JMK BMW To Host The Area's First "i3 EVent"

 

On Thursday, January 16th, (tomorrow) JMK BMW in Springfield NJ is hosting a "Get to know the BMW i3" event from 10:00am to 7:00pm. For most, it will be the very first time they have the opportunity to actually see the i3 in person and test drive it. JMK client adviser and i3 product specialist Manny Antunes will be there to answer questions and take reservations on the spot if you decide to order an i3 while you are there.

I have been working with JMK to help prepare them for the coming i brand cars and have already ordered my i3 through JMK. I appreciate that JMK recognizes that these cars are different, and will elicit different questions and concerns from their potential buyers so I have personally tried to help prepare them for these potential issues. It's encouraging that they understand this and have reached out to make sure they can offer the best possible customer experience and service.  That is why I recommend considering JMK if you are from the area and considering an i3 or i8.


I will also be there for most of the day to help answer questions and provide information to anybody interested in my personal experience driving and living with an electric car. I hope to see you there and please introduce yourself to me if you've been following my blog, I love to meet the readers in person.


Event Details:


JMK BMW "Get to know the i3" Event
JMK BMW
391-399 Route 22, Springfield, New Jersey 07081

Read More

BMW i3: I Was Born Electric On...

It's been about a month and a half now since the first BMW i3's destined for retail customers rolled off the assembly line in BMW's Leipzig plant. Recent reports claim BMW delivered 400 i3's in November but we haven't got word of how many were delivered in December as of yet. So what do the new owners have to say? The point is, the i3's are out there now, and customers are driving them. I'm sure a lot of people would like to read first hand reports from actual owners.

I searched but I couldn't find a single detailed report from an actual i3 owner so I reached out to a few of them and asked them if they wanted to be part of a new series I'm going to have here called "I was Born Electric On...". I'm going to allow i3 owners to write guest blog posts to tell us about their thoughts on the car. What they love, what they hate, and everything in between. Of course they'll provide pictures- hopefully cool ones that show their i3 near some of the interesting sites where they live. We'll start the post with "Hi, my name is______ and I was Born Electric on _____.

I already have a few commitments from the UK, the Netherlands and Germany but I'd like more so please email me if you have an i3 and are interested in being featured on this blog, the more the better! Don't worry if you don't write in perfect English, or if your not a polished writer, the readers here don't mind (obviously not because I make a lot of mistakes!) and if it's really difficult to understand I'll just make small corrections that only clarify what you are trying to say. Don't be shy, the readers would love to hear your thoughts.

My email address is: electric.is.better@gmail.com

Thanks and have a Happy New Year everyone. Be electric in 2014!

Read More

Strong US i3 Demand Expected, Says CEO Willisch

Predicting demand for electric vehicles has proven to be a difficult task. Both GM and Nissan had admit to not hitting their sales predictions when they first launched their respective electric vehicles. Tesla, on the other hand seems to have their sales constricted by battery supply issues and not by a lack of customer demand.

BMW has been very quiet with regard to talking about sales targets for the i3. It has been reported that BMW will have the ability to make 30,000 i3's per year and could possibly push that up to 40,000 if the demand warrants it. However that isn't right out of the gate. The first year of production will most certainly be much lower than 30,000 regardless of the demand.  Because everything about the i3 requires a completely new manufacturing process it's going to take a little while for BMW to work out any initial kinks in the assembly process. Plus, BMW can only make as many i3's as they get battery cells for. Yes BMW does assemble the battery pack in-house at their Landshut plant, but they do get the cells from a supplier (Samsung) and will be limited to what Samsung can supply.

The i3 battery pack consists of  8 modules, each consisting of 12 individual cells. Pictured above is one i3 module with an individual cell positioned in front.

Initial European orders have been very strong which is good for BMW and a good sign in general for the EV industry, but may squeeze i3 availability for the US market. BMW North American CEO Ludwig Willisch recently told the Automotive News that he believes BMW will sell every i3 allocated to US dealers and wouldn't comment on volume any more than saying  the US would get "more than a few thousand". In 2011, the first full year of US sales for the Volt and the LEAF, they sold 7,345 and 9,655 units respectively. The market for electric vehicles has matured a bit since then which is an advantage for the i3, but the i3 is also much more expensive than either the Volt or the LEAF so that will certainly be a sales-restricting factor in itself. Throw in the fact that we don't know how many i3's BMW can supply the US in the first year and it really is difficult to even guess how many will be sold in 2014. Maybe that's why Willisch and the others at BMW are reluctant to offer any real sales prediction other than to say "strong demand"; or perhaps it's because they watched Nissan and GM fall short and have to address their mistakes and eat a little crow. My guess is it's the latter.

Read More

Packages and Pricing for 2012 BMW 3-Series in Canada

We now have Canadian pricing information on specific packages for the new BMW 3-Series (F30) More information after the jump, test drives available around March we are located on 8111 Kennedy Road, Markham Ontario L3R 5M2, Canada. If it is convenent for you to drop by send us an E-mail with your name the best number we can reach you and inform you once we have the cars prepped for test drive.  

Read More