How many have been sold?

[Tesla]

Got a mail from BMW Thursday. So far 43 have been sold in the Netherlands. 43 EV's. The range extender will not be available this year. 300 have been reserved for the Netherlands to be delivered this year. So only 15% of the capacity has been sold... The Netherlands have a good tax compensation for EV's, especially when you are an entrepreneur. FYI: 1100 Tesla Model S have been sold this year.

 

[gaz26]

Not bad really as a lot of people will want a test drive before ordering.

 

[Parker]

Does anybody else think BMW are really dragging out the launch of the i3.
First we have the World Launch end of July, then country launches a few days later ..... then not much .... then Frankfurt ...... but still no one outside of BMW has actually driven the car on a normal road, no one has been in a car when the range extender kicks in or taken it up a hill etc. No one knows what a real world range is yet with or without the Rex.
So far all the info has been BMW’s say so.
The i3 configurator doesn’t work properly yet – ie you can’t actually configure a car with options.
There's a lot of risk with a car like this from a purchasers point of view and in reality BMW are not helping at all.
By contrast the new Range Rover Sport configurator was fully functional including prices by the time Daniel Craig got out of the car launch night.
I really thought when we'd seen all the variants at Frankfurt all the buyer information would be fully released (ie the configurator would work) and we would get some real world road test drives released ... we’re now we’re being told those won’t happen until October .... with customer drives in November.

I’m sorry but with a car like the i3 you are not going to get mass orders being placed without proper customer drives and real world (independent) range data IMO.

 

[TomMoloughney]

Does anybody else think BMW are really dragging out the launch of the i3.
First we have the World Launch end of July, then country launches a few days later ..... then not much .... then Frankfurt ...... but still no one outside of BMW has actually driven the car on a normal road, no one has been in a car when the range extender kicks in or taken it up a hill etc. No one knows what a real world range is yet with or without the Rex.
So far all the info has been BMW’s say so.
The i3 configurator doesn’t work properly yet – ie you can’t actually configure a car with options.
There's a lot of risk with a car like this from a purchasers point of view and in reality BMW are not helping at all.
By contrast the new Range Rover Sport configurator was fully functional including prices by the time Daniel Craig got out of the car launch night.
I really thought when we'd seen all the variants at Frankfurt all the buyer information would be fully released (ie the configurator would work) and we would get some real world road test drives released ... we’re now we’re being told those won’t happen until October .... with customer drives in November.

I’m sorry but with a car like the i3 you are not going to get mass orders being placed without proper customer drives and real world (independent) range data IMO.

I suppose they could have waited a while longer to reveal the car so there wasn't such a lag between the premier and the real launch which won't happen for two more months. I can't speak about the configurer but I assume that should be working if they are allowing you to actually order the car now, are they? We can't order it here in the states yet. There are no test drives allowed because they don't have any production cars made yet. What we see now are pre-production and nobody is allowed to drive them other than BMW employees. They can set up special press events that are off public roads which is what they have done so far but the production cars won't begin to be available till late October from what I've heard.

 

[Tesla]

I’m sorry but with a car like the i3 you are not going to get mass orders being placed without proper customer drives and real world (independent) range data IMO.

They had over 1200 production numbers given out to people. Of course they were not legally binding you to anything, but still I would have thought a higher number, especially given the huge tax discounts here. As an entrepreneur you're net price for the car could be 60% lower. My wife's going to drive it, she owns a tax advisory company, an with her fully specced i3 of around 50k euro, her company will end up paying about 25k. On top of that, as an individual driving a company car, you get taxed for extra income. The car given to you by the company you work for is seen as income. For most gasoline cars this is 25% of the value of the car, every year. For EV's this is currently 0%, but that will change next year when it becomes 7 or 8% for this reason more than 12000 Outlanders PHEV were sold this year (only 7000 will make it), 1100 Volvo PHEVs, 1100 Tesla's, 1500 Ampera/Volts, and 400 others (Leafs, Zoe's, even 33 Fiskers!!!). These figures are up until August, so more to come, like 43 i3's in September.

Take into account that no-one has even driven an Outlander PHEV before ordering, Tesla Model S a few. It is for these reasons that I had expected more sales of the i3 I the Netherlands, and so had BMW.

 

[Stevei3]

Hi,

my guess is as good as anybody's, but I suppose the unavailability of the REx in 2013 is putting lots of dutch buyers off. My estimate: 80% of them.
This is because a well equipped i3 + REx delivered after 31-12-2013 will cost, combined for the first five years, 6500 to 9000 euros extra (as opposed to 0 euros) in taxes for corporate buyers/lessees.
FYI: in NL, private use of corporate cars is quite heavily taxed. The amount depends on the CO2 emissions of the car and your personal income.

Steven

PS: I have to add that the dutch BMW i agents started inviting people with production numbers to order just this week.

 

[Parker]

Take into account that no-one has even driven an Outlander PHEV before ordering, Tesla Model S a few. It is for these reasons that I had expected more sales of the i3 I the Netherlands, and so had BMW.

I would have thought that with the countrywide Rapid charging stations being installed the Rex was less of an issue so I would have expected more people to have taken a punt on the pure EV if those sort of tax savings were involved.

Mind you range does seem to be an issue in the Netherlands (as it is elsewhere) Tesla S = 1100 units ......... Zoe & Leaf combined = 400 units .......that tells you something.

 

[Stevei3]

Hi Parker,

yep. What we have here in NL, is that you have to add a percentage of the catalogue-price of your company car to your income. The tax office sees the benefit you have from your company car as income.
If you don't mind at all, and buy or lease an S-class (say an S 350 bluetec) of +/- 95.000 euros, you have to add 25% of this amount to your income over which you have to pay taxes. Income tax varies from 37% to 52% here, but you will be in the 52% category if you can afford an S class Mercedes
This means that you have to pay income tax over 95.000 x 0.25 = 23.750 euros. This means paying 23.750 x 0.52 = 12.350 to the IRS, every year, as long as you are making more than 500 km private use of the company car per year.

On the other hand, if you buy or lease a Tesla, also costing 95.000 in reasonable spec (nothing wild, just the base 85kWh version with supercharger, satnav etc) you can avoid paying this amount, for taxation of EVs (and REx or hybrid <50 gr CO2/km) is set to 0% up till 31-12-2013. After this, EV's will be taxed at 7% of their cataloge-price. Meaning, for the prospective Tesla owner, paying taxes over 6.650 euros, meaning 3.458 every year. This is money out of (private) pocket totalling 17.290 in five years of ownership/lesseeship. You'll understand that most people do not want to pay this...

Steven

PS: there is also a tax break granted buying an EV, but this seems not to be altered after 31-12-2013 (for now... dutch governement is sort of acting randomly lately)

And another PS: if you earn more, you have to pay more taxes (who whould have guessed), so you have more to gain by buying an EV before 31-12-2013, hence the success of the more expensive EVs/hybrids in NL.

 

[Parker]

Thanks for that explanation Steven,

I could never get my head round why new car sales were relatively low in the Netherlands as the list price of cars don't look that much higher than the rest of the EU. Now I see its the on-costs ... linked to list price that are the killer.

I can see ordering a Tesla S in the Netherlands could be cheaper in the long run than say an E Class or a well specced C Class!

I can't speak about the configurer but I assume that should be working if they are allowing you to actually order the car now, are they?

Yes, and we are being told if you want the free Pro Nav upgrade we better be quick about it.

It's interesting that BMW said they were going to announce how many firm orders they had at Frankfurt but I've not seen or heard anything ... maybe because of the Netherlands tax situation they were hoping to announce some big numbers..... but the i3 is NOT like the launch of the 4 Series where its just business as usual .... it is a totally alien concept to most customers.
I think it also goes to show that even with fairly hefty tax incentives in place the pure EV i3 is a hard sell ..... even in a country with potentially the most extensive rapid CCS network in the world.

I do think the i3 will be successful once people have had a chance to experience it.

 

[Tesla]

A Danish newspaper claimes that over 700 have been sold in Denmark already..... Sounds hard to believe.
http://insideevs.com/danes-love-the-i3-over-700-ordered-already/

 

[Sonus]

Some 700 BMW I3s are rumoured to have been sold in Norway as well.

I am slightly worried that they have confused the build slot reservation to actuall orders.

However BEV sales in Norway are at an all time high with the TESLA model S being the most "sold" car of all in September 2014 in Norway with a market share of 6,1% of all newly registered cars between 1st and 9th of September! A total of 161 Teslas have been released onto our roads in this time frame.