Thief steals BMW i3 and is recorded praising it during his getaway [Video]

It sounds like a car thief is moonlighting as a BMW marketing representative. An all-electric BMW i3 was recently stolen in Highgate, north London. As the thief was making his getaway, he called his buddy to invite him to his “proper flat”, where he keeps his “curved tele”, to take a look at his new car.

He didn’t realize that he was being recorded with a dashcam. The result is a pretty funny video and a happy ending.

The thief was very impressed by the BMW i3’s acceleration:

“I’ve never been in a car like this. This car will leave anything for dust! It is off! It can move!”

He is easily impressed considering the i3 can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in about 6.5 seconds, which is not slow by any means, but not an incredibly quick car either. It is comparable to other BMWs in the same price range.

In the video, we can hear that the thief was quite concerned about not keeping the vehicle to close to where he stole it, but it looks like it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. BMWBlog reports that the car was recovered the next day by the owner, using a GPS tracking system, not more than 2.5 miles from where it was stolen.

Here’s the quick video from the dashcam:

BMW announced a new 33 kWh battery pack for the i3. it will allow for up to  “up to 114 miles” of range on a single charge – up from the 80 miles of the previous model.