When I first saw the i3 when it just came out, I hated the design. I thought it was a betrayal to the history of BMW to be honest. But over the years I have really started to appreciate the quirkiness and the unique design. Thinking about getting one now 😆
The holy secret of this car is 1. the superlightweigt aluminum/carbon chassis.❤ Very few cars like Lotus, Bugatti, Koenigsegg, MC Laren, Aston Martin Valkyrie or Alfa 8c have this. Standard I3 is just 1175 kg. (without passenger) 2. It has lowest degradation of all electric cars (some drive 180.000km and still 99 % remaining battery) 3. As it is not a faraday cage (carbon instead of metal) , you are not as bothered by electric radio poison from your running mobile or the engine/HV cables, which is also far away from you in the back cellar of the car. Additionally no radar systems on board. This makes driving more relaxed to your body. 4. The special door concept❤I love it. Solid as a armored cabinet. Without any B pillar. 5. Charging speed seems not to high, but it is a flat plateau from 10 to 85% with 49 kwh (summer) and beyond it is 39 kwh 86 to 95%. Due to small battery you can really charge until 95% SOC without loosing time. 6. Build quality: Just great. Do a test drive if you prefer I3 or I3 S before buy. I did and voted for I3. It is around 30% more comfortable which is a big difference on long rides. The power difference is not big...mainly above 120 km/h.....just somebody who is very familiar with his I3 will recognize the 14 horsepowers difference. Zero to 80 km/h Standard I3 seems even faster. For optic reasons and more stability above 80 km/h i changed Rims (428 to 431) and tires from 155/r19 to 175/r20 in the back. Big difference. Same stability as Modell I3 S but with comfort. This modell is very reliable. Late 2018 to early 2019 models some had EME problems but BMW changed it at guarantee if your car was attached. Seems EME failure is the worst repair job you can face because Engine and battery had to be put off and with no guarantee it could mount to 8000 Euro repair job. But up to 5 years BMW usually pays all and after a 85% discount on parts. But just a handful cases by 250.000 cars. There's no more reliable EV in the market. Sandy Munro, US Car Legend, stated, that I3 is the most revolutionary car since Ford T. Development costed 2.8 Billions Euros (US Billions) and was most expansive car engeneering ever. Due to the costs there will never be a payable car like I3 again. Would car released new and catalogue price be 2024 version, basic price would be 59.000 instead of 39000 in 2013.
The i3 does have a large interior volume for it's external footprint for two reasons: 1) the carbon tub means a stiffer structure so the structural members can be narrower but mainly 2) tiny narrow tyres means a small wheelhouses. On a modern car, check out how much space the wheelhouses take up. Massive wide wheels need clearance and this robs a huge amount of intereor space. The ultimate loosers here are the large 4x4 SUVs that both have massive tyres but also require axle articulation, so this is why a range rover is so small inside for such a massive outside volume!
Smart explanation. It makes sense about what you write concerning the smaller tires. The loading space in the back is above standard for this size of car.
Nice review, but I've a few remarks: About the charging you forget something many forget to mention: the charging curve. This car has actually an amazing flat charging curve with charging the car still with 50kW at 87%. For 10-87% it takes 33 minutes, all year around!and independent of soc when starting charging. I like that a lot. You just should stop charging at 87% when fast charging. Second: the app never let me down. It uses 4G to connect with the last version i3, so if the internet connection is bad, then there's nothing to expect. With me the heating function never fails. You can as an other option use the key fob to start the heating, when the car is parked in front of the office or house. This uses Bluetooth. No fail option possible. I know no other cars today either this option. Truth remark is the nav: you tell here it sucks, but why? Routing, Traffic,Usability? The work around is of course Apple CarPlay or google maps. That's in some other cars no option. I love the Apple CarPlay in the i3. Always up to date, and for longer trips ABRP for the charging planning available. :) Enjoy your unique car!
@@futbot6677yes. Full screen, and nice to use. If your car doesn't have it standard, from a 2019 on, you can activate it online with a lifelong subscription.
We bought a low mileage red/black i3S here in the UK. It's mainly my wife's car. She was previously running a BMW 325i M-Sport Cabriolet (which we are keeping by the way) which she really liked but I wanted to get into the electric vehicle revolution so for the first time ever I bought our i3 without her knowledge. She was very cynical at the beginning and was convinced I had made a mistake. 14 months on I keep her out of it, she absolutely loves the car for the same reasons you mention here. We charge it on either solar or on a cheap overnight tariff and costs rarely exceed £3.00 sterling. I think BMW should consider re-manufacturing the i3S because it's a stand out vehicle in the EV market. Finally prospective buyers beware of the REX versions because in the UK they don't meet to low emissions tariff which are being rolled out across our major UK cities. Top review by the way
You can use the diamond button on the key fob to preheat the car if you are close enough to it. I can do it from my house to my drive;-) TbH I haven’t had any problems with using the preheat from the app it’s worked fairly reliably for me - maybe the area the car is in has poor connection. The Tesla Y is an enormous car compared to the i3 and for that reason I would never consider it even if it was quite cheap.. I’d only ever really want a smallish car roughly the size of the i3. And so far I’ve not found one id want to swap it for though there are some interesting small cars out now there’s always the fun RWD driving characteristics of the i3 I keep coming back to. I think I’ll be hard to compare any other non-carbon-fibre car with it to be honest .
Same here. Had 2 i3's, but never had a problem with programming the preheating. I find the app very reliable. Always worked, and still does. (6 years of user experience) . Yes it takes sometimes long, but the app even tells you if there was a connection failure if you try to connect. I had a few non connection errors, mainly coursed by bad internet connection at the area where I used it at that very moment. Had not so much to do with the app.
I own i3 also. Love how nimble and fast it is. In city it feels fast, at least around ordinary cars, on my take ☺️ My longest trip was 2200km one way and same km back in one week, with my family + dog 😅👌. Kind of tested our first electric after we bought it. After living with it for 2,5 years - I can say:long trips sucks for passenger's, but I still love driving it. No isues so far, almost 100000km in. Like You videos 💪😁
Greetings from the U.K. I have a 2019 BMW i3, not the S. I’m very happy with it. The back doors are a bit silly, the ride is a bit hard, but other than that I really love it. 46k miles and going just great.
Your fiancé seems to be a sensible person. I like her, like I like your enthusiasm which compensates for some annoyances ☺️ F.i. You can plan the time the car needs to be heated in the board computer (up to three different moments). When you keep the car on the charger your battery is preheated as well 🤗 About the tires: do you have the same size front and back (as meant by BMW)? Remarkable: you payed 200 ‘bucks’ (dollar, yen, Euros?) for electricity and 300 for a normally free guarantee test 😳 BTW I own the same car with the same options in Black. Also (June) 2019 🙂
I agree with your fiancé’s assessment. I’m in Los Angeles and people will not let you over to the next lane in front of them. Coming off the line, that’s this car’s super power. It goes faster than any car I’ve put it up against, even EV trucks. Haven’t tried it against a Tesla yet. I also prefer physical buttons and stalks. Your fiancé’s BMW is spec’d out and those are increasingly hard to find. My 2021 is the same price as a used Model 3 here. But I would never get one.
The holy secret of this car is 1. the superlightweigt aluminum/carbon chassis.❤ Very few cars like Lotus, Bugatti, Koenigsegg, MC Laren, Aston Martin Valkyrie or Alfa 8c have this. Standard I3 is just 1175 kg. (without passenger) 2. It has lowest degradation of all electric cars (some drive 180.000km and still 99 % remaining battery) 3. As it is not a faraday cage (carbon instead of metal) , you are not as bothered by electric radio poison from your running mobile or the engine/HV cables, which is also far away from you in the back cellar of the car. Additionally no radar systems on board. This makes driving more relaxed to your body. 4. The special door concept❤I love it. Solid as a armored cabinet. Without any B pillar. 5. Charging speed seems not to high, but it is a flat plateau from 10 to 85% with 49 kwh (summer) and beyond it is 39 kwh 86 to 95%. Due to small battery you can really charge until 95% SOC without loosing time. 6. Build quality: Just great. Do a test drive if you prefer I3 or I3 S before buy. I did and voted for I3. It is around 30% more comfortable which is a big difference on long rides. The power difference is not big...mainly above 120 km/h.....just somebody who is very familiar with his I3 will recognize the 14 horsepowers difference. Zero to 80 km/h Standard I3 seems even faster. For optic reasons and more stability above 80 km/h i changed Rims (428 to 431) and tires from 155/r19 to 175/r20 in the back. Big difference. Same stability as Modell I3 S but with comfort. This modell is very reliable. Late 2018 to early 2019 models some had EME problems but BMW changed it at guarantee if your car was attached. Seems EME failure is the worst repair job you can face because Engine and battery had to be put off and with no guarantee it could mount to 8000 Euro repair job. But up to 5 years BMW usually pays all and after a 85% discount on parts. But just a handful cases by 250.000 cars. There's no more reliable EV in the market. Sandy Munro, US Car Legend, stated, that I3 is the most revolutionary car since Ford T. Development costed 2.8 Billions Euros (US Billions) and was most expansive car engeneering ever. Due to the costs there will never be a payable car like I3 again. Would car released new and catalogue price be 2024 version, basic price would be 59.000 instead of 39000 in 2013.o
Really nice place at this lake❤ Where is it in Norway? My BMW App works very reliable with my I3 2022. Maybe it depends on the mobile you use? Or the app is not updated? And heating is pretty quick. Would say, after heating starts it will take 10 minutes to heat up with a temperature around minus 2 Celsius. I did the climate activation also on the free bottom of car key.
Super video og en veldig god bil ja 😁 Etter lengere turer slet jeg med stolene, da de er gode i 15 min. Men bortsett fra dette var jeg meget fornøyd med min og!
Could you tell me which software version you got updated to? - I just bought an 2021 i3s from dealer, and they say it’s the latest software installed, but I’m not so sure…
@tw0million Are you replying just to be an ass! It's BMW, not BMV. Look at the letters on the FRONT of the vehicle or on the BMW Headquarters. You don't call "W" a "V" unless you're stupid.
When I first saw the i3 when it just came out, I hated the design. I thought it was a betrayal to the history of BMW to be honest. But over the years I have really started to appreciate the quirkiness and the unique design. Thinking about getting one now 😆
The holy secret of this car is
1. the superlightweigt aluminum/carbon chassis.❤ Very few cars like Lotus, Bugatti, Koenigsegg, MC Laren, Aston Martin Valkyrie or Alfa 8c have this. Standard I3 is just 1175 kg. (without passenger)
2. It has lowest degradation of all electric cars (some drive 180.000km and still 99 % remaining battery)
3. As it is not a faraday cage (carbon instead of metal) , you are not as bothered by electric radio poison from your running mobile or the engine/HV cables, which is also far away from you in the back cellar of the car. Additionally no radar systems on board. This makes driving more relaxed to your body.
4. The special door concept❤I love it. Solid as a armored cabinet. Without any B pillar.
5. Charging speed seems not to high, but it is a flat plateau from 10 to 85% with 49 kwh (summer) and beyond it is 39 kwh 86 to 95%. Due to small battery you can really charge until 95% SOC without loosing time.
6. Build quality: Just great.
Do a test drive if you prefer I3 or I3 S before buy. I did and voted for I3. It is around 30% more comfortable which is a big difference on long rides. The power difference is not big...mainly above 120 km/h.....just somebody who is very familiar with his I3 will recognize the 14 horsepowers difference. Zero to 80 km/h Standard I3 seems even faster. For optic reasons and more stability above 80 km/h i changed Rims (428 to 431) and tires from 155/r19 to 175/r20 in the back. Big difference. Same stability as Modell I3 S but with comfort.
This modell is very reliable. Late 2018 to early 2019 models some had EME problems but BMW changed it at guarantee if your car was attached. Seems EME failure is the worst repair job you can face because Engine and battery had to be put off and with no guarantee it could mount to 8000 Euro repair job.
But up to 5 years BMW usually pays all and after a 85% discount on parts.
But just a handful cases by 250.000 cars. There's no more reliable EV in the market.
Sandy Munro, US Car Legend, stated, that I3 is the most revolutionary car since Ford T. Development costed 2.8 Billions Euros (US Billions) and was most expansive car engeneering ever. Due to the costs there will never be a payable car like I3 again. Would car released new and catalogue price be 2024 version, basic price would be 59.000 instead of 39000 in 2013.
Believe me its a great car
The i3 does have a large interior volume for it's external footprint for two reasons:
1) the carbon tub means a stiffer structure so the structural members can be narrower
but mainly
2) tiny narrow tyres means a small wheelhouses. On a modern car, check out how much space the wheelhouses take up. Massive wide wheels need clearance and this robs a huge amount of intereor space. The ultimate loosers here are the large 4x4 SUVs that both have massive tyres but also require axle articulation, so this is why a range rover is so small inside for such a massive outside volume!
Smart explanation. It makes sense about what you write concerning the smaller tires. The loading space in the back is above standard for this size of car.
Nice review, but I've a few remarks:
About the charging you forget something many forget to mention: the charging curve. This car has actually an amazing flat charging curve with charging the car still with 50kW at 87%. For 10-87% it takes 33 minutes, all year around!and independent of soc when starting charging. I like that a lot. You just should stop charging at 87% when fast charging.
Second: the app never let me down. It uses 4G to connect with the last version i3, so if the internet connection is bad, then there's nothing to expect. With me the heating function never fails. You can as an other option use the key fob to start the heating, when the car is parked in front of the office or house. This uses Bluetooth. No fail option possible. I know no other cars today either this option.
Truth remark is the nav: you tell here it sucks, but why? Routing,
Traffic,Usability? The work around is of course Apple CarPlay or google maps. That's in some other cars no option. I love the Apple CarPlay in the i3. Always up to date, and for longer trips ABRP for the charging planning available. :)
Enjoy your unique car!
So it does have CarPlay? Thanks
@@futbot6677yes. Full screen, and nice to use. If your car doesn't have it standard, from a 2019 on, you can activate it online with a lifelong subscription.
We bought a low mileage red/black i3S here in the UK. It's mainly my wife's car. She was previously running a BMW 325i M-Sport Cabriolet (which we are keeping by the way) which she really liked but I wanted to get into the electric vehicle revolution so for the first time ever I bought our i3 without her knowledge. She was very cynical at the beginning and was convinced I had made a mistake. 14 months on I keep her out of it, she absolutely loves the car for the same reasons you mention here. We charge it on either solar or on a cheap overnight tariff and costs rarely exceed £3.00 sterling. I think BMW should consider re-manufacturing the i3S because it's a stand out vehicle in the EV market. Finally prospective buyers beware of the REX versions because in the UK they don't meet to low emissions tariff which are being rolled out across our major UK cities. Top review by the way
so REX needs pay ULEZ and high tax ?
Hey, great video! Thanks so much for the shout out too :)
For the 2 year health check, a road trip to London maybe!? 😃
Sure! Ill take the trip!
You can use the diamond button on the key fob to preheat the car if you are close enough to it. I can do it from my house to my drive;-) TbH I haven’t had any problems with using the preheat from the app it’s worked fairly reliably for me - maybe the area the car is in has poor connection. The Tesla Y is an enormous car compared to the i3 and for that reason I would never consider it even if it was quite cheap.. I’d only ever really want a smallish car roughly the size of the i3. And so far I’ve not found one id want to swap it for though there are some interesting small cars out now there’s always the fun RWD driving characteristics of the i3 I keep coming back to. I think I’ll be hard to compare any other non-carbon-fibre car with it to be honest .
Same here. Had 2 i3's, but never had a problem with programming the preheating. I find the app very reliable. Always worked, and still does. (6 years of user experience) . Yes it takes sometimes long, but the app even tells you if there was a connection failure if you try to connect. I had a few non connection errors, mainly coursed by bad internet connection at the area where I used it at that very moment. Had not so much to do with the app.
I own i3 also. Love how nimble and fast it is. In city it feels fast, at least around ordinary cars, on my take ☺️
My longest trip was 2200km one way and same km back in one week, with my family + dog 😅👌. Kind of tested our first electric after we bought it. After living with it for 2,5 years - I can say:long trips sucks for passenger's, but I still love driving it. No isues so far, almost 100000km in.
Like You videos 💪😁
Greetings from the U.K. I have a 2019 BMW i3, not the S. I’m very happy with it. The back doors are a bit silly, the ride is a bit hard, but other than that I really love it. 46k miles and going just great.
Your fiancé seems to be a sensible person. I like her, like I like your enthusiasm which compensates for some annoyances ☺️
F.i. You can plan the time the car needs to be heated in the board computer (up to three different moments). When you keep the car on the charger your battery is preheated as well 🤗
About the tires: do you have the same size front and back (as meant by BMW)?
Remarkable: you payed 200 ‘bucks’ (dollar, yen, Euros?) for electricity and 300 for a normally free guarantee test 😳
BTW I own the same car with the same options in Black. Also (June) 2019 🙂
I agree with your fiancé’s assessment. I’m in Los Angeles and people will not let you over to the next lane in front of them. Coming off the line, that’s this car’s super power. It goes faster than any car I’ve put it up against, even EV trucks. Haven’t tried it against a Tesla yet.
I also prefer physical buttons and stalks. Your fiancé’s BMW is spec’d out and those are increasingly hard to find. My 2021 is the same price as a used Model 3 here. But I would never get one.
The holy secret of this car is
1. the superlightweigt aluminum/carbon chassis.❤ Very few cars like Lotus, Bugatti, Koenigsegg, MC Laren, Aston Martin Valkyrie or Alfa 8c have this. Standard I3 is just 1175 kg. (without passenger)
2. It has lowest degradation of all electric cars (some drive 180.000km and still 99 % remaining battery)
3. As it is not a faraday cage (carbon instead of metal) , you are not as bothered by electric radio poison from your running mobile or the engine/HV cables, which is also far away from you in the back cellar of the car. Additionally no radar systems on board. This makes driving more relaxed to your body.
4. The special door concept❤I love it. Solid as a armored cabinet. Without any B pillar.
5. Charging speed seems not to high, but it is a flat plateau from 10 to 85% with 49 kwh (summer) and beyond it is 39 kwh 86 to 95%. Due to small battery you can really charge until 95% SOC without loosing time.
6. Build quality: Just great.
Do a test drive if you prefer I3 or I3 S before buy. I did and voted for I3. It is around 30% more comfortable which is a big difference on long rides. The power difference is not big...mainly above 120 km/h.....just somebody who is very familiar with his I3 will recognize the 14 horsepowers difference. Zero to 80 km/h Standard I3 seems even faster. For optic reasons and more stability above 80 km/h i changed Rims (428 to 431) and tires from 155/r19 to 175/r20 in the back. Big difference. Same stability as Modell I3 S but with comfort.
This modell is very reliable. Late 2018 to early 2019 models some had EME problems but BMW changed it at guarantee if your car was attached. Seems EME failure is the worst repair job you can face because Engine and battery had to be put off and with no guarantee it could mount to 8000 Euro repair job.
But up to 5 years BMW usually pays all and after a 85% discount on parts.
But just a handful cases by 250.000 cars. There's no more reliable EV in the market.
Sandy Munro, US Car Legend, stated, that I3 is the most revolutionary car since Ford T. Development costed 2.8 Billions Euros (US Billions) and was most expansive car engeneering ever. Due to the costs there will never be a payable car like I3 again. Would car released new and catalogue price be 2024 version, basic price would be 59.000 instead of 39000 in 2013.o
I too have a 2019 (December) and like the transmission control except that I often have to guess if the car is ON or OFF. Thanks for the review.
Perfect car in Los Angeles weather.
Nice video. However your take on the range extender is not connected to the drivetrain. It a small motor acting as a generator for the battery only.
Really nice place at this lake❤ Where is it in Norway?
My BMW App works very reliable with my I3 2022. Maybe it depends on the mobile you use? Or the app is not updated? And heating is pretty quick. Would say, after heating starts it will take 10 minutes to heat up with a temperature around minus 2 Celsius. I did the climate activation also on the free bottom of car key.
Thanks for the video. Interesting,
@3:45 I believe that colour you (and I) prefer is called Blue Ridge Mountain? I don't see many about here in UK.
Comparing with the Model Y seems weird, it costs more than 2x as much here in Sweden. There are a number of i3s below 150k SEK, cheapest MY is 339k.
I do say that it does not make sense to compare those, but that I mention it because it was in our list of possible cars
Super video og en veldig god bil ja 😁 Etter lengere turer slet jeg med stolene, da de er gode i 15 min. Men bortsett fra dette var jeg meget fornøyd med min og!
I would be interested in how much is your insurancefor such a car.
Could you tell me which software version you got updated to? - I just bought an 2021 i3s from dealer, and they say it’s the latest software installed, but I’m not so sure…
It is.. there is no newer software. Only for the nav there is.
What year bmw i3 is this?
2019
@RoamingNorway i was looking at 2018, but i might reconsider a 2019. Didn't know they made it for that year.
The Garantie include 8 Jahres or 160000km
time to upgrade to an mg4 :p
Small correction: Hybrids are actually the most reliable cars.
Nope, unless we are talking Toyota Prius with 50 hp
@@RoamingNorway I'm talking about the North American auto market. I guess Norway is different
@@001sander2 If you put in the same sentense the words reliability and American cars, there is always a not in the sentense. 😛 You forgot it!!!!
hybrids suck? like nissan leafe?
The leaf is not a hybrid
Are you saying BMV? It's a BMW, as shown on the hood label.
Don't look up the German pronunciation !!!
@@RoamingNorway Native English speakers expect initialisms to be pronounced with the English letters. Hilsen, en amerikaner i Norge
because he's saying it how its pronounced natively! r u purposefully being obtuse?
@tw0million Are you replying just to be an ass! It's BMW, not BMV. Look at the letters on the FRONT of the vehicle or on the BMW Headquarters. You don't call "W" a "V" unless you're stupid.
w=v. crazy euros.
I am Norwegian and we don't say that, I am saying it the German way.
Germans pronounce it exactly like that. You pronounce pors when it is PorcHE. With e at the end. Not i, bit e.