What in the world were the BMW designers thinking?

[Tom]

Hatches: Every time I fill out the little Volvo survey when the C30 goes in for its free maint I give them the excellents they deserve until they get to 'would you buy another Volvo' and I reply 'hell no, you idiots stopped making the C30 and you don't offer any 40 series in the States you morons'.

And every time I take the C30 in for its free maint the service representative begs me to sell it to him because he can't find a used one and he works for Volvo.

[Matthew Strongin]

Hatches: Every time I fill out the little Volvo survey when the C30 goes in for its free maint I give them the excellents they deserve until they get to 'would you buy another Volvo' and I reply 'hell no, you idiots stopped making the C30 and you don't offer any 40 series in the States you morons'.

And every time I take the C30 in for its free maint the service representative begs me to sell it to him because he can't find a used one and he works for Volvo.

I test drove one years ago and loved it. I ended up going with something else, a decision based entirely on the horrible experience with the sales person. I was an idiot. I should have gotten the C30.

[christian]

I saw a purple blue i8 in Greenwich a few weeks ago. It looked like a visitor from the future. That's pretty successful car design.

[jitahs]

The materials are super nice, with professiorial sweater elbow patches on the front doors. Note the cut out for head room. You not only feel safe in here, you feel bulletproof. Here I'm being followed by an i8 and a haircut.

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Some of the switch gear and covers feel cheap, but I don't care about that. The swoopy wood thing in the dash is cool. Good room in the back seat due to the very thin front seat shells. They're not flexy though. Comfy. The A-pillars are pretty massive, turns out.

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[nahtnoj]

They have to look somewhat ridiculous. Otherwise, how would anyone know you are driving an electric car?

[thomas]

The range on this i3 is seriously miserly. Something like 90 miles on a charge. Need a $4000 add-on gas engine to increase the range to about 150 miles. That just doesn't do it for me. My wife's parents live in Boston area, about 120 miles from here. Spending $40K on a car that can't even make that trip? Don't think so.

[Mr B]

The range on this i3 is seriously miserly. Something like 90 miles on a charge. Need a $4000 add-on gas engine to increase the range to about 150 miles. That just doesn't do it for me. My wife's parents live in Boston area, about 120 miles from here. Spending $40K on a car that can't even make that trip? Don't think so.

Tbh I'm astonished anybody bought one without the ICE option. We're not quite 'there' yet, are we?

[jitahs]

As I said in the other thread, 'we' doesn't have any meaning. If it's right for you buy it.

[Scott G.]

Take the I3, drop the twinpower turbo from the 2 series in sideways behind
the front seat, all problems solved. A modernized Renault R5 turbo as it were.

Cogito ergo zoom zoom

[jitahs]

The range on this i3 is seriously miserly. Something like 90 miles on a charge. Need a $4000 add-on gas engine to increase the range to about 150 miles. That just doesn't do it for me. My wife's parents live in Boston area, about 120 miles from here. Spending $40K on a car that can't even make that trip? Don't think so.

This is a tale of supply, demand and the compliance vehicle. Don't you just love the socio-economic factors that make us bitter on the internet?

The i3 is a CARB BEVx vehicle - that means it's built for us Californians to qualify for the aforementioned, worth it's weight in gold (time) green sticker. Why wasn't it built for the rest of youse? Because you didn't ask for it! Complaining on the internet doesn't count.

You want an alternative with range? Chevy Volt. The thing functions very well as a bridge between ICEs and pure EVs. You want a short hop pure EV? 500e, Leaf, etc. You want something in between? i3. You want something for long distances? You're driving it. You have a household member who has a car? That person has it.

BMW could easily have dropped a larger gasoline tank into the thing if there were demand but why should they? They'll make far more profit mining the legacy of the e30 than trying to convince anyone to switch while watching the slow, inexorable change in public opinion that could easily be turned by incentivizing through lobbying but hey, you gotta know people. I know a guy but probably not in your state.

A 10 gallon tank would give it ~300 miles. All you got to do is ask for it, talk to your dealer, BMW NA. If you don't care about CO2 emissions, greenhouse gasses I don't know why you're complaining about this thing.

Since I'm still on the soapbox...I found out recently 1 gallon of petrol burned through an ICE sedan produces...get this...18lbs. of CO2 at the tail pipe. That means your 15 gallon tank of gas produces 270lbs. of CO2, or roughly one Rivendell rider. Do the right thing, think about it. Riv riders need all the O2 they can get.*

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

*RELAX. The Warriors played like shiite and I'm grumpy plus I had to tell the sales guy all this stuff.

[Mabouya]

I found out recently 1 gallon of petrol burned through an ICE sedan produces...get this...18lbs. of CO2 at the tail pipe.

I didn't believe this, so I Googled it and found the text below on a US Govt web site. (It's been a long time since my college Chemistry class.

It seems impossible that a gallon of gasoline, which weighs about 6.3 pounds, could produce 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) when burned. However, most of the weight of the CO2 doesn't come from the gasoline itself, but the oxygen in the air.

When gasoline burns, the carbon and hydrogen separate. The hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water (H2O), and carbon combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide (CO2).

A carbon atom has a weight of 12, and each oxygen atom has a weight of 16, giving each single molecule of CO2 an atomic weight of 44 (12 from carbon and 32 from oxygen).

Therefore, to calculate the amount of CO2 produced from a gallon of gasoline, the weight of the carbon in the gasoline is multiplied by 44/12 or 3.7.

Since gasoline is about 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen by weight, the carbon in a gallon of gasoline weighs 5.5 pounds (6.3 lbs. x .87).

We can then multiply the weight of the carbon (5.5 pounds) by 3.7, which equals 20 pounds of CO2!

[davids]

I've seen one I3, sitting in the parking lot of a chocolatier on the Vineyard. Given its paltry range I have no idea how it got there... OK, actually I do: It had the optional gas engine. It's an elegant ground-up design for a transportation pod, and it looked like a comfortable place to spend some time. The owner, an older guy from Jersey, loved it. I didn't quiz him on the practicalities of getting from NJ to MV, because he was being so good natured about being the center of attention.

We got back into our friends' diesel-powered wagon and motored off: back & forth from Boston, with plenty of sojourns on the island, without worrying about being stranded in Aquinna.

[Brandon White]

I drooled all over an i8 yesterday.

[jitahs]

I'm surprised so many people like the i8 but it is a great paring wit the i3 - this is called "haloing", david. Didn't do your homework, as expected. How is it you can have such strong opinions about EVs yet not know the first thing about them. Mind boggling.

Personally I don't worry about what people think of me when I drive my mx-5 or any other car and have never subscribed to the You Are What You Drive Theory of Social Status. Too busy enjoying the ride. Actually a cute girl smiled at me on the test drive but I think that was because I stopped to let her cross the street. She's probably one of those crazy millenials who don't care about cars. Otherwise I felt:

a) not self conscious
b) not smug, though apparently that feeling can be shared with petrol-powered drivers
c) bored. it's too quiet with not enough pedals.

I suppose there are a lot of dentist/Serotta types who purchase i3s to get attention, but that's life. I certainly wouldn't let the existence of a productive member of society who fights the scourge of plaque on a daily basis influence my purchases or react to it negatively, particularly if his car can blow mine out of the water. That's just me.

So the i3, compared to what most people drive right now, is faster, quieter, and very highly likely safer. That is, it's a better car. I won't mention that 3 counties in CA have banned fracking last week (good on them), which was proven to have toxic byproducts leak into our aquifers, nor the inability of our Earth's ecosystem to rid itself of excess CO2 in the atmosphere (it takes thousands of years to eradicate x ppm), nor the attendant acidification of the oceans caused by it, which has ramifications of species diversification or, to think of it selfishly, your food. Oops. None of that matters, of course, because oil is at $77/bbl today and we can buy San Pellegrino to bathe in. Do enjoy your vacation though, that's the most important thing.

I have a long term i3 test drive booked; I intend to drive it along California's beautiful back roads delivering water to counties that weren't wise enough to ban fracking.* Win/win!

*The first part of that is true. Hey it's a cool car. I'll wear a RedBull snapback and Raybans, blow minds.

[nahtnoj]

Why do you assume that everyone who disagrees with your assessment of EVs does so from a position of ignorance?

How many utility distribution planners do you know?

[MisterDangerPants]

I actually like the i3. A lot. My wife (and I) would really like to get an EV as her commute is just 12 miles to East Boston (and I telecommute for the most part). Too bad it's not available in Massachusetts.

[spopepro]

Why do you assume that everyone who disagrees with your assessment of EVs does so from a position of ignorance?

They have to look somewhat ridiculous. Otherwise, how would anyone know you are driving an electric car?

Probably because the somewhat xenophobic crusade against EVs has been long standing and vitriolic. It creates fundamentalists on both sides and escalates the argument. And sometimes people feel the need for strong, caustic statements because of that escalation.

But the reality is, something has to be done, and we have a very short time period to do it. Overwhelming scientific consensus says so. We don't have time to plan everything until it's *perfect* and roll it all out at once. Something has to come first, incremental change has to happen, a few people need to take some risks and this is an important part of it. And not just the ICE issue--the whole construction of the thing is of significant value in a production vehicle.

[nahtnoj]

Probably because the somewhat xenophobic crusade against EVs has been long standing and vitriolic. It creates fundamentalists on both sides and escalates the argument. And sometimes people feel the need for strong, caustic statements because of that escalation.

But the reality is, something has to be done, and we have a very short time period to do it. Overwhelming scientific consensus says so. We don't have time to plan everything until it's *perfect* and roll it all out at once. Something has to come first, incremental change has to happen, a few people need to take some risks and this is an important part of it. And not just the ICE issue--the whole construction of the thing is of significant value in a production vehicle.

The second quote - there is a reason we are talking about the BMW and not the Mercedes or Honda Fit or (fill in the blank) EV. BMW was smart. If you are going to make the investment in a ground-up EV platform, make it stand out, that is all I was saying.

The first - I'm one of the people doing something about it. In a sentence, I work for a company that is building the power electronics that will enable the proliferation of DERs - PV and storage - mainly, in such a way that doesn't completely cripple our electrical infrastructure. I have a comprehensive understanding of the problem. I see the sausage being made, from both the utility and industry side. And I'm deeply skeptical that we have the wherewithal to get our interests aligned in such a way that allows us to have the future we want to have. EV is going to face larger issues than PV, at lower concentrations. Maybe, *maybe* the utility desire for load growth will be the saving grace. I anticipate that it will come with so many caveats that the general public will be unwilling to cede the control needed to make it work - think the net neutrality debate, but for driving. Not to mention the infrastructure ownership model getting turned on its head.

Good, bad, indifferent - the cars really don't matter. I get really tired of being told I need to do my research because I don't know enough about the cars. I know so much about everything else to know that the cars are the least of it.

[spopepro]

... And I'm deeply skeptical that we have the wherewithal to get our interests aligned in such a way that allows us to have the future we want to have.

I think we are all on the same page then, but not everyone is a skeptic. And I'm glad you're working on the issue--our power infrastructure is a massive mess. We need lots of good minds there whether the public gets on board or is dragged kicking and screaming.

[jitahs]

Why do you assume that everyone who disagrees with your assessment of EVs does so from a position of ignorance?

How many utility distribution planners do you know?

I didn't say "everyone", you did. I'm providing pure facts, mixed with my opinion. Feel free to ignore or disagree with my assessment of the former. I invite smart dialogue.


How many energy distribution planners do I know? Hundreds, actually! I help crowd fund solar installations for private businesses and individuals. Our local UTE, PG&E, is moribund and rife with corruption, allowing aged pipelines to detonate, causing a crater in San Bruno, blowing up 4-5 houses and killing people. I rode by there after it happened. Total destruction.

Our locals aren't dumb - we want no part of grid-dependency that reeks of graft. We are talking oil up front to partially power the grid, oil at the pump.