2014 BMW i3: What's It Like to Live With?
Read the latest updates in our long-term road test of the 2014 BMW i3 as our editors live with this car for a year.
People hate parallel parking. So you would think that self-parking systems would be very popular. But since their introduction nearly seven years ago, they have remained below the radar. In fact, if you mention to a non-car person, that the car can park itself, they look stunned and say, "What? You mean the car literally parks itself?" Yes, literally. In fact, it even looks for a space big enough to fit into.
So, when our new long-term 2014 BMW i3 came with the $1,000 parking assist program I decided to try it out.
First of all, it's not very intuitive. I had to use another feature, an onboard user's manual with tutorial videos, to find out how to activate it. Then, it took several tries before I hit the buttons in the right sequence to use it. But once in action, it was spectacular. It turned into the empty spot perfectly and used the park distance feature to center the car perfectly.
While on a crowded street in Ojai, on my three-day road trip, I needed to parallel park, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to put it into action for real. However, I must have pushed the controls in the wrong sequence because the system kept disabling. Finally, with traffic piling up behind me, I did it the old fashioned way, following the rules my driver's ed teacher gave me in high school.
If the i3 was my daily driver, and I was in a congested urban area, this would be one of the first features I would learn to use. But it seems like it takes practice and experimentation to really feel comfortable with this system.
EK900, a frequent commenter on the long-term blog, said he wanted to know more about what it was like to buy the 2014 BMW i3. I had a busy December and I didn't get a chance to write a buying blog, so without further ado, here's the exciting backstory.
There was no shortage of i3s in the dealer inventory. I saw as many as 25 cars in a couple of locations. Now, some those didn't have the range extender (or "Rex" as it referred to on dealer sites) but still, I had a good selection of cars to choose from. Prices ranged from a lightly optioned "Mega World" car in the high $40,000s to the mid $50,000s for a loaded "Tera World" model.
We set out first to buy the mid-trim Giga World (yes, these trim level names are terrible). It seemed like the way to go, since it included everything in the Tera World, except for the leather interior. Problem was, Giga World had a light gray interior, which was a deal breaker for us. Lighter interiors haven't aged well with us, what with so many people getting in and out of a car over the course of a year's testing. So we decided on a loaded Tera World. It would be nice if it had come with the sport 20-inch wheels, but it wasn't crucial to get them.
I called a few local dealerships to get purchase-price quotes. One dealership sent me a lease quote, even though I had specifically asked for a purchase price — must've caught the guy off guard. Most people do lease these cars and I'd advise anyone else to do the same (EVs are notorious for bad resale value). But for various reasons, we buy our cars, so I had to proceed in my usual fashion.
MSRP on the i3 we wanted was $54,800. Most quotes from dealers were at the invoice price, which was $50,970 in the case of our i3. A few dealers didn't want to go any lower than that. We had a $50,000 budget and told the folks at New Century BMW that if they could get their price under $50K, we'd have a deal. They sent a revised price quote of $49,999 — fair enough. They delivered the car to us a couple of days later.
BMW announced plans to run a 60-second ad spot during Super Bowl XLIX featuring the all-new 2014 BMW i3.
The game airs February 1 at 6:30 PM ET/3:30 PM PT. The electric car will be seen during the first quarter.
It's been four years since BMW placed an ad during the Super Bowl. Not many car companies have announced plans to participate this year. We'll see which companies bite as the game gets closer.
I haven't seen BMW's ad popping up on YouTube yet. They are trying to keep it hush-hush.
But anyway, who's it gonna be, Patriots or Seahawks?
After getting some seat time in our 2014 BMW i3, I was struck by how it reminded me of our old Nissan Juke long-termer. Before you question my state of mind, let me elaborate. As with the Juke, the i3 is, at least to my eyes, ugly. Really, with such a disjointed look, especially in profile, it looks as if the three blind mice were given the project. But as with that frog-like Nissan, the i3 quickly won me over with its engaging personality.
Like the Juke, the i3 is fun to drive. It's energetic, and has an easy-going nature. The silent, smooth rush of power when you toe into it never gets old and the rather strong regenerative braking means I rarely had to touch the brake pedal, even when coming to a stop if I timed it right. It encourages smooth, efficient driving.
The i3's small footprint, good outward visibility (increasingly rare with newer cars) and quick steering make maneuvering in crowded parking lots and city traffic a snap.
Lastly, (and something not shared with the Juke), the i3's green nature also appealed to my "save the planet" side. Heck, I even switched it into "Eco-Pro" mode while tooling around on Sunday and went about 73 miles on the battery pack before the gas-powered range extender kicked in.
Like so much of the 2014 BMW i3, the steering wheel is unusual. But also like so much of the i3, the steering wheel is awesome.
The wheel is small in diameter. It telescopes far out on a steering column so long that it previously saw use as a space shuttle gantry. It has two spokes perfectly contoured to your hands and perfectly placed at 3 and 9. Having only two spokes also opens up the lower wheel portion, which is nice for those who shuffle steer. Its secondary buttons and controls are pretty much the same as those found in other BMWs. And finally, it looks pretty cool.
Whereas the original, BMW-made Mini Cooper's two-spoke steering wheel was all form over function, the i3's is absolutely spot-on. Now, it wouldn't work in performance-oriented BMWs, but for the i3, it's perfection.
I received the following email from our long-term 2014 BMW i3 recently:
Dear BMW ConnectedDrive Customer,
The state of charge of your V275231 is low!
We recommend recharging the battery.
Kind regards,
BMW ConnectedDrive
It seemed like a helpful note at first. But then I received at least 25 of these emails in the two months that we've had the car.
That email is sent every time the battery is low on the i3. They're directed to me because I set up the account with BMW. I could see this being somewhat handy as a reminder to plug in the battery-only version of the i3. But since our i3 has the range extender, this warning doesn't seem as useful.
I'd venture to say that electric vehicle owners are more keenly aware that they're low on charge than are people who drive conventional cars. After all, they know there is a gas station on virtually every city corner. Electric car drivers can't gamble like that.
In any case, these emails were becoming a nuisance and I wanted to opt out of them. I didn't see an unsubscribe button so I clicked on the only link I saw. It took me to a dead page with this message:
BMW - New Installation. This project didn't deploy content yet.
Not very helpful. Next I went into the "i remote" app on my smartphone. This is the designated app to check on charge status, efficiency and remote access. I figured the opt-out setting would be buried somewhere in the app. It wasn't.
Finally, I Googled "bmw connecteddrive customer portal" and I found a login page that asked me to choose my country. I clicked on "Americas," which narrowed down my choices to Mexico and Brazil. There was no option to pick the United States. The only other options were Australia, Europe and Africa. BMW must really want you to get these emails.
The only option I didn't try was the BMW owner's site, because my Connected Drive username and password didn't work. I'd likely have to set up another account, way too much trouble than its worth.
I'll just send these emails to the spam folder.
What do you think? Annoyance or convenience?
Sometimes I'm slow to learn new things. When I saw the column-mounted shifter in our long-term 2014 BMW i3, I was pretty sure I would get befuddled and make the wrong selection at some point.
After all, you twist the thing up to get Drive and twist it down to select Reverse. This seems backward to me, unless you think of "up" as akin to going forward and "down" as akin to backing up. I suppose that's what BMW's designers decided.
Regardless, I haven't yet selected the wrong gear in the i3. And I've found the shifter quite intuitive and ergonomic to use when switching between R and D while parallel parking. I really don't think about it at all in normal driving, and that's a good thing.
Admittedly, it's a first-world problem, but the unique carbon-fiber construction of the 2014 BMW i3 gives it a tall step-in height that tripped me up more than once while I was using our long-term model recently.
The height of the door sills doesn't require one to do a standing high jump to gain entry, but at 18.6 inches from the ground in front, 19.6 inches for the rear entry, they do require a stretch.
As the photo shows, the top of the sill is almost knee-high on a person who's 6'-3' tall. You've really got to bend your knee and lift your foot when opening that front door and preparing to slide in. Or else prepare to stumble and fumble and maybe fall into the seat instead of gracefully settling onto it!
There are pickups and SUVs with taller sills, but you expect to have to step up when entering a truck. Part of the problem with the BMW i3 is that it's a compact car so you don't really expect to have to clear a hurdle to gain access.
There's also a little optical illusion going on.
Instead of presenting a smooth, single-level sill, the bottom of the door frame is stair-stepped. There's that very visible blue rocker panel, but then there's a half-inch recess and a carbon-fiber step-up that's a couple of inches tall. And while that's what the eye and brain focus on, there's a third carbon-fiber stiffening rail, set back almost three inches, that you also must clear.
This wouldn't keep me from buying an i3 if I were in the market. I imagine I'd get used to it after a week of so of daily use. But I also can imagine it could present an issue for people with shorter legs, or stiffer knee joints, than mine.
I recently had a weekend in our long-term 2014 BMW i3 and most of that time was spent commuting on city streets. Unlike editor John O'Dell who got to have some Fun in the Twisties, I was doing short urban commutes. And on the kind of broken, practically cobbled city streets that line most of Los Angeles, the i3 had a pretty bumpy ride.
Along the highway, the i3 was quiet and composed. At 70 miles per hour I kept the stereo off and it was easy to talk to my passengers. No need to shout. It soaked up the minor road imperfections relatively well and kept us comfortable on a short freeway journey. No complaints from anyone.
On our trip back home we took city streets instead. And in the city, over speed bumps, potholes, construction grates and intersection-gutters, the i3 bounced quite a bit. The entire cabin seemed to move as one piece, communicating road surface changes with dramatic hops. Some of this comes down to the road quality and the i3's suspension calibration (it's stiff but not unyielding), but there are other factors too. We've got the optional 20-inch wheels on our i3 and when you combine those large-diameter wheels with a relatively short wheelbase, you end up with a lot of impacts being transmitted right into the cabin. I'd opt for the standard 19s as a baseline solution but I'm not sure that would solve the problem entirely.
Over the weekend, I found myself slowing down quite a bit for road imperfections and speed bumps, basically duplicating the kind of behavior usually reserved for lowered, high-performance sports cars. Approach slowly, slow-speed over the bump, accelerate away lightly to save energy and hope there isn't another bump ahead.
None of this is to suggest that the ride quality in the BMW i3 is so bad that you can't live with it along broken city streets, it just isn't ideal. I'd prefer something like the VW e-Golf on a daily basis.
The feeling of regenerative braking is one of the most overt indicators that you're driving a hybrid or electric vehicle. When you lift your foot off the accelerator pedal while driving, the car will immediately slow down, converting the forward momentum of the car back into energy for the batteries.
Our long-term 2014 BMW i3 uses a regenerative braking system that slows the car down pretty dramatically, but after just a few miles, it's easy to get used to how strong it is and modulate your pressure accordingly. If you plan far enough in advance, you can avoid using the conventional brake pedal at all.
Some hybrids and EV's (our departed long-term Tesla Model S comes to mind) will perform a similar trick when coming to a complete stop in traffic, but they won't stop completely. Without application of the conventional brake, they'll creep forward slowly.
The i3, on the other hand, will come to a complete stop without using the brake pedal at all. It also doesn't have any creep or forward movement without an input on the right pedal. Of course, you'll want to press the conventional brake if you're stopped at a light to avoid rolling forward if you're hit from behind, but there are plenty of stop-and-go scenarios in city traffic where conventional brakes aren't necessary at all.
Our long-term Model S would allow you to adjust the sensitivity in the regen-brakes, which made the car feel a bit more like a gasoline-powered car, but I'm a bigger fan of the BMW's system. It's more severe and it can't be adjusted, so you just have to get used to it. It reminds me to plan ahead in traffic, making my driving habits a bit more efficient and it certainly saves wear on the conventional brake pads/rotors.
While the city ride quality in our long-term 2014 BMW i3 isn't ideal, it does have the ability to fit into nearly any parking spot you can find.
Bumper to bumper, it's the exact same length as a 2015 Mini Cooper (157.4 inches) and it's 10.7 inches shorter than a VW e-Golf. The Fiat 500e is considerably smaller (142.2 inches long), but if you want a back seat that can accommodate adults, I'd avoid the Fiat. At 69.9 inches, the i3 is only two inches wider than the Mini and five inches wider than the Fiat and an inch narrower than the VW. Basically, it's the right size for "compact" parking spots.
Also helping the BMW's cause are its skinny tires: 155 millimeters in the front, 175s in the rear. They contribute to the i3's tight turning circle: 32.3 feet compared to the VW e-Golf's 35.8 and the Mini Cooper's 35.4. The tiny 500e only bests the i3 by one foot with a turning circle of 31.3 ft.
What's more, the i3 is easy to see out of in every direction. There's excellent visibility from the high-mounted driver seat combined with a stunningly good rearview camera. As a result, you can park this little BMW just about anywhere you'd like.
I usually listen to sports talk on the drive home, so imagine my surprise when I pressed the radio button on our 2014 BMW i3 and couldn't find the AM band. The photo above shows your choices. I tried scrolling the control knob in both directions, but the AM option never appeared. I took to the interwebs and found that this wasn't a glitch, but rather a design decision.
"Only the i3 and i8 will not include AM because the interference from the electric motor would make the quality of AM broadcasts far less than a premium listening experience, a BMW spokesperson said in an article on Radio World.
AM radio reception didn't seem to be an issue for the Tesla Model S, Nissan Leaf or just about any other electric vehicle I can think of. I don't really listen to AM for the sound quality, so I'm willing to cut the car some slack if I get occasional static.
In the article, the BMW spokesman goes on to say that HD Radio, satellite radio and BMW Connected Drive will "satisfy much of the AM desires of our customers." One option might be to stream AM with the TuneIn Radio app via Bluetooth, but the app doesn't support every station and, more importantly, will quickly consume your phone's data allotment.
I like the i3 and while not having AM radio would be an inconvenience, it wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. Would it be for you?
It's already summer in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley and I needed genuine cabin cooling when I drove our 2014 BMW i3 this week.
Ordinarily, I'm not very particular about air-conditioning systems in cars. I rarely set the automatic ones any cooler than 72 degrees Fahrenheit, and I usually have the manual systems on the lowest fan setting. I rarely use any Max A/C mode. I'm a naturalized Californian and I don't like to be cold.
But the system in our BMW i3 is a little feeble, even by my standards. It's different from the automatic climate control systems in other BMWs in that it's a single-zone system and the temperature adjusts in increments of two rather than one. I'm OK with those differences, but the lack of oomph from the fan is a problem.
With outside temperatures just south of 90 degrees, I never had the i3's climate control set any warmer than 68, and often had it on 66 degrees. That's almost unheard of in my little sphere of existence. I suspect many of my warmer-blooded colleagues will have the electric BMW's climate control pegged at 60 all summer long.
I walked out to our 2014 BMW i3 yesterday and found this. The base of the passenger door was sticking out. At first I thought the door wasn't closed all of the way but there was more to it...
The door alignment was fine. It was the panel. A few strategic whacks with the palm of my hand were enough to pop it back into place. I don't know what caused this but for now we are okay. If the problem crops up again, we may have a bad fastener back there.
So what have we learned in the first 5,000 miles of 2014 BMW i3 ownership? For starters, it's surprisingly fun to drive for a car with shockingly skinny tires. It also fits a rear-facing baby seat or a couple sets of golf clubs if you need those capabilities.
The downsides? There's no AM radio due to interference from the electric motor and we did notice that one of the doors is misaligned. It also has a hard-to-wrangle floor mat and the climate control system is the strongest setup we've experienced.
Overall, most staffers like to drive the i3, even the ones who don't like the way it looks. Turns out, performance and practicality can trump style if you give them enough time. Guess that's why Toyota sells so many Camrys every year.
Erin Riches has noted that the rear-hinged rear doors in the 2014 BMW i3 make loading a kid into her rear-facing seat a less-than-ideal experience. But what about when you're loading dependents that don't require a seat large and substantial enough for NASA to deem it excessive for missions to space?
For loading my small dogs into the back of the i3, the clamshells weren't the same sort of hindrance. It was quite easy to lean in to buckle them into their harnesses, although since much of the back seat is behind the C-pillar, I suppose it requires a bit more reach. There's also less seat surface area for the pups to leap onto.
On the other hand, if that leap is difficult, the rear floor is that much more accessible in the i3 without a B-pillar and door in the way, especially if you slide the front seats forward. Plus, once inside, the window is low enough for my strapped-in little dog to see outside.
In total, Maggie and Nellie give the i3's back seat a dog-friendliness rating of 3 1/2 barks.*
*This is a meaningless rating. It was assigned by dogs.
You know what makes our 2014 BMW i3 so fun?
Not its quirky looks or futuristic interior, but instead its instant torque. It hits 30 mph from a standstill in 3.1 seconds, just like our long-term GTI! But even that figure doesn't fully convey the i3's off-the line punch. It's what you want a car to do when you're trying to get across six lanes with oncoming traffic and no traffic light: Launch without lag.
I've always been a fan of that instant EV torque and I know this isn't unique to the i3, which generates 184 pound-feet of twist from 0-4,800 rpm. But it really does play a big part in making this the perfect city car. Driving it around from Santa Monica to Hollywood to West Hollywood and back, I had the chance to try it in traffic, on city streets and on the highway.
The i3 is responsive, instantaneous and linear. It does its best work in the city when you want to get out of the way in a hurry, the trade-off being that it feels relatively blunted at freeway speeds. I know this isn't how most EV car owners drive their cars, but I always floored it whenever I got the chance, like in HOV lanes on freeway on-ramps, leaving Priuses in the dust, and at traffic lights going up against antsy Honda Civic drivers. The i3 is the point-and-squirt champion.
Dear James,
I would like to welcome you to the 21st Century. It's quite an interesting time, as dressing like a well-coiffed lumberjack is chic and I don't need stinky, burny old gasoline to make myself move. OK, so I have an engine, but I only sorta need it. Anyway, good luck with that quaint, shiny bit of plastic you have in your hand. If you're expecting me to do something with it, well, LOL.
Apparently you're unaware that here in the Teens (which is quite obviously NOT the Teens of the Edwardian, Great War variety), we play music through our phones. That's right, phones are no longer just that thing with 12 buttons on it that you can use to call your friend's house. You can not only play music on them, but also watch a baseball game, order a pizza, write an e-mail (you had those in the '90s, right?), translate something from Japanese and Tweet. Well, that's if you know that a Tweet, in this context, is not the sound a bird makes.
As such, you can plug it into the, and follow me here, USB port where you can control certain phone functions from that big ol' screen on my dash. It'll even charge it for you! You can also use Bluetooth Audio, which is not a recording from a dental office.
If, however, you still feel like playing that "CD" you can always use that old "discman" that is, for some ungodly reason, still in your desk drawer and plug it into the headphone-looking jack under the armrest. I can't speak to the effectiveness of its fancy electronic shock protection (ooooh!), but I'm sure it still works great. #sarcasm
Oh, you probably wouldn't know what a hashtag is, would you? Oh well, I suppose it could be worse — that 1998 BMW Z3 of yours only has a tape deck. Which reminds me, say hi to Grandpa for me.
Yours Truly (I figure you would appreciate the ye olde formality of letter-writing pleasantries),
The 2014 BMW i3 has a lovely case (cover? satchel?) for its owner's manual. It's a wooly grey material accented with a cool shade of light blue and a strip of tan leather that matches the Cassia Natural Leather found in the i3's Giga World trim level. Tres chic, no?
I mean, it's an owner's manual case, so you'll be forgiven if your interest barely nudges past 1 on the Excite-o-Meter. But it's certainly more interesting than the ubiquitous black pleather pouch and another way that BMW attempts to make the i3 clearly different from all the run-of-the-mill cars it sells. Well, as run-of-the-mill as a BMW gets at least.
I drove to a party recently in our 2014 BMW i3 and it sparked an interesting conversation. Instead of exploring the pros and cons of EVs, it morphed into one of those "I'd never drive one because..." conversations. One guy said, "The problem with electric cars is that if everyone had one, the grid couldn't provide enough electricity."
It left me speechless. He was right, of course. But it is also true that not everyone is going to suddenly begin driving EVs. In fact, after four years on the market, a recent report said the number of EVs, hybrids and plug-in hybrids combined is around 3 percent.
Another guy at the party, who knows I lease a 2014 RAV4 EV turned to me and said, "Aren't you going to stand up for electric cars?" I felt like a kid on the playground being baited into a fight.
I don't believe that arguing with people will change their minds. I don't tell people that their opinion is wrong. I just state my own opinion. So, here are five things that I think make EVs great:
1: Great driving experience: Quick, quiet, great handling, instant response, no shift shock.
2: Great fuel savings. About $1.65 worth of electricity gives me 50 miles of driving (at my overnight rate of 0.11 cent/kilowatt hour). An estimated 7 million EVs could be added to the grid without needing to change it in any way.
3: Great carpool lane access. Hey, they subsidize oil companies, so why not commuters?
4: Great traffic car. One foot'll do it.
5: Great convenience. Never visit gas stations. Instead, connect in 30 seconds and charge overnight.
So, that's what I think and that's why I drive an EV most of the time (I have a second car for longer distances). But then again, I'm clearly in the minority - a 3 percent minority, so what do I know?
There are photos of dirty cars here in California with the cutline, "Dirty for the drought." I thought of those photos when our 2014 BMW i3 was given to me covered in grime. I don't like dirty cars. But I also don't want to use a lot of water during this drought. I was in serious conflict.
Here's how I handled it.
Let me start by making a confession. I'm one of those weirdos that likes to wash cars. I think a lot of car guys feel the same way. But washing doesn't have to mean getting out the hose and running water over the whole car (although sure, you have to do that every once in a while). I've found that getting a microfiber towel wet, wringing it out, and then carefully removing the grime does a pretty good job.
Many of you might be cringing, imagining grit and grime scratching a pristine paint job. I looked into this a few years ago when so-called "water-less" car washing became popular. Turns out, the trick is to lightly remove the grime and turn the towel to use clean sections often. That way, there isn't a buildup of grime on the cloth that will scratch the paint or clear coat.
While cleaning the i3, I was reminded that most of the body panels are plastic. It gives under your hand when you run a wet microfiber towel over it. The dirt lifts off easily. Also, being a small car, there's a lot less surface area and you can do the job in about five minutes. You still have to clean the glass surfaces twice, however - once with the towel and once with window washer fluid and a paper towel.
When I was done, the BMW looked good again. Okay, I don't like the styling, but what I'm saying is that it was clean. And since I'd only used about a half of a gallon of water, my conscience was unscathed.
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a co-worker I'd never met before. When she learned that I worked on the Edmunds editorial team, she asked what I thought of the BMW i3. Now, I've been doing my job long enough to know that this is a tricky question to answer. More often than not, the person is asking because he or she already owns the questioned vehicle and wants to know what I think.
So had I responded with something like, "You bought a 1989 Yugo? What a piece of garbage!" that might not be the best way to endear myself to my new colleague.
Fortunately, the BMW i3 is an easy car to like.
I admire what BMW has done to create the i3. Prior to its arrival, there was a huge gulf between affordable (if you can call them that) EVs like the Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus Electric, and the super awesome, but much more expensive Tesla Model S. The i3 firmly holds the middle ground.
For shoppers who want a more upscale and sportier EV, but still need to keep monthly payments aligned to an entry-luxury vehicle, it's potentially ideal. The range-extender option furthers the i3's appeal.
In that chat with my coworker about the i3, however, I did mention that main thing I don't like about the i3: the styling. The awkward proportions and body panel lines are just too off-putting to me. I don't think I could own or lease an i3 for that very reason.
In contrast, she said the loves the distinctive styling and said it's one of the main reasons she bought her i3. We had to agree to disagree on that point. Otherwise though, it's nice to know that there's another Edmunds BMW i3 running around besides our long-termer.
As you can see, the seats in our 2014 BMW i3 aren't exactly plush-looking. They're purposely thin to save space and weight, and they aren't power-adjustable for the same reasons.
The result is a thoroughly average driver's seat. Not bad, but not great. Comfortable enough during an average commute that you don't really notice it. Anything longer and you start wishing for a little more support and a few more contours.
I find myself fidgeting after an hour or so. The seat is flat with little bolstering, so it it's accommodates a variety of body types, just not mine. The overall position of the seat in relation to the wheel is good, however, so visibility is great. Even with the manual seat adjustments, it's easy to find a comfortable position. There's no option to upgrade the seats themselves, only the material that covers them. In this case, I don't think that would make much of a difference anyway.
Car designers love to compare their creations to things outside the automotive world. "The instrument panel was inspired by high-end watches," is an oft-heard boast. "The cabin was influenced by high-end home furniture," is another. Usually they're stretching to make a point, but in the 2014 BMW i3 they actually have a point.
Opt for either the Giga or Terra World trim levels and you get a dashboard topped with "open pore eucalyptus wood from certified forestry." Now, I'm not really sure what that means exactly, but I do know that it's some of the nicest wood trim I've ever seen in a modern car. Even after the initial novelty factor wears off, it still looks good, as in fine furniture-good.
It's one of the many things that make the i3 unique and its one reason why I don't mind spending time in it.
The glovebox in our long-term 2014 BMW i3 keeps opening itself. There's only one explanation: It's full of ghosts. Ghosts desperate for freedom.
Now, the reason I'm saying that it must be ghosts is pretty simple. The glovebox only pops open (three times during 60 miles) when the i3 hits a particularly nasty or off-center pothole or speedbump, and we all know how much ghosts hate be jostled.
The i3 is good at a lot of things. It's got a comfy ride, really fun steering and a punchy powertrain. It's not so good at hitting bumps, however. Not only do minor hits send a shiver up the spine, but they anger the spirit world enough that they start messing with the glovebox.
I'm going to try an exorcism next week. Or a piece of tape.
Hopping into our long-term 2014 BMW i3 after someone else has been driving it is always a bit of an adventure. Did they plug it in? When? Did they remember to tap the card so the charging actually works? Am I going to be able to make it home without that silly gas engine?
So while I was expecting something to happen, this wasn't even on my radar.
I hopped in, pressed the start button and got this warning: "Battery discharging while stopped: Start engine. If fault persists, consult service center." (There's also a funny little navigation/locator thing wondering if we're still in Los Angeles, but that's not the point)
At the time, the range indicator read normal. It was full and had 62 miles of range which quickly shot to 68 miles once I started driving. I drove home, parked and crossed my fingers that all of the electrons would stay in their cages overnight. Or that they wouldn't; that'd make a nifty blog post.
Unfortunately (fortunately?) the next morning came and the car had four miles more range than when I turned it off the night before. Go figure.
We'll keep an eye on this one, but for now the only real takeaway is that EV range estimations are still in their infancy while we've got some 100-plus years of getting it right with tanks full of liquid propellant. I'm very much looking for some consistency in 2115.
I've already noted that the 2014 BMW i3 is pretty good at transporting a pair of dogs. But what about people?
Well, as it turns out, my lovely wife and mother-in-law managed to fit quite comfortably in the i3's back seat. Said wife is admittedly rather petite, but I also didn't need to scoot the driver seat forward from its significantly rearward position. The ladies reported the seat itself was comfortable and placed at a good height.
The clamshell doors can still cause some problems in tight parking spaces (it's a bit of dance to maneuver yourself among opening and closing doors), but in general the i3's back seat goes well above and beyond the "useable in a pinch" bar that I imagine most owners will have for it.
When our vehicle sign-out sheet comes around, I hardly ever have the chance to put my name on the list for our long-term 2014 BMW i3. It's a shame too, because I really like this car for daily commutes. Sure, our Viper and Mustang are great consolation prizes, but I'd much rather have this zippy electric car during rush hour.
Heavy traffic limits how much fun you can have with a V8 or V10 and the BMW just does the stop-and-go thing much better. You can park it anywhere, it has plenty of torque for exploiting the gaps in traffic and it has enough room for four adults. And even if you drive home solo, you can still use the carpool lane.
Basically, it's an expert at the city-stuff and that makes it a popular car among our editors.
I'll admit that I haven't spent much time in our 2014 BMW i3. There's no particular reason for it other than it's often signed out before I get the chance to give it a try. I guess that says one thing about it right there.
After driving it home on my 37-mile commute, however, I might have to grab those keys more often. Not only does it have a carpool sticker so I can use the far left lane when I'm flying solo, it's also great in stop-and-go traffic thanks to its heavy regenerative braking.
You rarely have to use the brake pedal in most instances and it's even kind of fun to see how long you can go without it. I did it so much, in fact, that the i3 still had about three-quarters of its battery charge left when I got home.
Things were a little different on the drive back to the office the next morning. Traffic was much lighter so I was moving pretty fast and not letting up much. With no brake regeneration going on, the battery level went down much quicker. Still, I completed my 74-mile round trip with five miles of electric charge remaining, which is almost dead-on the i3's EPA-rated range of 81 miles.
I have no doubt I can beat my personal record the next time around. In fact, I'm actually looking forward to it.
Business buzz words come and go, with last year's "synergy" becoming this year's "pivot." After spending some solid time in our long-term 2014 BMW i3, I can't help but visualize the electric i3 every time some says "pivot."
As I was pulling into our parking structure, I continued on my usual path to the bottom floor where we park all of our test cars instead of making the hard right turn to stay on the top floor where the EV chargers are located.
"Pivot!" I shouted in my head, as I spun the i3 in a tight semi-circle and headed back up the ramp. With a 32.3-foot turning circle, the BMW curls around like a sleepy cat.
For a list of other small wagons and hatchbacks that offer similar maneuverability, click here.
OK, I don't know that someone yanked the 2014 BMW i3's charger cord on purpose, but here's what I do know.
Late Sunday evening I parked the i3 parallel to my garage door in the alley behind my house. I plugged the 120-volt home charger into the outlet just inside my garage. I closed the garage door and went upstairs.
That's when things went awry.
A while later, my husband Ed came upstairs and said that as he was locking up for the night, he noticed the charger cord and plug lying on the garage floor. After careful inspection, he realized the third prong — the ground — was missing. Turns out, it was still stuck in the outlet.
Now, maybe someone was walking down the alley in the dark, squeezed between the i3 and the garage door, got tangled up in the cord and accidentally pulled it out of the outlet? Hmmm.
The good news: There's a ChargePoint Level 2 charger less than three-quarters of a mile from my house. On Monday, Ed and I drove the i3 over to the parking lot, plugged in the i3, and had dinner nearby. Two hours later, the BMW had acquired enough juice to make the 37-mile drive to the office the next morning.
Check back for an update after we look into repairing or replacing the 120V charger.
It was hot, and I needed a cool blast of A/C, so instead of calling the BMW parts department at my local Long Beach dealer, I stopped in.
"Is there any way to fix a broken plug on my BMW i3's 120-volt home charger?" I asked hopefully. "The third prong, the ground, snapped off."
"Sorry, no," replied Sergio from behind the parts counter. "You'll need a whole new cord unit. Let me see if I have one in stock."
His answer surprised me. I wasn't surprised that it wasn't repairable, but I was shocked that they might actually have one available and ready for the taking. No such luck. Sergio said he could order a new unit and it would arrive the next day.
"Yes, please," I said, fingers on my credit card.
"That'll be $595.33," he said. "Plus tax."
Yowza. I paid the cashier the full $648.91 and sadly went back out into the afternoon heat. The next day, the charger unit arrived and Mike Schmidt picked up the bubble wrapped package when he recovered our long-term Mini Cooper from the same dealership's service department.
Hey, at least there were no labor fees involved.
The last time I was up early to go running on a weekend, I took our long-term Jaguar F-Type to the beach and it made an excellent companion. This time around, I had a car with less than half the horsepower and much less noise. Even with those downsides though (subjective, I know), our long-term 2014 BMW i3 made an excellent running buddy too.
For waking up early, the Jaguar is probably the best alternative to coffee with four wheels, but the i3 used a different strategy and helped me ease in to the early-morning run.
I'm normally stressed out before big events, wondering if I'll make it on time, what parking will be like, and whether or not I brought enough Gu packets. Not in the i3. It was quick to get me there, but quiet and peaceful along the way. It had plenty of range to get me home (the race was only a few miles from my house) and it was definitely more comfortable.
Plus, I doubt the electric BMW woke up any of my neighbors.
The local gas company was repairing a line behind our house last week, which blocked access to our alley, and subsequently our garage.
Needing some juice for the 2014 BMW i3, I pulled up the ChargePoint map to see if the Level 2 charger a half-mile from my house was available. It was, so I immediately hopped in the i3 and headed over.
D'oh! Not five minutes had passed and a black i3 had already sniped my plug.
Using my phone, I looked for the next closest charger.
Turns out, there is a second Level 2 in my small beach town, not two-tenths of a mile farther, in a public lot down on the beach.
It wasn't exactly fragrant as I plugged-in next to the temporary construction site and its port-a-john. But turning southwest toward the sand and sunset significantly improved the experience.
It would be easy to dismiss a car like the 2014 BMW i3 as nothing more than a goofy-looking science experiment. It looks hopelessly awkward from nearly every angle, and trying to explain its immense breadth of technology to a curious bystander is futile.
After driving it, however, the i3 grows on you quickly.
For starters, it drives well. It accelerates up to highway speeds quickly and the suspension feels sufficiently refined over L.A's buckled concrete freeways. You're aware that the tires are small and narrow, but the car doesn't feel frail.
I also like the brakes. They have a high level of regeneration so you can drive the i3 in heavy traffic without ever using the actual brake pedal. It sounds insignificant, but once you get used to the feel it's kind of fun.
Finally, the interior feels huge. Between the glass area and the dashboard design, the i3 gives you the impression that it's much bigger on the outside. It's a nice feeling when you're surrounded in traffic.
I didn't expect to like the i3, but the more seat time I get, the more I appreciate its ingenious design.
After reading Riswick's post about the poor door grab on our long-term BMW M235i, it reminded me of a similar problem on our 2014 BMW i3. It doesn't even have a handle, just an angle cove to use as a door grab.
As you can see, it's not exactly in an ideal location. When you swing open a car door, where do you naturally grab to pull it closed? Probably not somewhere on the front half of it.
On the M235i you can at least grab the handle from somewhere on the middle of the door. On the i3, the grab handle is up much higher, making it all the more awkward.
Ultimately, the door is very light so the poor design of the handle isn't a major issue. But it's still something that annoys me every time I go to pull the door closed. That's not good design.
We've already established that our 2014 BMW i3 is a good commuter car. But like any versatile hatchback, it's a handy hauler, too.
Recently I decided it was finally time to let go of the last pack-and-play portable crib and toddler car seat still lingering in our garage. I wasn't sure about the easiest way to load the bulky, bagged Britax seat in the i3, but flipping down the rear seats afforded plenty of space for both items.
BMW has issued a recall for front-passenger side airbags on 2014-'15 BMW i3s and 2014-'16 Mini Cooper and Cooper S models. Our luck: Our long-term 2014 BMW i3 is among the affected.
I made a call to BMW Customer Service and was immediately put on the line with a representative. After providing our car's VIN, the rep initially told me that nothing about a recall for our car showed in their system. She wanted to verify that however, and put me on hold while she contacted an i3 specialist.
I spoke with the new rep, gave the VIN again, and was told that i3s built between March of 2014 and August of 2015 come under this recall. Ours was built in September.
Now we wait for more information and a timeframe when we can take the i3 to a local dealer for a fix. This part of the process was painless; I was on the phone no more than five minutes.
I also checked with Mini to see if our since-departed Cooper was included in the recall. The Mini representative noted two earlier recalls that we handled, but didn't see an airbag recall. But he allowed that since the recall is fresh, their system might not have yet updated when we called. We'll assume that either their system is slow or the long-term Cooper falls outside of the affected window.
Have an i3 or Mini? Call BMW Customer Service at (800) 525-7417 or Mini Customer Service at (866) 825-1525 to see if your car is affected.
I haven't done the math, but I think I have more miles in our 2014 BMW i3 than anyone else on staff. It fits my life. I don't drive terribly far and for the type of commute I have, an EV is perfect.
So when there was a new noise from the i3, I was surprised.
Within a few feet of hopping into the i3 for my second night in a row, I heard it. Some sort of strained-motor whir not uncommon on EVs when regenerating, but I wasn't decelerating. I was accelerating.
It wasn't loud, but it was there. If I'd had the radio on, I wouldn't have noticed. I figured turning off the climate control would let me hear it better and help isolate the noise. That's when it went away. A few more seconds of tinkering with various HVAC buttons, I'd narrowed it down to the air-con. On: Noise. Off: No noise.
It was hot and a little humid for L.A., so I left it on and just turned on the radio. That fixed it for now.
Pop open the 2014 BMW i3's charge port and you'll find a handy list of color-coded icons on the flap that helps drivers discern their EV's current charging status.
If at first glance you don't understand the subtlety of the icons, the i3's owner's manual spells it out as noted below. The "indicator light" referenced is the thin white line located just inside the port along the bottom edge as shown in the photo above.
Display of the Charging Status
The charging status is indicated by the indicator light at the charging port.
Lamp white: charging cable can be connected or removed.
Lamp flashes yellow: charging process is being initialized.
Lamp blue: charging process is started at a set time.
Lamp flashes blue: charging process active.
Lamp flashes red: fault in the charging process.
Lamp green: charging process completed.
When the vehicle is locked, the indicator lamp goes out after some time.
When the vehicle is unlocked, the blue indicator lamp flashes continuously.
This concludes our charge-status tutorial.
This morning I drove our 2014 BMW i3 into the office. It was just after 4 a.m. so I practically had the freeway to myself. Being an electric vehicle, our i3 has carpool lane access stickers, so I was driving in that far-left lane on principle. In peace.
Actually, the car was doing most of the work. I had the adaptive cruise control system engaged so even if a slower vehicle pulled ahead of me, the BMW would slow to match its pace. But as I soon learned, the adaptive cruise on this i3 stinks.
There I was, no motorists within 10 car lengths of me in any direction and in this quiet moment, the i3 decided to apply the brakes. Maybe it just cut the throttle. Either way, the event was abrupt enough to cause me to sway forward in the seat and put a little scare in me. A quick scan of my surroundings put me at ease. There was no imminent danger. Why the heck did that happen?
Lucky me, I had several opportunities to figure it out. The problem repeated itself five times during my 40-mile drive. Each time, I was in the carpool lane. It happened three times when the road was curving right (away from the wall) and twice while traveling straight. Did it pick up the headlights from a passing car? Was it a shadow from an overpass?
I tried recreating several scenarios but could not get the cruise to fail on command. It was set on the shortest following distance, about 4-5 car lengths. Under normal circumstances, the system detects a car roughly 10 car lengths away and gives a visual cue on the instrument panel. On the surface, adaptive cruise appeared to be working as designed. But clearly it was not. I could not figure it out. All I really learned from the experience is that I won't be using adaptive cruise in that car again.
It's the time of year when Girl Scouts participate in that other fundraiser; the lesser known, mildly anticipated, nuts and candy sale.
How many cans of nuts fit in the rear cargo area of our long-term 2014 BMW i3?
Just 102. My daughter sold 114 cans total, but after taking the above photo, I realized the cargo cover wouldn't close smoothly with the tray of Mixed Nuts and Chocolate Covered Raisins on top.
Moved those 12 cans to the backseat and we were underway.
Is it odd that the most sophisticated car in our long-term fleet has the most straightforward climate controls? That's not entirely the case with our 2014 BMW i3, but it's close.
There are less expensive vehicles in our fleet that use the basic three-dial climate control system, which is generally about as simple as it gets. Look at the setup in the i3, however, and you'll see that it has a grand total of 5 buttons and one knob. And after driving the i3 for months now I've never wished for anything more.
During our heat wave, I just hit the "Max A/C" button when I got in to cool things down. Now that it's cooler, I simply set the temperature dial and hit the seat heaters while I wait. Sure, it's not a dual-zone setup, but this car is so small that there's really only one zone anyway.
Oddly enough, the setup reminds me of one of our earliest long term cars, a 2000 Honda Insight. Like the i3, it was a car that was ahead of its time in many ways, but very simple in others.
Kudos to Glare-Resistant Display Screens
It seems like an inevitability: gauges being replaced by display screens. With virtual instrument clusters becoming increasingly ubiquitous in EVs like our 2014 BMW i3 and various luxury cars, it's hard to imagine any car having traditional dials in 20 years.
The trouble is that these screens are often susceptible when the sun shines from behind you. If you already have a touchscreen in your car, you probably know what I'm talking about. Want to change the radio station or see where you are on the navigation system? Good luck.
Luckily, the gauge display in our i3 and indeed those in other BMWs are quite impervious to the photonic discharges of our local star. As you can see in the above photo, the instrument read-out is perfectly legible, and although the main display seems washed out, that's just my camera's position. It was actually perfectly readable from my view point (as long as you're driving with your chin on the steering wheel, you'll be able to read it).
So kudos to BMW for yet another futuristic element that the i3 nails.
I signed out our 2014 BMW i3 for a full week, and specifically during the week of the Los Angeles Auto Show when I knew I wouldn't be visiting HQ or the i3's charger. There also isn't anywhere to plug it into my condo's garage. Essentially, I was dealing with one week and one charge.
I drove nine-plus miles from the office to my house. I criss-crossed West Hollywood, Hollywood and Beverly Hills for multiple auto show-related events. I made the 6.5-mile drive to the LA Convention Center and back. Post-show, I drove to dinner, I went to the grocery store and on Monday morning, I returned those 9-plus miles to Edmunds HQ.
Lo and behold, the i3's gasoline engine only came on as I was exiting the highway for Edmunds HQ. I came ever so-close to spending an entire week using electricity only — and I would've made it if I'd been driving the EV-only version, with its extra miles of range. Of course, I also would've been biting my nails during that final commute, so I still think opting for the range-extending engine (REX) is a must. I bite my nails enough as it is.
Of course, if you own an i3, it's a virtual certainty that you also have a garage with a plug that can recharge it. Yet, my one-week, one-charge experience shows just how much you can drive an electric car (or quasi-electric car) before recharging it. It just proved once again how fantastic the i3 is as a city car. If your life consists of sitting in traffic and criss-crossing an urban landscape, do yourself a favor and consider the i3.
The 2014 BMW i3 is not a good looking car. It just isn't. And yet for the better part of a year now, I've raved about how excellent the i3 meets the demands of an urban-bound, traffic-snarled driver. I could absolutely make the case for buying one, but could I live with those looks?
Absolutely. You see, its beauty is on the inside.
I mean that both literally and figuratively. Literally in that the cabin is gorgeous, an interesting mix of textures, surfaces and details. My favorite part is that beautiful cascade of wood on the dash. I can't take my eyes off it and I constantly find myself running my fingers across the grain of its non-veneered surface.
If we'd opted for the "Giga Cassia Natural Leather & Carum Spice Grey Wool Cloth," I would love it even more, but I must admit our all-leather "Tera Dalbergia Brown" cabin is still quite fetching. This is a car for those who care less about what others think and more about enjoying the world around them.
Its figurative beauty on the inside is in the way it drives. I love its abundant, effortless, right-there power that never fails to put a smile on my face and the looks of befuddlement from sport sedan drivers inevitably shocked by the funky little electric pod that roasted them off the line. I love its congestion-conquering nimbleness, its elevated view of the road and its tiny proportions that make parking easy.
In other words, I don't care what it looks like. I just love it.
A maintenance light on the instrument panel and alerts on the BMW i Remote app led us to schedule the first service for our 2014 BMW i3. I drove to Santa Monica BMW at 7:45 on a Monday morning to meet with the service advisor. In addition to cycling the battery to make sure charging was kosher, our EV would undergo a series of inspections and an oil change for the scooter engine that serves as a range extender.
The advisor told me the i3 would be ready at least by Tuesday morning, but in all likelihood could be finished some time Monday afternoon. I told him that was fine, surrendered the keys and hitched a ride on the Mike Schmidt Courtesy Shuttle Express.
True to his word, our advisor rang at 1:30 p.m. to tell us the i3 would be ready in 30 minutes. The service cost us nothing thanks to BMW's 4-year/50,000-mile complimentary maintenance program.
According to BMW, our long-term 2014 BMW i3 has 36.9 cubic feet of cargo space once you drop both sides of its split-folding rear seat.
Great, but what exactly does that mean?
Last week I learned that it means the i3's "trunk" can handle four 19-inch diameter billet wheels of various widths pretty easily. Make that very easily, with plenty of height space and some floor space left over.
The BMW's low lift-over height and flat floor should also be called out. This is a well-thought out design with real consumer benefits.
Eleven months into our long-term road test of the 2014 BMW i3, we've finally crossed the 10,000-mile mark. Since our 5,000-mile update, we took the i3 in for its first service, stretched a charge out over a single week, and found that improving the range with regenerative braking can be fun.
We also learned how dearly it costs to replace a charging cable after the original ended up broken under mysterious circumstances. The passenger door skin also came loose from the car. This too remains unsolved.
Despite the lack miles, the i3 remains a popular choice in our fleet. It features plenty of usable space with the rear seats folded and enough room to comfortably carry adults. Even this late in the test, there are very few evenings where the i3 goes unclaimed.
Over a year ago we were eager to add the unusual 2014 BMW i3 to our fleet and test the range capability of the onboard generator. But as time passed, we began to dread the prospect of selling it. Resale values of electric cars are still unpredictable and all too often disappointing.
We offered the i3 for sale at the Edmunds True Market Value (TMV) price of $33,300 and got no takers. So we knew we had to try other sources.
Naturally, we got a quote from CarMax, but it came in at only $26,000. That was very discouraging because the Edmunds trade-in value is $30,875. We even took it to a local BMW dealer, but their quote was even less — just $25,000. Finally, we decided that CarMax was the best of our bad options. By this time, several weeks had passed and our 7-day quote long expired. That meant we had to have it re-appraised. Luckily, the quote was the same so we cashed out.
That means the i3 depreciated 45 percent during the 13 months we owned it, and that's after subtracting the $2,500 California rebate from the purchase price of $49,999 (we also received the $7,500 federal tax credit, but didn't figure this into our calculation).
Sadly, the i3 set a record for the steepest depreciation for any vehicle in our long-term fleet. Still, our editors thought the i3 was an enjoyable city car with a cool interior and many unusual features.
