and we do not want them. Can I be any clearer?

The openness of the i3 is hard to capture in pictures. Although it is a small car, the interior is spacious. During the presentation Walter said the i3 will have roughly the same interior volume as a three series. That's considerably more space than our ActiveE's have now even though the i3 is much smaller. Because of the life-drive architecture and the elimination of the transmission tunnel needed on front engine internal combustion engine cars, the i3's passenger compartment is much more spacious than a comparable gas car of it's size would be.

So while I'm really happy to see BMW thinking about expanding the i3's line to offer different variations, what I'm really looking forward to is finally seeing what the production i3 will look like. We are tantalizingly close now after nearly four years of waiting. I'm figuring I'll get my wish in about three months in Geneva? Anyone else care to guess when and where BMW will show off the real i3?

Here's some more pictures from the LA Auto show:

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