My intro message. BMW i3S is brilliant, but needs big range Solid State battery

[alohart]

Also: there are examples of the 60ah battery having been upgraded to the 94ah one for the first generation ones. Weight didn’t increase significantly.

Correct! The 120 Ah battery pack is only 40 kg. heavier than the 60 Ah battery pack.

Software and coding were the biggest challenges and I don’t know whether that can ever be reverse engineered; I certainly don’t expect BMW to ever open source it. Even with what sounds like a simple upgrade from 60 to 94ah there were complications with getting the car to “understand and accept” the larger module.

Several European and Chinese mechanics seem to have figured out how to upgrade i3 battery packs without problems, apparently even including higher capacity battery cells that were never installed in i3's by BMW. Whether U.S. i3 owners will ever benefit from these upgrades remains uncertain.

 

[weajd]

And just another thought... why are towbars not a BMW i3 option, at least in Australia? Pretty obvious to me... So perhaps a third party 'option'? Give me strength.

Not sure it is a good idea to tow any electric vehicle. When they are towed all four wheels up and not just the front two. The rear wheels in the i3 are directly connected to the electric motor as I recall. No tranny. If you really meant a trailer hitch, there is one aftermarket one but the load must be small (e.g., bike rack). You cannot get much support because it is not a good idea to drill holes into a carbon fiber frame.

 

[weajd]

Correct! The 120 Ah battery pack is only 40 kg. heavier than the 60 Ah battery pack.

Several European and Chinese mechanics seem to have figured out how to upgrade i3 battery packs without problems, apparently even including higher capacity battery cells that were never installed in i3's by BMW. Whether U.S. i3 owners will ever benefit from these upgrades remains uncertain.

Yes. There were samsung battery cells in the i3 as I recall. If you get someone to upgrade the samsung battery cells to solid state, they would have more universal usage and possibly lower costs. But getting the software upgraded to support the updated cells would be a problem with BMW. BMW is not looking back. They want to sell new cars. Maybe if right to repair takes off, there may be some accommodation some day.

 

[rdimonda]

It seems most posts on this forum are USA owners of REX models.
A quick question:
are there many owners of (2019 to 2021 version) i3S 120 AH ?
are there any Europeans on this forum who wish for 960 Km range ?
are there any EU specific forums ?
Thanks

I think that you can determine via BMW how many i3's were sold in the US. I would imagine that it was half of the total of 50,000 cars. Many of these cars, like my wife's, is a REX. This car was originally envisioned as a metro vehicle. My wife loves it and at some point, probably when the battery range gets down to about 35 miles, I will want to get the battery replace. We have a 2015 and it is still at around 60 miles of electric range but likely to deteriorate more quickly. I can tell you that most i3 owners love their cars and would be happy to spend upwards of 6k to replace the batteries. Someone could readily open up one location in the US and they would be very busy.

BMW has made a big mistake not continuing this model. It is an extremely practical car, a mini SUV with an iconic design that could rival the VW bug if they had kept it alive. All they had to do was lengthen it a few inches and they could have put more batteries in it. They built a whole plant to make this car. I can't understand their thinking, especially when most everyone in the US wants an SUV, not a 428 sedan, which is where they put their money.

We need a users group in the US who would like to keep the car alive and someone to offer repairs and battery replacement (not necessarily an upgrade) at a reasonable price.

 

[mojo]

BMW has made a big mistake not continuing this model.

Of course, nobody outside BMW knows in detail the profitability of the i3 to the company, but there seems to be plenty of evidence that it simply wasn't profitable for them.

You have to bear in mind that the car (and the expensive construction technique used) was conceived around 15 years ago, before it was apparent just how much of a force Chinese EV manufacturing was going to become. That is now obvious, and is almost certainly why they decided to focus on more conventional manufacturing methods.

when most everyone in the US wants an SUV

That in itself is a problem for BMW. The one thing that the EV market is not short of is SUVs - there is nothing distinctive about an SUV for them, and SUV style cars are heading down-market. That's not where BMW can afford to be, because the Chinese will obliterate them if they try to hold onto the cheaper/smaller end of the market.

Much as I like the i3, in terms of a straight financial business case, I suspect that BMW had no choice.