My March 1 story “I Rented A BMW i3 For A Weekend And Now I’m Sitting In A Cheap Motel Two Hours From Home Contemplating Buying The Cheapest One I Could Find” is the first time I ever wrote about my BMW i3. I’d rented a Deka World (i.e. brown leather seats) 2014 i3 on Turo and instantly fallen in love to the point where, within just a matter of weeks, I found myself three hours away near San Diego about to pull the trigger on the cheapest one in the country. I ended up buying that car despite it having a bad high-voltage battery, but luckily I managed to finagle a free replacement. Now it’s been a year; here’s what it’s been like owning that i3 for a year.
Shortly after I rolled the $10,500 dice that BMW i3, I did some research and found that the state of California mandated that all emissions components on hybrids be warranted for 10 years or 150,000 miles. Since my i3 wasn’t the full-electric model, but rather the gasoline range-extender-equipped model, technically the entire high-voltage system was considered an emissions component of the little auxiliary gas motor. As such, BMW owed me a new battery, and in short order, they ponied up, giving me the greatest BMW i3 deal in human history, a deal I described in my story “I Bought A High-Mileage Electric Car With A Bad Battery. Here’s Why That Was Actually A Stroke of Genius.”
Anyway, many of you have already heard that backstory. Now let’s talk about what it’s been like to live with for a year.
At $10,500, this is one of the cheapest BMW i3s I could find from a reputable dealer. It has 135,000mi. Should I? pic.twitter.com/6IgpggzS8t
— David Tracy (@davidntracy) March 1, 2023
It’s Bigger Than It Looks
When I recommend the i3 to my friends, they often say “Oh, no. That’s too small for me.” Even my parents, who have a golden retriever, didn’t even consider the i3 because they think it’s not big enough; they are wrong, as my friend Andrew Collins pointed out when he Will It Dog?’d an i3.
The i3 is a packaging marvel. The entire powertrain is built into a skateboard on which the body is mounted, leaving every bit of the body as useable space for passengers or their gear. There’s a small frunk up front, which allows me to store my laptop-containing backpack somewhere that even glass-breaking LA thieves can’t access; the rear seats fold to yield a huge flat space; and because the weight is down low in the chassis, the headroom is monumental while the overall width of the car is small.
See this shelf, which is taller than I am? I fit the whole dismantled thing into my i3:
Here’s how my i3 looks right now; I basically treat it as a pickup:
For four adults, it’s comfortable, which may surprise you given that it’s a tiny one-box design. I’ve visited my girlfriend’s parents a number of times, and the four of us have fit comfortably, with the suicide doors making ingress/egress a breeze.
But It’s Also Small
Though it’s big on the inside, the i3’s diminutive exterior dimensions — along with its skinny front tires — make it the most nimble car I’ve ever owned by a huge margin. Its turning radius of 16.15 feet is significantly smaller than that of a Mini Cooper, a VW Beetle, a Honda Fit, a two-door Jeep Wrangler or any other four-passenger car that I can think of. Whipping U-Turns is an absolute breeze, and if there’s oncoming traffic, you’ve got lots of torque to get you out of the hole before you get rear-ended.
It’s short. Not quite two-door Mini Cooper short, but shorter than a Honda Fit or two-door Wrangler. It’ll fit into tight spots, and getting into them is a breeze not just because of the tight turning radius, but because the car has a parallel park-assist feature that will actually park for me.
It’s Been Dead-Reliable
I’ve put 10,000 Miles on my BMW i3, and have had no significant issues worth mentioning. The car came with a bad exhaust hanger, so I replaced that. I did get a flat tire, which for whatever reason seems to be a more common issue with i3s than other cars (not sure how that makes sense, but owners forums talk about flats all the time), but I patched that thing up on-the-spot in about 15 minutes. Here’s my patch (which I realize is closer to the sidewall than most shops would allow, but luckily I can do it myself; the tire has been doing great for about 7,000 miles since the patch):
I also had a 12-volt battery failure, which is incredibly common on i3s. My old battery was from late 2019, so at five years old, it was about time. Luckily, the battery failed while I was home, so I just did the swap in the garage. The whole job was actually quite simple, requiring the removal of only a few bolts to remove the frunk. Then I undid a couple of other fasteners for the straps that hold down the 12-volt battery. Two more bolts to release the battery clamps, and I had the old 12-volt out and the new one (which cost me about $110 from eBay) in.
Aside from that $120 on the battery, tire patch, and exhaust hanger, I’ve had to do nothing to the i3 in the past year. No oil changes, no filter changes — nothing.
If I had to guess, I’ve probably used about 20 gallons of fuel over the past year, with the rest of my driving being all-electric.
The Range Is Good
When I initially bought the i3, the “guess-o-meter” read only 39 miles of EV range. The BMW dealership told me that there was no remaining warranty, but — armed with knowledge that the state of California requires a 10 year, 150,000 mile warranty for all emissions components on hybrid vehicles (and on a plug-in, the entire electrical system counts as an emissions component) — I went ahead and bought the car anyway. It was $10,500, or about $11,500 after all was said and done.
BMW ended up swapping the battery for free, and — with extreme hypermiling — I was able to get the thing to do 97 miles on a single charge. With more mormal, but still conservative, driving, I scored 87. What I’ve noticed over the past year is that, on pure highway driving, the i3 will do 70 miles on the dot. In the city, it’ll do over 80 easily.
What I’m trying to determine now is what the state of my battery is after it sat at 0 percent state of charge for six weeks. I was taking part in Santa Monica’s “One Car Challenge,” which required my girlfriend and me to drive only a single one of our cars. We chose her Lexus RX, meaning the i3 sat. This challenge began as the i3’s 12-volt battery began to fail; I recall leaving the rear door open and seeing the rear cargo-area LED come on, but I figured that would turn off.
I’m not entirely sure what happened, but when I did put in a new 12-volt battery, the high-voltage battery was at zero percent and wouldn’t take a charge from the outlet. I had to fire up the range extender for the battery to charge at all. Some say that a battery sitting empty for an extended period is bad for it; I’m unsure if my battery was damaged over those six weeks. I can tell you that it definitely can go over 70 miles on a single charge in mixed driving conditions; can it still do 70 highway-only? Can it do 97 miles if I hypermile it? I don’t know. I’ll keep an eye on it.
In any case, the thing was initially EPA rated at 72 miles of combined range, and it still manages that. Plus, the battery “Kapa Max” value on the screen still says 19 kWh, which is what a brand new battery would read.
As for charging, it’s easy. I usually do it at my girlfriend’s condo’s garage via the simple level-1 charger that came with the car. It’ll only get me 1 kWh per hour (naturally, since it’s a 1kW charger), but that’s about four miles in an i3, so if I park it for 10 hours overnight, that’s 40 miles — enough to get me to work and back. Speaking of work, I can charge there, too, and it doesn’t cost me a dime, though sometimes it can be tricky due to a number of colleagues needing the only two available Level 2 chargers in our lot:
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At my apartment, I have tandem parking spots:
To use the Level 2 charger mounted to the wall, I use a JLong charging cable extension, which a reader kindly gave me. It’s a godsend, and I recommend it to anyone who finds themselves having to really stretch their cable to get it to reach their car.
The BMW i3 Is The First Electric Car That Really ‘Moved’ Me, And It Still Does Everyday
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As a car journalist, I’ve driven a lot of electric cars. Many of them, like the Tesla Model 3 and Model S, are incredible feats of engineering. Many, like the Rivian R1T and Hyundai Ioniq 5, are amazing packages that blend fun styling with compellingly unique features. Many, like the Bolt and Leaf, are great bargains.
But none of them really moved me. Either they didn’t feel like enthusiast cars (the Bolt, Leaf, Model 3) or they were too expensive (Rivian, Model S Plaid). To find an affordable electric car that felt special wasn’t something that I thought possible in 2023. Then my colleague Thomas Hundal suggested I try an i3; I rented one, then I bought this one, and after one year, I remain head-over-heels in love.
Every day when I hop into my car in preparation for my morning commute, I’m filled with excitement. I love driving the i3. It’s the combination of that world-beating interior, that carbon fiber engineering marvel of a body, that novel two-cylinder gas engine mounted in the rear, the quickness, the nimbleness, the practicality — the i3 is the perfect car for me. It has exceeded every expectation I’ve had of it, and never once disappointed me. It gets me around LA in style, saving me lots of money on fuel; it lets me carry friends and cargo with ease; it can park in spaces too small for most cars; it’s got great features like adaptive cruise control and parallel park assist, and I could go on and on.
Not once in the last year have I said “I wish this car had X.” Maybe I’d take Apple Carplay, but I can retrofit that. And I think I’d have liked my visors to telescope, though I think I can buy extenders so the sun doesn’t beat on my head through the side window. And maybe when I have to swap the expensive, hard-to-find tires I’ll have something to complain about, but as of now — one year and 10,000 miles into my ownership experience — I’m still in love.
I want to keep this i3 forever. Hopefully this new battery lasts more than nine years, but even if it doesn’t, I’ll try to swap in a later model battery, as those are supposed to last longer. I recently contemplated selling this i3 and spending an extra $5000 on a 2019, which has double the range. But the fact is, my 2014 is equipped exactly as I want it; it has the big screen, it’s got the great exterior, and it’s got some features that were “TCR’d” (technical cost reduction) over the years to reduce manufacturing costs (some bungee-pockets for storing things went away, and the fill plug for the rear transaxle left in early 2015, meaning you have to buy a 2014 or an early 2015 if you want to be able to easily change your transaxle gear oil! I’ll be doing that soon).
I realize that one year, 10,000 miles isn’t a ton of driving, and I don’t know what service the i3 has needed in its 10 years, 145,000 miles of life. But under my ownership, it’s been flawless in every way. At ~$50,000 when new, the BMW was an overpriced engineering marvel. At $10,500 nine years in, it’s now just an engineering marvel.
Fellow i3 owner here…basically mirrors my experience, the thing is just great. FWIW if you do end up doing an oil change – either use a lift or get a set of those BMW-MB specific jack point adapters.
Thanks for the update.I’d been wondering where it’s at.It’s great to hear it’s getting lots of use!
I think it says a lot that when we met in LA you picked me up in the i3. You could have picked any car in your fleet to show off, and this was the one. And it was a great choice, too – I was genuinely surprised at everything it did and it was comfy to boot. And I’m not just saying that because we got Slushees.
Let’s do it again!
Yeah! Hopefully I’ll get to LA a few more times in 2024.
The traditional first year anniversary gift is paper.
Maybe get the i3 some sheets of cardboard to protect the interior from David’s inevitable, insatiable, procurement of problematic vehicle parts.
Oh wait.
It’s too late.
“Honeymoon in a junk yard”
The David Tracy story.
Hi Dave,
With your REX, I really suggest looking into recoding the car. With the i3 you have, you can “unlock” the full fuel tank. The early models they had to limit the amount of tank size in the US to 1.9gallon so it didn’t exceed the electric range. The tank is actually 2.3. You also can control the REX like you can on the European version. If you have a long trip, you can engage the REX at any point below 75%, and save the battery for later. Great if your destination doesn’t have charging available.
I found this made my i3 ALOT more useful as a daily driver.
The i3 is a great car (Ive leased 2 of them when they had some crazy deals going on) I built a huge fence in the backyard using it as a pickup, it could hold a wheelbarrow, a lawnmower, all sorts of stuff that would give you a sideways glance in a Home Depot parking lot.
Those HOV lane stickers are a frustration. They do not come off without some paint damage and hours of elbow grease. Before applying them most recently I bought a small roll of 3M paint protection film and cut it to the general shape of the stickers, then put those between the paint and the sticker. Once the stickers expired, I was glad to have the option to easily remove them.
I’m really happy that he’s happy with it. He might have gone LA, but there’s a certain sort of “wow, I don’t have to fight this vehicle to get it to run it drive” that a lot of folks rightly appreciate. Wrenching is fun, but having a car that simply goes, and goes well, is a relief and a comfort.
Removing bungee pockets in the name of cost savings is criminal though. Without those, I’d have nowhere to put all the trim pieces that have fallen off and out of the z4 interior!
Suppose it makes it even less desirable for northern climates that you’d need to source both summer and winter rubber for an obscure size. Yep, it’s clearly BMW being very German and picking a wheel size because they think they’re smarter than the world.
David, we are proud of you. You went from “My rusty death trap has left me stranded for the third time this week” to “this car has been problem free, and it makes me happy.” Welcome to adulthood.
I however, am not proud of the fact he’s filling the back of that car with heavy junk.
He’s inadvertently advertising the usefulness of hatchback life to the American market.
Maybe if it catches on, and they behave, America will get the VW Golf back.
I can personally attest that you can get half a ton of stone into the back of a VW Polo.
Mind you, one of the rear springs snapped a few months later, but I’m sure that’s just coincidence right?
Really should upgrade to an aluminium floor jack.
Baby steps. He is a work in progress
So great to read that you are loving the i3. Welcome to the BMW i3 appreciation club!
Those tires are the most BMW thing about the i3. As time passes, sourcing those will likely become more and more difficult. I could envision hitting the wear bars as totaling future i3’s.
It is possible to swap the wheels to use a more standard size.
That’s good – some thick sidewall would likely improve the experience.
There would be a range hit, though.
0% SOC is not 0 volts. This is why electric vehicles quote a “usable” battery capacity which is less than the “total” battery capacity. The i3 has a buffer so it can be driven down to 0% without damaging the cells.
The battery management system very likely stopped the discharge when the battery reached critical levels. I can’t imagine it would permit a $5000 battery to go to zero volts.
They should do level 1 chargers at Gaplin, pretty easy to do off of existing lighting poles.
The i3 is limited to 1kW for the on board charger? Is there a way to upgrade that, 1.5 kW perhaps?
Most of the Level 1 chargers I’ve seen cap out at 1kW / 12 amp. Probably the manufacturers are just playing it safe because most household 120V circuits only have a 15-amp breaker on them. I can’t imagine it’s a limitation of the car.
Good point on them playing it safe, I was noticing that my circuits are 20amp or higher but that is relatively new construction. Having the option for a level 1 to pull 18 amps would be nice, maybe manufacturers can put in a toggle switch.
I had a Bosch (M-B branded) charger that was selectable amperage up to 16A. The one that came with my i3s is only 10A though and is basically a trickle.
Level 1 chargers really only make sense for small battery plug in hybrids. Any other usage case makes charging so long, the relative difference between 10 or 18 amps isn’t worth the investment. You’re just going to get a level 2 charger installed.
You are right, 4mi/h vs 6 miles while charging would only make sense for the shortest of commutes on a BEV. More options never hurt though.
I also have a crazy idea of an EV charger that can pull from multiple LVL 1 chargers, I have 3 different 20amp circuits in my garage and a 4th kitchen circut within 20′ imagine if I could run all 4 at almost 2kW that’s like 8 kW without installing any level 2 chargers. Or let’s say your at a public level 1 charger and nobody else is around go ahead use em all!
(fiar disclosure, I have no idea if electricity can work this way)
If those 20A circuits are on different legs, in theory you could combine 2 of them into a single 20A@240V circuit and get 3840W (16*240). Not sure it’d satisfy code, but it should be OK safety-wise.
It’s all theoretical, I have a 50a 240v sitting on the other side of the drywall for my garage, flipping it would be simple. I just was lamenting the lack of selectable amperage for oem level 1 chargers.
Not just playing it safe – that’s the real limit. Household breakers are “80% rated”, meaning you can pull the full nameplate rating for 3 hours then it’ll trip, and only pull 80% of the rating indefinitely. So for stuff like car charging that could last 8+ hours, 12A is the limit for a standard 15A household circuit. A 20A breaker/circuit does get you up to 16A, but that’s not enough to make a difference. Either way, it’ll fill up overnight but won’t charge fast enough to get much range with a shorter stop during the day.
You are correct, of course.
I’m curious how much haggling had to be done to get the new battery, or if the dealer just gave in right away.
These seem like great cars and I’d probably get one if it made sense to ditch the ICE vehicle for something efficient. It would also be weird since I’ve only owned Asian vehicles (Kia, Honda, Acura, Subaru, Toyota, Nissan).
There were comments about the I8 looking like it ate a 911, just noticed the I3 looks like it ate a 1/2 scale camaro.
Glad you’re still enthralled with it.
Nice write-up! Hopefully the PTB at BMW (Powers That Be at Bayerische Motoren Werke) will take heed and at least consider resurrecting the i3 (or close analogue) for the U.S. market.
In that picture of the shelving unit you showed a scratching pad, a bucket of kitty litter, and a water bowl. Any chance of seeing your cats? Hopefully they’re all doing well? JT shared a picture of his dogs yesterday so it’s your turn, ha.
That jack right behind the driver’s seat might decide to obey laws of physics in a front end collision. Please be careful.
Was going to say this, there’s a reason work vans have cages between the driver and cargo area, anything not properly secured becomes a projectile in an accident.
My dad almost died like this. Thankfully, the machine he was carrying on the rear bench was behind the empty passenger seat. I’ve never ever forgotten this and secure my shit properly. That’s a stupid way to go.
Holy crap those front tires are narrow!
Glad you’re digging it DT! Seems like a perfect car for LA.
Everybody kvetches about the tires. No, they’re not always easy to find, but in our experience they haven’t been any more expensive than “normal” tires. They do seem to wear more quickly, though.
If any other vehicle on the planet used the size I’d have less long-term worry. Maybe there’s some type of retrofit that could happen.
Hasn’t any of the owner’s sites figured out alternative wheels/tires for these?
Yep, not totally straightforward, but can be done.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BMWi3MODS/comments/meq0m7/update_put_front_wheels_and_tires_on_so_all/
Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of a smaller wheel, more width and sidewall tire, and no spacers required. Don’t know the answer, but it would be a mission if I had one.
Yeah, unfortunately all the suspension and braking components are packed in such way that spacers seem to be the only way to go, at least for now.
I had a similar experience with my Bolt, bought it used with 25k on the odometer right before (or maybe even during?) the stop sale due to the battery fires, and got a brand new, larger capacity replacement for free. Like you say it’s not really an enthusiast car, but it drives well, has more range than I really need, and requires very little maintenance. Mostly I just top off the washer fluid, check the coolant levels, wiper blades, and I’m good. I did add a trailer hitch (without wiring) so I can put in a bike rack, but other than that it hasn’t needed anything more imo. I’m going to keep it until the wheels fall off.
All four of you fit in the rear? Impressive
Sunova!
Nice. You really have me wanting one of these.
Love the cat scratch pad. Also, tires don’t have firewalls, but they do have sidewalls. 🙂
Flat tire ….”(which I realize is closer to the firewall [sidewall] than most shops would allow,…]”
“I did get a flat tire, which for whatever reason seems to be a more common issue with i3s than other cars (not sure how that makes sense, but owners forums talk about flats all the time)”
Could have something to do with 155/70r19, aka the dumbest possible tire size.
Get a lift kit and put in 33″ Raptor wheels on it.
Make a lift kit that allows other, normal sized tires, and I’ll buy one and your kit tomorrow.