Here in the UK the electric infrastructure is terrible, so please look at this as me answering the question, 'why did you buy your i3 Rex?' We would not have bought a BEV. The i3 is our second vehicle and is being used by my wife to commute to her place of work and for us to use on a daily basis around the immediate area. (Our main vehicle is a diesel AWD.) The Rex gives us an emergency option. In our opinion a BEV would not because the charging facilities are that hit and miss. We believe it will be cheaper to use an i3 than to use a conventionally powered petrol engined car. Saving the planet didn't factor in our thoughts.
We chose the i3 Rex to remove/reduce suffering with 'Range anxiety'. We looked at a Nissan Leaf, but that appeared to be a car which had just had its guts replaced. To us, the i3 looks to have been designed from scratch to be an electric car, rather than a car with an electric motor stuck in it as an after-thought. Why didn't we choose a Prius or similar hybrid? Because in our opinion they are 'botched jobs' and still rely on a petrol engine, without it they are practically useless.
The i3 won't rust. There are not many on the roads. We think it is ahead of it's time and will be more future proof than others in the price bracket we paid. The i3 looks to be of a better interior quality and finish than the others. The cabin is carbon fibre, it is very strong and we believe it will be very safe.
The car we bought was a reasonable price, the depreciation hit had been taken by the company. We would not have bought one at new price, they are too expensive. The car we bought had a good specification, making us feel very special as we use it.
On closing, my wife has always seen cars as 'its just a car', the i3, she loves, she smiled the first time she sat in it, she loves driving it and enjoys the challenge of doing a journey and not touching the brake pedal. Until owning the i3, my wife has never enthused about buying a car because there is even somewhere for her to put her handbag!