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When we [Ars Technica] reviewed the BMW i3 back in 2014, the little rear-wheel drive city car left us quite impressed. However, the i3 has always had a couple of flaws in comparison with other electric vehicles out there; it costs too much and the range isn't very good, even if you go for the optional two-cylinder range-extending engine. It appears BMW has decided to address the latter issue, because from this summer the i3 will now come with a 33kWh battery in place of the current 22kWh unit.
[...] The new battery is 50 percent bigger, so more than 100 miles (160km) should be possible on a full charge. The gas tank for the range extender engine will also grow by 25 percent; expect to stop for gas every 75 miles if you try road-tripping. These range tweaks should help boost the i3's appeal, but before long the Bolt and Model 3 are going to make people expect 200+ miles from their EV as a bare minimum.
Happily for existing (and even potential) i3 owners, BMW says that current i3s can have the new battery retrofitted as part of a special program, although no one is saying anything about how much that might cost yet. Again, this kind of thinking is a promising sign for an industry that's never really considered upgrades as important. Tesla has excelled at pushing out new functionality to owners across the world on a regular basis, with both software upgrades and hardware retrofits, offering a better battery pack for Roadster owners in the past and underbody "armor" for the Model S fleet.
Tesla has shaken up the car industry with its award-winning electric vehicles (EVs) and supercharger network. Nearly every major brand now offers EVs or is seriously planning to offer them. A couple like Nissan and BMW have begun to build out their own charging networks. But this article highlights another way in which Tesla has re-invented the car: it gets better after you've bought it, through over-the-air software updates and battery retrofits that dramatically improve your EV's range. Will this upgradeability prove to be the "killer app" of the EV?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 03 2016, @12:46PM
My brother bought an i3 second-hand and got it for something like $8-10K. He also owns an SUV but hasn't driven it in the two years since he bought the i3. He lives in Michigan, with all its distances and cold, and commutes from Ypsilanti to Dearborn. He does have the range extender that kicks in for an extra 50 miles on gas, but he said he's only burned 1 gallon of gas doing that in the last 8 months.
In other words, the existing i3 battery can already cover the driving needs of many people; a battery upgrade will cover many more.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @07:15PM
> My brother bought an i3 second-hand and got it for something like $8-10K.
That seems unlikely. Even if the car was registered in a state with extra-generous tax rebates for electrics, total rebates would have only knocked ~$12K off the cost to the first owner. Which means ~$25K off the lot for the lowest spec model. Another ~$15K in depreciation in just a couple of years is pretty steep, even for an electric.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 03 2016, @09:39PM
> That seems unlikely.
I would have agreed with your statement last year, then I started looking at prices of several-year-old Leaf and iMiEV electric cars and they also depreciate a great deal. I don't know what causes this...but can think of two possible reasons:
+ No buyers for a used status symbol -- people that buy these cars for the green image have the money to buy new cars.
+ Very few small cars are selling in any category in the USA. Low gas prices mean trucks, SUVs and large cars are selling in record numbers.