I have the BMW i3 for an extended three-day test drive. The vehicle I was lent is a “Mega” series model, the most basic i3 available—Giga and Terra series being better equipped—with cloth and synthetic leather and minimal gadgets. For my first two days with the i3, my use of the car was just a few miles in town. On my last day, my family and I did a cross-LA highway drive for contrast.
I received the car with a mostly full battery. Depending on the drive-mode, Comfort, Eco Pro or Eco Pro+, I have between 55 and 60 miles of range. Comfort is actually the most aggressive drive mode and one which in which I can sprint to 60 mph in ~7 seconds; Eco Pro+ limits acceleration and top speed to 54 mph.
When I pick up the car at Santa Monica BMW from the refreshingly laid-back internet salesman, I am introduced to the i3 with a short test drive up and down Olympic Ave. The initial driving impressions of the i3 are that I sit very high off the ground, basically at CUV or SUV height, in a bright and airy cabin. The i3’s carbon chassis is noticeably stiff and rigid, and it actually helps telescope road information through the suspension and into the driver’s seat. As a driving-feel snob, I am pleasantly satisfied with the abundance of chassis feel. The steering is alive, too, and it provides more than enough satisfying feedback for a car without sporting pretensions.
Learning the regenerative braking off-throttle is the biggest adjustment a new driver to the i3 must make. When fully off the ‘gas’ pedal, the i3 engages significant regenerative braking. This retardation is enough to smoothly bring you to a stop when driving at unhurried speeds through town. The regenerative braking is strong enough that I hope BMW lights the brake lights when I lift completely off the accelerator(/decelerator!).
For a car that shares mind space with the Toyota Prius, the i3 is pleasantly quick away from a stoplight. The electric motor (motors?) have lovely torque, and leaping away from a stop is the i3’s greatest sporting pleasure, which facilitates some grins in around-town driving. The i3 also has that rear-drive feeling when accelerating and turning, where the front end lightens, and you feel pushed from behind.
While the lack of internal combustion engine noise does make for a quieter car, the i3 is no baby 7-series. For one, the i3 rides firmly, and the short wheelbase heightens the in-cabin impact of bumps. The i3 also lets in a moderate amount of tire noise and—at highway speeds—wind noise that would not be found in a grand luxury sedan. In fact, I was surprised that the engine noises of other nearby cars in adjacent freeway lanes made it into the i3’s cabin. Some say cars like the Tesla Model S and Mercedes S-Class are so insulating and coddling that you arrive at your destination refreshed rather than drained. The i3, even with its quieter ambiance, does not accomplish that trick.
I’d call the i3’s cabin eco shabby-chic. The materials would be considered downmarket and unacceptably rough, except that they are all sourced and constructed in environmentally friendly ways. While I would not want this scratchy fabric or unfinished dash in any other car, this style works for the i3, and I did not resent it at all.
On the third and final day of my extended test, I loaded my family of three into the i3 and set out to sample what Yelp promised was LA’s best cannoli. The rear-facing infant seat (a Britax BSafe) just fit behind the front passenger’s seat, with an inch of airspace between the infant seat and the front seat and maybe two inches of airspace between my shins and the glove box. The stroller also easily slotted into the trunk, though it did fill 90% of the trunk’s floor. (The trunk has a relatively high floor height, presumably because the electric motor is hidden underneath, powering the rear wheels.) While she could have ridden up front, my wife sat behind me—without compromising my driving position—to keep the baby happy on our 24-mile journey across LA.
The electric range was an indicated 52 miles as we left Santa Monica. I put the car in Eco Pro mode to eke out a few more miles of range without limiting my highway speed. As it turned out, the i3’s range when cruising at 65 mph was actually greater than 52 miles, and we were left with surplus miles upon completing our trip. I guess the prior days’ indulgence of accelerative blasts away from stoplights takes a greater toll!
On Hwy 10 and 110 to Eagle Rock, some of the i3’s long distance compromises became evident. The i3’s skinny tires followed rain grooves in the cement super-slab and caused the car to shimmy slightly side-to-side as if we were buffeted by the wind. My 2011 M3 actually follows these same groves in a similar way, but while I expect reactive road manners from a sports sedan and I do not expect such manners from a city trawler. The i3 also bounces high when traversing uneven transitions, such as when a highway bridge is not perfectly height-aligned to the preceding tarmac. The luxury-trim F30 3-series had this same bounce or float to it too, so this must be a BMW suspension dynamic from their comfort tuning philosophy. A final, tall-guy fault with the i3 is that when I look out the rearview mirror, the top edge of the rear window truncates my view to the horizon, making me feel less situationally aware of what might be zooming up behind me on the highway.
Otherwise, the i3 was a fine highway cruiser. Its adaptive cruise control kept pace with the car in front of me, even when our speeds dipped as low as 20 mph. The ACC is clearly of a simpler design than the one I recently experienced in the 2016 7-series, as in the i3, it only reacts to cars that are centered in your lane. For cars that are merging into your lane, ACC will not react until the merging car is crossing the lane’s centerline. The result is that the ACC feels more reactive and does not exhibit good anticipatory driving habits of monitoring the traffic in adjacent lanes too. Also, even at its closest following distance, the ACC leaves too big of a gap to prevent LA drivers from constantly cutting you off.
We did find great traditional and chocolate-dipped cannoli at Eagle Rock Italian Bakery. Crispy, flaky shells filled with sweet, spiced ricotta satisfied us completely. If only the rainbow cookies and pignoli had been world-class too!
The parking at the bakery reminded me of the door quirks with the i3. The car has rear-hinged rear doors, and these doors cannot be opened unless the front doors have been opened first. It is nearly impossible for a rear-seat passenger to exit the vehicle unless someone else first opens the front door for them; the front door handle is too far forward in the cabin to be reached by the rear seat passenger. Then, if you do exit in a tight parking space and have opened both front and rear doors, you’ll be boxed in by your two doors, blocked from moving forward or backward. This makes repeated trips to load the backseat of the car harder in a tight garage. The main (and only?) benefit to the backward swing of the rear door is that it makes it easy to slide the infant carrier into its base.
After a visit to the park and hardware store, we retraced our highway route to Santa Monica. Even with a faster cruising speed of 72 mph and the AC running, we pulled into the garage with 20 miles of electric range left. On this 50 mile trip, we only used 30 miles of estimated electric range.
Over my three days, I found the i3 to be a pleasant and sprightly vehicle that is well suited for local use. With the range-extender engine (which I did not sample during my drives), it even can tackle daily duties in large, sprawling cities like Los Angeles. Thanks to its abundant electric torque, rear-drive dynamics, and communicative chassis feel, the i3 is reasonably fun in town. It is capable enough on the highway, but mainly for shorter highway trips that will not expend its range. And, the i3 can handle light family duty with just enough seating space for parents and one, maybe two, children.
I am looking for a car with racecar-like reflexes and canyon/track capabilities, so the i3 obviously is not suited to my desires. But for a few grins when going to and from home, grocery store and school, the i3 can deliver.
Mike's Steering Column 