The BMW i3 has been on sale since 2014, and in that time, BMW has seen fit to expand its battery size and, by proxy, its range. For the 2019 model year, it's getting yet another battery upgrade, and it's a big one.
The 2019 BMW i3 will come with a 42.2-kWh battery (120 amp-hours), which should permit for up to 153 miles of all-electric driving. This is a roughly 30 percent improvement over the previous 94-Ah battery, which allowed for 115 miles of range. The i3's first battery was just 60 Ah, offering a range of just 81 miles. Oh, how far we've come.
BMW will offer the battery in both variants of the i3. The standard i3 uses a 170-horsepower electric motor, powerful enough to get the little EV to 60 mph in just 7.2 seconds. The i3s, on the other hand, is the sportier trim, offering a 181-hp electric motor and a 6.8-second sprint to 60.
Will EVs (electric vehicles) like this succeed in replacing ICEs (internal combustion engines) as commuter cars?
(Score: 4, Informative) by MrGuy on Friday September 28 2018, @05:30PM
Meh. The electrical grid gets added to all the time. I've seen the inner workings of a major grid operator's planning process - it's fairly extensive, data driven, and has a long time horizon.
Yes, things like new lines, substations, and plants take time to spin up. But the shift to electric vehicles is also not likely to be an overnight thing. I'd be very willing to believe a shift to majority-EV vs. ICE usage over a 10 year period (which seems pretty aggressive to me as a ramp-up timeline for the technology) could be easily accommodated, planned for, and executed by existing grid planning processes.