When you are an executive at an automaker, especially the CEO, you generally drive a vehicle made by your company.
It was the case of Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann, but now that he left the automaker in the midst of GM selling the company to the PSA Group, the executive, who tried to steer Opel toward becoming an electric-only automaker, went all-electric himself with a Tesla and a BMW i3.
Pacific Gas and Electric customers in California can (now until May 31st) receive an additional $10,000 off the price of a BMW i3 via the instructions on the press release below. They join Southern California Edison customers and New Jersey’s PSE&G customers in getting the $10,000 rebate.
That’s in addition to the $7500 federal tax credit and the $2500 California State EV credit for eligible incomes as well as use of the HOV lanes and other incentives. PG&E throws in a $500 Clean Fuel rebate as well. That’s a total of $20,500 off the price of the BMW i3 which starts at around $44,500 making the final base cost of the i3 $24,000. Find BMW i3 inventory and lowest prices using this link.
But now that the fleet has been in operation for over a year, a report shows that the all-electric vehicles are barely being used. Expand Expanding Close
The BMW i3, which is the German automaker’s only all-electric car, is also offered with a gas-powered range extender and the option is now putting the company in trouble with the UK’s consumer watchdogs.
The automaker is being asked to pull an ad that markets the vehicle as “clean” and “zero-emission.” Expand Expanding Close
BMW celebrated today the production of its 100,000th i3 electric car at the Leipzig plant in Germany today.
While that’s a cool milestone, that wasn’t the coolest thing happening at the Leipzig plant today. For the occasion, they also inaugurated a new battery storage facility powered by old BMW i3 battery packs. Expand Expanding Close
This week, BMW unveiled the 2018 version of its flagship all-electric vehicle, the BMW i3.
Unless you are a true fan of the i3 program, you probably won’t see anything major with this new version, which doesn’t feature any significant powertrain upgrade, but there are a few new nice changes. Expand Expanding Close
On the new electric vehicle front, BMW had nothing to offer since launching the i3 and i8 almost 5 years ago and they are not expected to have a new EV built from the ground up to be electric until the end of the decade.
But they could be releasing updated versions of their current EVs in order to compete with new longer range electric cars coming to market. Expand Expanding Close
The German automaker confirmed today a deal with Torqeedo, a German boat manufacturer, to use their battery pack in a new electric boat powertrains. Expand Expanding Close
The opinions of people on the BMW i3 seem to be very divided. They either love the car or simply hate it. It is either good or bad. Black or white. Is that accurate though? Can it be placed in a box like that or is there more to this little EV?
I think there is a lot more to this car than meets the eye. The i3 seems to be the only car over a long period of time where BMW actually took a risk and thought outside of the box. BMW went all out and built a car that was entirely new from the ground up. And when I say new, I don’t mean new, like the new 5 series is new. No, I mean new as in using a new approach with new materials, based on a new design and with a new way of propulsion, i.e. electric.
BMW thought way outside of the box and built a very efficient and lightweight electric vehicle. I lease an electric-only i3 from 2015, and over the last so many months I have put more than 10,000 miles on it, driving it all over the NY metro area. I drove it during warm summer days, during torrential downpours and during the Stella snowstorm. By now, I think, I have enough miles under my belt to know (and share) what it is like to daily-drive the BMW i3. The last twelve months have changed the way I see this car and it is anything but simply black or white. Some features, I love and some others I don’t. Read on and find out what it’s like to drive in, and live with, the BMW i3.
It was an interesting project since they are using used battery modules from electric vehicles, but now the company has announced a different contract with BMW this week to buy brand new i3 battery packs directly from them for the same reason. Expand Expanding Close
In the last 3 months I’ve driven 2 electric cars originally launched a few years back, both with the bizarrely standard ‘almost 100 miles (160 km) range.’
Now both cars have been re-launched with higher density battery packs that are the same physical size. These improvements bump up the range considerably. Expand Expanding Close
Now comments made by Stefan Juraschek, Vice President of Electric-Powertrain Development at BMW, are giving us a better understanding of the reason why the company is holding back when it comes to EVs. Expand Expanding Close
You have to give it to BMW for being at the forefront of smart charging programs for electric vehicles. The German automaker has been running several special programs to get more out of an electric car fleet, including offering grid services in California as we recently reported.
This week, BMW announced yet another electric vehicle charging program, BMW Digital Charging Service (DCS), to manage charging sessions in order to save money and get more out of home solar installations. Expand Expanding Close
It was a welcomed upgrade, but not the next generation design refresh that people have been waiting for. Now sources say that the German automaker is working on a design refresh for the 2018 BMW i3 to be released next year and it will again feature a range increase – up to 50%. Expand Expanding Close
While automakers like Renault and Mercedes are unveiling new battery pack options and brand new electric vehicle models at the 2016 Paris Motor, BMW is unveiling a new color option for its lineup of electric cars.
It’s kind of disappointing, but to be honest, I find the new paint job to be so stunning that I almost forgive them for not having anything else new on the EV front for the Paris Motor Show. Expand Expanding Close
Now a new report on the German automaker’s updated electric vehicle timeline claims to give more insights into vehicle releases over the next 5-6 years, and it is just as disappointing as BMW’s official timeline. Expand Expanding Close
BMW released its July US sales report this week and the German automaker confirmed a significant increase in BMW i3 sales, which is especially surprising considering the upgraded 33 kWh battery pack has been confirmed for the 2016 i3 set to be available in the coming months. Expand Expanding Close
Earlier this year, Germany announced its first electric vehicle incentive program to spur adoption of green vehicles in the country. Financed by both the state and the local auto industry, the program offers a €4,000 discount at the purchase of an all-electric vehicle and €3,000 for a plug-in hybrid.
The program is capped to electric vehicles with a starting price of less than €60,000, which prompt Tesla to respond and claim that it was purposely left out by the auto industry since its vehicles start at over €60,000. While the program is not helping Tesla, it is certainly helping BMW as reports are coming out claiming that sales of the BMW i3 are somewhat unsurprisingly significantly rising in Germany since the launch of the program earlier this month. Expand Expanding Close
As we discussed before, electric car fires are fairly rare and nothing points to them being more frequent than in gas-powered vehicles, but this instance is particularly unusual because it actually occurred in a BMW i3 owned and operated by the Italian state police in Rome. Expand Expanding Close
Last year, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a commitment to convert the city’s vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. He announced that several of the city’s department will lease or acquire hundreds of all-electric (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) vehicles with a significant number going to the police department (LAPD).
Today we learn that BMW won its bid on an LAPD contract to supply 100 all-electric BMW i3 vehicles. Expand Expanding Close
In a not so surprising but disappointing report for EV enthusiasts today, we learn that BMW is putting its electric vehicle programs on the “back burner” in order to focus its ‘i’ brand, under which the German automaker has been releasing its electric vehicles, on self-driving cars instead.
The company reportedly will not release a new all-electric vehicle until 2021. Expand Expanding Close
This morning a reader brought to our attention that the Tesla.fr domain, which is not owned by Tesla but is a premium domain in France, was redirecting traffic to the BMW i3 page of the German automaker’s French website. Expand Expanding Close
