So I've had an i3 for two weeks now. My wife had an Infiniti FX35 which basically became a lawn ornament the moment I bought my Tesla. The FX35 is considered a "good" SUV and it was good. Build quality was stellar and it was somewhat fast but it was crippled by a 7 speed transmission that made it almost unbearable to drive around town and impossible to drive smoothly. More than that though, every time we left the house we were faced with a value proposition: take the Tesla and pay nothing to drive or take the Infiniti and put gas in it.
Then I got an email
From the local BMW dealer. $0.00 drive-off and $259.99 + tax a month for a top of the line trim i3 with the range extender. The i3 has been on my short list for no other reason than it's owners seem to like it and having a second electric car would inevitably end up in me putting less miles on the Tesla. Combine that with the fact that the Infiniti needed tires, was 7 years old and the BMW came with a $2500 California rebate and I was sold. We grabbed the i3.
The Bad
Then I got an email
From the local BMW dealer. $0.00 drive-off and $259.99 + tax a month for a top of the line trim i3 with the range extender. The i3 has been on my short list for no other reason than it's owners seem to like it and having a second electric car would inevitably end up in me putting less miles on the Tesla. Combine that with the fact that the Infiniti needed tires, was 7 years old and the BMW came with a $2500 California rebate and I was sold. We grabbed the i3.
The Bad
- The range extender - So far we've never needed it but there were a few times I tested it. The range extender is a generator that only comes on at 6% state of charge and is only designed to hold that state of charge. It does not drive the wheels directly. It has three modes: "Barely on", "Ok now I hear it" and "Jesus Christ, is someone running a lawnmower in the back of my car!?". Those are the official BMW modes. Take my word for it. I live at the top of a hill which means that by the time I reach the top of my hill with no charge, the range extender is in emergency mode. Emergency mode literally sounds as if someone taped a running lawn mower to the bottom of your car. This is embarrassing BMW. I realize it's a 2 cylinder motor but it may as well not be muffled at all. As another fun experiment, I went up the San Gabriel mountains on just the range extender. Top speed: 39mph. That's not just the top speed I reached; that was the top speed of the car.
- Range Estimator - Tesla is doing this wrong. I absolutely hate the way the Tesla estimates remaining range because it's wrong 100% of the time unless your drive is downhill with a tailwind. The i3 is like every other vehicle you've driven in that it displays it's estimated range based on your driving habits. So while it has 81 miles of EPA rated range, a full charge shows as 67 miles of range which is based on historical efficiency. And I much prefer this instead of trying to figure out the voodoo that is Tesla's range estimate because if the car tells me I have x amount of miles of all electric range left, I know it's true. It's not like road tripping with the Model S where I'm building up 50 mile buffers between superchargers because I know my 150 miles of rated range isn't going to get me 130 miles to the next supercharger.
- Build Quality - The i3 is unapologetically cheaper than the Model S yet feels significantly better built inside. Now I'm sure some of this has to do with the car having just 500 miles but if I'm being honest, the Model S's build quality has always left me disappointed. Having come from BMWs, Audi's and the like, I found the Model S's interior to be a disappointment. I know some swear that the newer cars are better. I've not found that to be the case. I've found the newer cars to be newer but not appreciably better built. I also think people tend to need a reason to justify a bump from an older Model S to a newer Model S and so they're inclined to see improvements where improvements do not exist.
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