2017 i3 BEV - Still born?

[Boatguy]

My i3 lease is up next year. Obviously I need to drive the Bolt and make a property comparison of real cars, but for $10K less than a comparable equipped i3 (and the i3 still won't have CarPlay or decent phone integration), why would I lease another i3?

It seems like the Bolt will give us all the benefits we enjoy in the i3 (nimble, small, electric, good cargo volume, etc.) without the annoyance of the 80mi range and entirely inconvenient rear doors (impossible painful to use in a perpendicular parking space like a garage or mall). Paying even more for the larger battery i3 to get less than half the range of the Bolt is not compelling.

I'm asking this quite honestly. We love driving the i3 around town, basically in a 30mi radius of our home and it's the only car we want to drive when we go to San Francisco. But I'm struggling to see how the 2017 i3 will be a better choice than the 2017 Bolt.

BMW has a lot of promises about what's going to be delivered in 2020, but maybe they're lack of commitment 3yrs ago means they missed this cycle?

 

[jadnashuanh]

While I do wish that BMW would release their next I-car sooner rather than later, I do like my i3 and drive it most of the time, as I do not need more range normally. Given the research, that the average person doesn't go more than 34-miles/day...even on a bad day, the original i3 should manage that in the depth of winter. With the dearth of CCS units most places, at least for now (unless you have a Tesla and drive where there are superchargers), if you actually use that 200-miles of range, just think about how long it would take to recharge the thing! The i3 can handle up to about 50Kw/hr from a CCS unit...haven't seen that spec listed yet for the Bolt, nor what size their on-board charging circuit is. Many homes are hard pressed to install much more than 40A EVSE's, so, depending on the capacity of the charging circuits, a 60Kwr battery could take all night - not a great thing on a long trip. THen, many of the EVSE's out there in the real world won't even max out the i3's charging circuit, so it would be worse with a 60Kw battery.

Until you see what is 'standard' on the Bolt, and determine what you want, the actual selling price might begin to look more like the i3.

It all comes down to (at least in my thoughts), is how much do you need in range? In my case, the original i3's is fine. Even with 200-mile range (listed as 234, if I remember the recent data), it still may not be able to be your only vehicle.

It will be interesting to drive the Bolt and compare. It has more power, but also weighs more. Not sure what the power/weight ratio is. GM has stepped up their game, but still doesn't always seem to sweat the details like I feel BMW does. You may not agree with their implementation, but you can believe it was done for a reason - GM's reason often is the bottom line, not always a rational decision based on function.

 

[alohart]

Obviously I need to drive the Bolt and make a property comparison of real cars, but for $10K less than a comparable equipped i3 (and the i3 still won't have CarPlay or decent phone integration), why would I lease another i3?

If the least rate on a 2017 i3 is considerably less than that of a Bolt and the i3's range is sufficient, would that influence your decision?

 

[epirali]

I am in the same boat as you, and I am going to take a serious look at the Bolt. I was hoping for more of a change in the 2017, but even the range increase, although welcome, is just not compelling enough. But let's wait and see how the car really drives and what the fit/finish and details are like. I am a little weary of a chevy branded car compared to the general quality of a german car.

 

[bwilson4web]

Actually one should survey the market ... when it is time to replace a car. In May 2016:

• Prius Level 2 ECO - no dynamic cruise control and collision avoidance.
• No 2017 Prius PiP
• No 2017 Volt
• Other plug-in hybrids - short EV range
• Fuel-cell - no fool here!
• EV-only - high-speed chargers are few and far between and too dang slow for limited range

In 10 years when we replace the BMW i3-REx, the market will hopefully have moved on. The car fully meets are requirements even if highway performance could be better. Still, this former motorcycle rider understands dealing with a small tank.

Bob Wilson

 

[i3an]

Just this week, it's all over the web: Chevy, in a brilliant publicity campaign, turned about a dozen reporters loose in a pre-release Bolt each, from Monterey to Santa Barbara, 238-miles plus, on one charge, and all arrived with sparks to spare. The consistent refrain is: I started out quite skeptical, but now I'm a believer. Range, handling, form factor, pep, all surprisingly good.
General question: is this a pre-emptive strike against the any-year-now Tesla model 3?
Sub-text: GM can mass-produce the Bolt, and even if they sell them at cost can still make money by using them to offset the emissions of their much more profitable global warmers. Win-win for GM, massive challenge to Tesla; big challenge for BMW.

 

[johnnylingo]

If the least rate on a 2017 i3 is considerably less than that of a Bolt and the i3's range is sufficient, would that influence your decision?

I started shopping around for an i3 lease this week and for a well-equipt 2017 BEV it was gonna be around $500/month for zero down. The low discount off MSRP is part of it, but it really seems BMW is no longer padding the residuals as they had in the past.

The Volt was well under $300/month on zero down and I'd expect the Bolt to be in that ballpark too.

 

[alohart]

I started shopping around for an i3 lease this week and for a well-equipt 2017 BEV it was gonna be around $500/month for zero down. The low discount off MSRP is part of it, but it really seems BMW is no longer padding the residuals as they had in the past.

The 2017's have just become available in the U.S., so BMW probably feels that they don't need to stimulate leases/sales right now. But wait a few months, especially after the Bolt becomes available.

 

[johnnylingo]

In all honestly I thought your question was rhetorical. The dealers should be willing to do a 8-10% discount off MSRP by end of year, but that's still going to be roughly $100/month more than a Bolt unless there's a huge surprise in Chevy's pricing. There's a $7-12k difference between the vehicles and the bottom line is you're gonna pay more for an i3 no matter how you slice it.

Personally, I'm on a time crunch as California has dropped income limit for the State rebate starting Nov 1st. So it's either pull the trigger on an i3 in October or wait for the Bolt and discard the $2500. At this point I'm leaning towards the latter.

 

[alohart]

In all honestly I thought your question was rhetorical. The dealers should be willing to do a 8-10% discount off MSRP by end of year, but that's still going to be roughly $100/month more than a Bolt unless there's a huge surprise in Chevy's pricing. There's a $7-12k difference between the vehicles and the bottom line is you're gonna pay more for an i3 no matter how you slice it.

That hasn't been true in the past because BMW has set unrealistically high i3 residual values which lowered the monthly lease payments to those typical of much less expensive cars. That's not occurring now because 2017 i3's have just become available. Whether low lease rates will occur in the future remains to be seen, but don't rule out the possibility.

 

[redbarn]

I am of a certain age, where having been burned by the junk that GM sold as cars, I would NEVER, NEVER buy a GM product again.

GM quality control is always suspect, so I feel that anybody who has a first production year car will become friends with the local dealers Service Dept.
I suspect that many of the people who put deposits down on the new Tesla Model 3 would not be GM customers for similar reasons.

 

[i3an]

Redbarn: never say never.
After waiting in anticipation, when I first saw pictures of the i3 online my sense of aesthetics rebelled and I vowed that I would never be seen dead in such an ugly beast. Well, that was then......
For donkeys years now I have been saying Who on God's green Earth would ever buy a GM, they're all crap, I'll never buy one of them. Then, 15 years ago in desperation I bought a couple of Chevy vans .... and they were crap. But all those years GM was run by good old boys, but now it is run by a good old—scratch that—by a woman of a certain age, and maybe GM did have a deathbed conversion in bankruptcy. Yes, the EV1 was a public-relations disaster, and the Volt suffers from being too timid, but keep an open mind that this time they just might get it right with the Bolt.

 

[johnnylingo]

A friend of mine did consulting work for GM in 2007-2008 right before the crap hit the fan. When I asked him about his experience, his exact words were "the way those guys ran the company, they deserved to go bankrupt. I have absolutely no sympathy for them". Like you say, it was a "good ol' boys" club.

It's different now for multiple reasons - not just the bankruptcy, but also the emergency of Korea as a producer of high quality autos, gas prices that have fluctuated drastically over the last 10 years, and increased concern of climate change. I worry much more about Ford's future than I do GMs right now. The Volt, like the i3 had its share of technical issues, but doesn't have the major design flaws that the Focus Electric and Fusion do (the notorious "hump")

 

[justanotherdrunk]

My i3 lease is up next year. Obviously I need to drive the Bolt and make a property comparison of real cars, but for $10K less than a comparable equipped i3 (and the i3 still won't have CarPlay or decent phone integration), why would I lease another i3?

It seems like the Bolt will give us all the benefits we enjoy in the i3 (nimble, small, electric, good cargo volume, etc.) without the annoyance of the 80mi range and entirely inconvenient rear doors (impossible painful to use in a perpendicular parking space like a garage or mall). Paying even more for the larger battery i3 to get less than half the range of the Bolt is not compelling.

I'm asking this quite honestly. We love driving the i3 around town, basically in a 30mi radius of our home and it's the only car we want to drive when we go to San Francisco. But I'm struggling to see how the 2017 i3 will be a better choice than the 2017 Bolt.

BMW has a lot of promises about what's going to be delivered in 2020, but maybe they're lack of commitment 3yrs ago means they missed this cycle?

so much wrong here

money is not everything ... cheaper does not always mean better

i dont give a crap about phone integration/ im not a ridiculous cellphone zombie

i dont care about good cargo volume

inconvenient rear doors ... just wrong

chevy dealerships are garbage

range anxiety? wrong. like most americans i drive less than 40 miles/ day i dont care if it has 1000 mile range

they're (their?) lack of commitment 3yrs ago? just wrong


anyway enough rant

 

[jadnashuanh]

The way I look at it is this:

If you end up buying a very long-range EV to use maybe once or twice a year, you're wasting money nearly all year. While, for some people, Tesla's supercharger network MIGHT work out for a trip, if you wish to travel on those roads less traveled, you could be in for a major hurt. If you can find a level 2 unit, it's likely to be limited to about 30A and maybe less (in the USA, a lot of commercial power is 208vac, and 30A isn't as much power as 240vac at 30A - power=volts*amps), and if you, god-forbid, only have level 1 and your battery pack is depleted, you might be there for a couple of days while it recharges.

While the CCS network is growing, it's still got a long ways to go, and when you do find one, it often isn't multiple taps, so if someone is there when you get there, your wait is likely to be (maybe) much longer.

More batteries means more weight, and you can't cheat inertia...it takes more energy to get up to speed and up a hill. Depending on how efficient it and the rest of the car is, cruising can be quite efficient, but regen will never recover as much energy as it took to get up to speed...there is no such thing as a perpetual motion device (at least in this universe!)...you might come close.

For the occasional longer trip, I feel you're still better off renting a car that will let you just fill up the tank in maybe 5-minutes, and keep going maybe for another 3-500 miles (on a trip, my ICE can get over 500-miles in the summer).

You need to determine how you plan to use the car, and your worst case 'normal' situation, and pick a car that can handle it. Until fast dc charging stations are on every corner, I don't feel it is the right vehicle, at least, for me. My BEV is used probably 90% of the time, and I have to keep my ICE on a battery maintainer to ensure it will go when I need it, which isn't all that often. I'd like to whittle it down to one car, but, I'm pretty sure it will have to be somewhat larger than the i3, and have a range extender that would let me just keep filling up the tank when I'm on the road...using CCS units, if I happen to find one, and level 2 at home or where I expect to sit for awhile.

 

[bwilson4web]

. . . That hasn't been true in the past because BMW has set unrealistically high i3 residual values which lowered the monthly lease payments to those typical of much less expensive cars. . . .

The irony is the residual value of my BMW i3-REx, $29.9k, was between the $28.5k and $33k quote for a 2016 Prius Level 3 with TSS-P. The used BMW i3-REx had 6,440 miles and just under 3 years of manufacturer warranty remaining.

Realistically, I'm expecting used BMW i3-REx to soften as the market is changing. But I would point out that over the Labor Day holiday my wife and I drove 1,400 miles to visit my Mom and relatives in Oklahoma. It would have been impossible in an EV-only car over that weekend ... even for a Tesla or Leaf. Any of the plug-in hybrids could have made the same trip.

But once in Stillwater, the hotel gave me access to 15A, 120VAC circuit and I recharged at night. So around town, I was back to electricity ... in this case free from the hotel. But even when using the range extender, I had 168 hp in a rear-wheel drive, BMW handling car.

Bob Wilson

 

[redbarn]

The decison between buying a Chevy Bolt or a Tesla Model 3 is a case of the known vs. the unknown.
With Chevy, you are buying a car from a Born Again car company who has just discovered the 21st century and whose dealerships are Temples of Ineptitude.
With Tesla, you have a company who has cash flow issues and no history of producing volume cars.
A harrowing choice.

Personally, I will punt and lease a 2018 I3 Rex when our current lease ends.
In 3 years or so, things may be clearer (or maybe not...)

 

[jadnashuanh]

In three years, there should be lots more choices out there! At least one of them new from BMW (well, I hope the new, larger I-series car is out by then, or at least has been shown with a production date).

Again, if your needs do not exceed the available range on the current i3, and you like the car, I can see no reason to wait. Only you can decide if significantly more range would be needed. Otherwise, you're buying more battery, carrying around more weight than necessary. If you do need the range of a bigger battery, then be prepared to wait for it to recharge.

 

[Boatguy]

In response to @alohart, sure price would make a difference. If the i3 was $5,000 less than the Bolt, I'd consider another. In fact if BMW makes me the right offer I'll keep my 2014 as the range is sufficient for my local driving and current resale values, almost a year before my lease is up, are already very low (40% of original purchase).

My point is that the i3 is dead as anything other than a compliance car. While clearly there is still a lot unknown about the Bolt, there is enough to draw some comparisons.

Range: Advantage Bolt
Price: Advantage Bolt
Convenience (doors): Advantage Bolt
Infotainment: Advantage Bolt
Handling: Unknown
Fit and finish: Unknown
Brand status: Advantage BMW

I do not believe mainstream car buyers are going to pay $5,000 more to get less than half the range and a car with a backseat that is inconvenient to access.

Sure, there are plenty of reasons to not like Chevrolet, they've never been much of a quality brand and their ignition key decision was literally fatal to many owners. The last Chevy I owned was a gas guzzling Silverado fleet side short bed 4WD pickup in the 80's. But the i3 has had it's share of issues (charger, drive train, etc.) as well, though one would hope that since there haven't been any engineering advances they've probably sorted out the problems with the 2014 design and components. But I'll be comparing 3yr lease prices and both will be covered by warranty the entire time. My BMW dealer has never given me an i3 as a loaner and always requires the car overnight, even just to update the firmware, so BMW's service has not set the bar too high for Chevrolet.

I think for mainstream buyers it will come down to price, range and convenience; BMW loses on all three. Consider that the i3 is outsold in Germany by the Renault Zoe, which offers better range at a lower price with conventional rear doors. This year the Volt is outselling the i3 in the US by over 2:1.

Maybe BMW will be back for the next cycle in 2020, but in 2017 I believe that the i3's sales numbers are going to be flat or declining.

 

[I33t]

I think for mainstream buyers it will come down to price, range and convenience; BMW loses on all three.

I think you are 100% wrong

Mainstream buyers are not buying electric cars. At the current rate, there will still be insignificant EV sales in the mainstream in 2020. Fossil fuelled cars will still be the vast majority.

Vehicles sales in the US, 2015: 7,740,000
EV Sales in the US, 2015: 116,000 (around 1.5% of total sales, insignificant)
http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/199974/us-car-sales-since-1951/

Nissan, Tesla, BMW, Renault, Chevy, etc, etc, are just marking their patches for the future when electric cars actually do become mainstream. Make your choice and there is no need to attack one brand or type of electric car over another. They are all moving the market in the right direction.

What we need is an innovating and wide range of options to seed the EV market. BMW definitely has marked that place with the i3. Does it suit everyone? of course not. Those that want an EV today have choices, we are in a very lucky time. Would I buy an i3 again? Absolutely. Am I interested in buying the Bolt? Nope. Hope it does well though.