I love these flowery obituaries as the i3 seemed to be more often kicked by auto journalists and EV enthusiasts for every imaginable reason.
But one thing in the Wired article -- which seems well researched -- jumps out at me: "It has sold in excess of 250,000 units—
not as many as its maker hoped"
I find that an odd comment when in the next paragraph from Frank Weber: "Every year we were producing more i3s. Every year it was becoming more and more attractive."
However in April 2014,
Bloomberg wrote "BMW has increased production of the i3 electric city car
(from 70 per day) 43 percent to meet demand that has exceeded the carmaker’s initial expectations. The current production rate translates to about 20,000 vehicles for the full year, almost
twice as much as BMW’s initial sales forecast."
And let's not forget the rescinded call in 2019 (3 years premature), as written up
here by Forbes: "BMW will start focusing more on electrifying its mainstream models—a strategy that we have started seeing in their new Mini Electric"
This was after the more mainstream i5 CUV
was canceled and X3 was
sent back to the drawing board in 2017.
This is capped with the
not-easily-scalable manufacturing and assembly process for this car: "The full capacity of the advanced assembly plant in Leipzig, Germany is about 30,000 units annually. The rest of this year will see the plant running at close to full capacity, and 2015 will be the first year to see the maximum number of 30,000 i3s built and sold. This news comes on the heels of the February announcement that partner SGL would double carbon fiber production to support demand for the carbon fiber-intensive i3 and the upcoming i8 as well as BMW’s legacy vehicles that will see increased use of the material.
Early demand outstripped the company’s expectations"
As it turned out, they exceeded their original production estimates by 50%,
but at a significant cost: "BMW only expanded i3 production, which started in 2013, in 2018 and
increased the capacity from 130 to 200 units per day – or 50,000 per year."
Summing this all up, my take is the i3 outlived and outperformed its original life expectancy. It was done because of its inability to scale economically, and its "poor" performance compared to better handling, longer range EVs for the same cost. None of that detracts from its unique construction, cool vibe, compact size, and driving enjoyment. It's destined to remain a classic as long as owners can affordably keep them on the road.
I definitely think it
lasted longer and
sold more units than BMW originally imagined.