California SF/Bay Area - room for a bike?

[Wastedspacer]

Guidance/Suggestions, I drove the i3 first time over a year ago at 2014 CES and decided I should aim to get myself one.

With a recent corporate downsizing there was an opportunity to take early retirement. I currently drive a 2008 535xi Wagon but don't put a lot of miles on it (under 5000 a year). Mostly due to when I was working my normal commuter vehicle was a bicycle I find the wagon is great for people-carrying or for throwing the bike on the roof or in the back if I go farther afield but a bit excessive for mostly pottering around the SF bay area.

Since there are no roof-rack options for the i3, it looks as if I will be able to get the bike in the back with the seats down and the bike front-wheel off.

The next question is whether to Rex or not? For most of my maximum local travel is going to be in the 30-40 mile radius I should be ok for a standard non-Rex range, unless there are no available chargers at the destination. The Rex seems more like an extended trip insurance than anything but do other folks in the bay area with Rex find they are frequently reliant on it or are there really plenty of available charging stations ?

For longer road-trips, my wife is not planning on dropping her petrol car anytime soon plus we have an Avis car-rental office just a 20 minute walk away.

I had considered saving a little by going used but after calculating the difference with tax rebates there are no bargains out there! So I think I will be going for a new vehicle.

Thoughts, suggestions welcome?

 

[i3an]

Get the BEV, as new fast-chargers are being added around here all the time — the landscape will be quite different in a year or two. And hang onto the 535 for a while to see if it can earn its keep.

Alternately, get the REX, but make sure the wife drives it as much as possible; once she gets the hang of the fun of it and gets over her unwarranted range anxiety, she will come around and seductively suggest that just one i3 looks awfully lonely and wouldn't it be nice to have a younger sibling? But, she continues, only if you both dump your ICEs and she inherits the REX and you get a BEV. At which point you congratulate her on her wise proposal, and then go out and clean the grease spots off the driveway in expectation of your new baby.

 

[websterize]

Since there are no roof-rack options for the i3, it looks as if I will be able to get the bike in the back with the seats down and the bike front-wheel off.

Says who?

Sea Sucker Talon promo
http://youtu.be/fBK8pUPWu2A

 

[Wastedspacer]

Since there are no roof-rack options for the i3, it looks as if I will be able to get the bike in the back with the seats down and the bike front-wheel off.

Says who?

Sea Sucker Talon promo
http://youtu.be/fBK8pUPWu2A

LOL - I stand corrected - certainly an option to consider Other than the possible marring of the paint if the suction pads are not spotlessly clean that looks like a viable solution. Hopefully the extreme sucker vacuum won't cause dome shaped extrusions on the roof or shatter the windscreen if I don't notice a stone chip or scratch when I place the sucker.

 

[Wastedspacer]

Get the BEV, as new fast-chargers are being added around here all the time — the landscape will be quite different in a year or two. And hang onto the 535 for a while to see if it can earn its keep.

Alternately, get the REX, but make sure the wife drives it as much as possible; once she gets the hang of the fun of it and gets over her unwarranted range anxiety, she will come around and seductively suggest that just one i3 looks awfully lonely and wouldn't it be nice to have a younger sibling? But, she continues, only if you both dump your ICEs and she inherits the REX and you get a BEV. At which point you congratulate her on her wise proposal, and then go out and clean the grease spots off the driveway in expectation of your new baby.

Thanks for the suggestions. Yup, I think the BEV would probably be fine especially since I wouldn't really want to lose the reported 10% electric range penalty with the REX. Alas, the versatile but fast 535 would probably have to go since there are only 2 spots in our garage and we don't like leaving cars on the driveway.

Dropping us out of the traditional ICE space might take some time. Convincing my wife to go for an EV, will be a tough sell to a dedicated sports-car style petrol-head Her recent car history for the past 20 years is all sporty and as much the look/style as performance: an MR2 a couple of BMW Zs and eventually a Porsche Cayman S. The best EV/Hybrid bet (though even used models are way outside our budget) might have been a Tesla Roadster (if they still made it) or a BMW i8 if we win the lottery!

 

[WoodlandHills]

Let me be the contrarian and suggest the REx as a first EV. Having the REx will allow you to spontaneously use your i3 w/o having to sit down with a map and a range estimate to see if you can do all your shopping w/o charging along the way. With the REx you just get in and go. 99% of the time you are on battery only the whole time, out and back, but for the 1% you have the REx. Is your wife as enthusiastic as you about doing trip planning everytime you drive more than a few dozen miles? Would daily driving be lower stress if passing up the chance to sit around waiting while your car charges did not mean being stranded waiting for a tow? Once you have a few months under your belt you will have a better feel of your real EV usage patterns as well as the real-world range of your i3 (it may differ from the official numbers significantly) and it would be regrettable if you found having a pure BEV was limiting your freedom of movement.

 

[Wastedspacer]

Let me be the contrarian and suggest the REx as a first EV. Having the REx will allow you to spontaneously use your i3 w/o having to sit down with a map and a range estimate to see if you can do all your shopping w/o charging along the way. With the REx you just get in and go. 99% of the time you are on battery only the whole time, out and back, but for the 1% you have the REx. Is your wife as enthusiastic as you about doing trip planning everytime you drive more than a few dozen miles? Would daily driving be lower stress if passing up the chance to sit around waiting while your car charges did not mean being stranded waiting for a tow? Once you have a few months under your belt you will have a better feel of your real EV usage patterns as well as the real-world range of your i3 (it may differ from the official numbers significantly) and it would be regrettable if you found having a pure BEV was limiting your freedom of movement.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, totally onboard with the range-planning side, that's more my style than my wife's It certainly does seem to be a safer path to take for a first foray into this platform. Interestingly, there are a lot of new REX vehicles selling around the same as the BEV so price is removed as an issue.

Perhaps a further hedge would be to go for the 30 month lease rather than an outright purchase.

 

[websterize]

Perhaps a further hedge would be to go for the 30 month lease rather than an outright purchase.

And I think you'll get an additional $2,500(?) in incentive from California if you lease for this minimum term. Not so with 24 months.

 

[stumbledotcom]

Thanks for the thoughtful post, totally onboard with the range-planning side, that's more my style than my wife's It certainly does seem to be a safer path to take for a first foray into this platform. Interestingly, there are a lot of new REX vehicles selling around the same as the BEV so price is removed as an issue.

Perhaps a further hedge would be to go for the 30 month lease rather than an outright purchase.

I opted for the BEV because we're a two-car household also. I think it's an ideal combination. We typically drive less than 20 miles a day—all within the city. The kind of low speed, short distance driving that prematurely wears out an ICE. I don't bother with route planning, etc. or feel anxiety because I never come close to the range limit. When we need to make a longer drive or a meandering weekend day trip, we take the E90. I just couldn't see the point of carrying around the REX and its performance penalties when I already had a superior vehicle for high speed, long distance use. Also here in the Bay Area, 28 CCS DC charging stations have come online in the past few months effectively putting the entire region—from Healdsburg to Santa Cruz to Sacramento—within reach.

Regarding purchase vs. lease. Talk to your dealer about the Owner's Choice options. It's a finance contract so the DMV sees you as the owner and you get benefits such as the state rebate but you have the option of returning the vehicle at the end of the term as in a lease.

 

[jadnashuanh]

I bought the BEV for similar reasons...most of the things are within a few miles. I was trying to avoid another set of spark plugs, oil changes, oil filters, mufflers, etc., not counting the extra weight and reduced EV miles. Personally, I find the i3 fine for it's typical range, but I wouldn't want to drive it for hours on a longer trip, even if I could with the REx. Admittedly, not everyone has access to a second car and for a rare longer trip, it can be used that way.

My recumbent trike does fit in the back with the seats folded (the trike does fold - it's an ICE Adventure), and a good portion of my miles are to the rail trail that winds along a river through the woods, and is very pleasant and no traffic to deal with. I think that I put more miles on my trike this past year than I did on the i3 even though with the snow we've had, I haven't been able to ride since December.

 

[Wastedspacer]

Thanks again to everyone for the suggestions and encouragement, Today I pulled the trigger for a new Solar Orange BEV

I traded my trusty 2008 535Xi wagon in but used part of it to drop down the 36 month lease payments. I don't even need the home charger right away as I have several charging station options including 2 fast chargers just over a mile from the house. The bike fits nicely in the back, so drive to one of the 3hr chargers, pedal home then pedal back when I get the text message. Or take a book/get a coffee at the fast charger.

MSRP - $48,700, final Cap cost - $42,530 - it has a few upgrades
Cool looking Turbine Wheels
Heated Front Seats - $350.00
DC Fast Charging (SAE)
Harman/Kardon Premium Sound
Giga World - Satellite radio with 1-year subscription; Giga (Leather and cloth)
Plus Rear view camera; Park Distance Control; Parking Assistant; Park Assistant Package

Any recommendations for the home chargers (when I do get around to one) looking at some of the decently rated 30 amp models - Blink, Siemens or the Bosch? Planning on getting a properly licensed electrician in to install a circuit, 240V receptacle and rig the charger up.