Anyone considering with a lease expiring soon considering the Bolt as an alternative to a 2017 I3?

My lease expires in May. I am considering the Bolt but as others have said I am not sure I can deal with cheap interior materials and trips to Chevy dealer. As much as there are things I dislike about the i3 it has a very nice pleasant interior and good dealer network. The ride on the heavier i3 is better, but still way too much lateral roll on small bumps.

And Tesla's model S/X is just not worth it, the range is fine but they are not real luxury vehicles, in fact I'd go as far as saying the i3 interior detail is way closer to that.

So it's either another i3 lease with longer range version, or Bolt. I have a deposit on Tesla model 3 but I'm not holding my breath. I wish Nissan had their act together and had a 200 mile Leaf. But right now it seems for longer range the Bolt is the only option worth the dollars.

Sigh...

Have you considered the Hyundai Ioniq?

I think the regular hybrid Ioniq has been out in Europe for a little while and you can see YouTube video reviews, but the electric and plug-in versions aren't yet released and may not be for some time. Also a local dealer told me Hyundai would start by trickling them out the first year and then ramping up production. More importantly, some details of the EV have been released and it has a 28 kW-h battery EPA-rated for 124 miles which is not stellar.

Autocar published a comparison between the latest BMW i3, VW e-Golf, Hyundai Ioniq Electric, and Nissan Leaf last month. The cars finished in that order.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/n...i3-vs-nissan-leaf-electric-vehicle-group-test

Just to clarify specifications, the Bolt has a curb weight of a bit over 3,500 lbs. I've taken a 60Ah BEV i3 to the scales and it weighs, empty, under 2900 lbs.

So a BEV i3 is 600 lbs. lighter.

That said, body roll in the i3 is a not-insignificant problem. A rear anti-sway bar would have been a good idea on BMW's part, but upgrading springs to a stiffer rate makes for a significant improvement in the way the car drives.

Friction, the reason the 60Ah i3 is lighter is that its battery is 1/3 the size. It has only a 22 kW-h battery whereas the Bolt has a 60 kW-h battery, and the battery pack adds a lot of weight because it's huge.

CGameProgrammer said:

Friction, the reason the 60Ah i3 is lighter is that its battery is 1/3 the size. It has only a 22 kW-h battery whereas the Bolt has a 60 kW-h battery, and the battery pack adds a lot of weight because it's huge.

Click to expand...

That's correct. The Bolt battery pack weight 960 lbs, so a very rough guesstimate of the additional weight is 500-600 lbs. So it really isn't fair to suggest it's porky...it has a much bigger battery. The additional weight is well used.

I've owned one FWD drive car in over four decades of car ownership, and that was plenty. Otherwise I would give the Bolt a hard look.

CG & michaelbmw –

If it came off that I was trying to rag on the Bolt, that wasn't my direct intent. A 200+ mile EV at the Bolt's price point is going to get so many more people into electrics. I don't love the style, but I'm really glad GM built it and I hope it's a big success for them.

What I was ragging on was weight.

Curb weight's a big factor for me and the fact that the i3 (BEV) is under 2900 pounds was really important.

My commutes are usually under 40 miles round-trip and I am happy to trade range for curb weight. That 200-mile Bolt is carrying 300 pounds of batteries that I, for the most part, wont use.

The joy of chucking a lightweight car through a corner is not that easy to come by in a new car these days. To find a sub-3000 pound, rear-wheel drive EV that's as advanced as the i3 hit all the right boxes in what I was looking for.

Now if they would only tighten up the suspension!

CGameProgrammer said:

What is the outward visibility like in the Bolt? I test-drove a Volt (the plug-in hybrid) and liked everything about it except the very narrow windshield which ruins the enjoyment of driving for me. The i3 on the other hand had excellent visibility.

Click to expand...

The Bolt is much better in this regard than the Volt. Maybe not quite as good as the i3 though.

But the cameras on the Bolt are really good. When I saw the "bird's-eye view" on the screen, I thought that it was a video feed from a drone. It's that cool.

Then there's the panoramic video rearview mirror display....

My other BMW has surround view cameras...it wouldn't be hard for BMW to put that on the i3 since they already own the logic in other models.

The way I look at battery range is: if it meets your typical round-trip needs without recharging, OR, if you have access to charging at your destination (and, you're there long enough for it to achieve the needed range), larger batteries are an unnecessary expense and weight. It can be a major factor if you're trying to limit your driving stable to one car, but at least in the USA, how many people buying an i3 are using it as their only vehicle? Not many. In other parts of the world, that may not be true, but many of them also have much better public transport options. Our train schedule is a joke except in a few, very limited areas (if you want to get from say Boston to Washington, there's a train leaving about every 1/2-hour, but try to go west from there...there's one train a day!).

For me, the Volt was totally out of the equation since I could not gracefully get in and out of the thing...I have trouble bending enough to fit into most car's door openings, which makes the i3's tallish one viable (but just). I haven't tried a Bolt, but they're coming to my state soon, and just for comparison, I'll probably check one out. I'm not really in the market for a new car (yet). I'm hoping the i5 will meet my needs and replace my i3 and ICE with it, but since it's not a known commodity yet, who's to know? A few more years of ownership will make the depreciation more palatable as well. I bought my i3 with the intent of keeping it a long time, since I typically don't need or use much more than 20-miles at a time. When you keep a car a long time, depreciation doesn't end up being as large a factor, and leasing is entirely money lost since there's no equity (although diminishing, it's still there). It makes sense if you change cars often, though, but I like the idea of no car or lease payments and their resulting interest payments. I tend to not buy something unless I can pay for it now (if that makes financial sense - if someone is giving me no interest financing, that's a different story!).

Our backup car for the BMW i3-REx was a 2010 Prius but the absence of TSS-P (i.e., dynamic cruise control and collision avoidance) made that a painful choice. On a lark, I test drove a Prius Prime and it was sold before I could buy it the next day. So I bought a Prius Prime Plus in Rhode Island and a cheap ticket to drive it back.

I drove it 1200 miles home and got 55.7 MPG using dynamic cruise control to follow high-balling semi-trailer trucks. The first refuel was 600 miles and the second, back in Huntsville, 699 miles. I have ~70% remaining of the third tank and over 1300 miles on the trip meter. I'm coming up on the 5k mile warranty check.

Around town, the 25-30 mile EV range works if I shop where there are free EV charging stations. This is easy because I donated the L2 hardware to my favorite pharmacy at an excellent mini-mall who put up a 50A circuit. I return the favor by shopping there even more than before.

Now if you are absolutely against burning gasoline in a car you own, by all means, buy a BEV. I don't have a dog in that fight.

But if you are interested in the least expensive cost per mile, buy a plug-in and calculate the $/mile both EV and gasoline. Either the BMW i3-REx or the Prius Prime Plus (or upper trims) will easily bring that cost to the minimum. They give the greatest miles per kWh and in the case of the Prime, the lowest cost per mile on the highway.

Understand, I own both cars, a 2014 BMW i3-REx and 2017 Prius Prime Plus, because both have dynamic cruise control and collision avoidance. I like the Prius Prime dynamic cruise control and collision avoidance because it is radar based and the 2014 BMW i3-REx is optical. Regardless, both fully meet our requirements.

Bob Wilson

FWIW, running a radar unit will use more power than the optical system. I'm not sure that the optical unit is the best choice, but I'm pretty sure that is the reason it was chosen verses a radar based unit. I think in the long-term, the optical is probably more reliable, and won't be confused by returns from other vehicles nearby...it's not an easy tradeoff. But, it is degraded by bright illumination and deep shadows, something the radar could care less about.