My New Side Job: BMW i Dealer Training

It's -2 degrees F here in Canada and I'm talking BMW i3 at Budd's BMW in Oakville! I've written a few posts on my blogs about how poorly many dealerships have done when it comes to selling their electric car offerings. I blasted Nissan and GM pretty good a while back and had hoped that BMW would learn from the mistakes the other OEM's made when they rolled their EV's into their dealers' showrooms. However I'm starting to wonder if that will be the...

Read More

Serial Production of The i3 Begins Tomorrow

According to Automobilwoche a German car website, serial production of the BMW i3 will begin tomorrow, September 18th at BMW's Leipzig manufacturing plant. You can read (if you read German) or translate the article here.The i3 is scheduled to go on sale in select European countries in November with the US launch set for Spring 2014. However, it's not clear if the range extender will be available as an option from the start. I have had people in Germany...

Read More

BMW i3 Teaser Video Released

BMW Press released a teaser video of the production i3. We get to see the real production i3 in action for the first time. Enj...

Read More

What's The Delay?

On July 22nd, tucked nicely at the end of a press release for the i3, were the words,“It will arrive in US showrooms in the second quarter of 2014.”That means US i3 customers will have to wait a bit longer than expected. Although BMW has never made an official announcement on when US sales would begin, about four months ago BMW's North American president Ludwig Willisch told the Automotive News that the first batch of i3s arriving in the US would...

Read More

Report: i3 Price To Be Announced on July 22nd

According to the French website, La Tribune, BMW will announce the retail price of the i3 on Monday, July 22nd, one week before the official introduction of the production i3. From the report(translated by Google):"The urban electric BMW i3 will be launched in late November while the i8 plug-in hybrid will be launched it in the spring of 2014. But it is already possible to pre-book these unreleased vehicles. Access to bookings made via this link....

Read More

The i3 Cometh

 It's official. The world premier of the production version of the BMW i3 will take place on July 29th. It's a little surprising since most people have speculated that would happen at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September but evidently BMW had different plans. BMW posted a short video on YouTube that was primarily smiling people jumping for joy and urging us to learn the German word "Vorfreude", which basically means excited anticipation. Even...

Read More

BMW Slowly Undressing the i3

The most recent spy shots of the BMW i3 show more of the car than ever before, continuing the trend BMW has set of slowly exposing more and more of the car as we approach its official unveiling at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show in September. A production-looking nose is spottedWhen the very first spy shots were captured two years ago, the car looked very boxy and was completely covered in the blue and white swirly camouflage. It was also clear that...

Read More