My name is Harold and I was born electric on August 19th, 2014.
There are two parts to my story here. The first is about my path to selecting and
buying the i3, and the second is about
my experiences owning and driving the i3.
PART 1:
“IF YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION, THEN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.”
When it comes to global warming, I’m embarrassed to say that for far too long
my wife and I were part of the problem.
We’re a two car family, and over
the years we’ve driven a series of big, luxury, premium fuel guzzlers. As recently as 2007 we each had one of the
full-size Range Rovers. Yikes, and yuck!
I gradually realized this was not tenable, but I found it very, very hard to give up the
comfort (I’m 6’3 and don’t fit in most cars) and sportiness of a big luxury SUV. The very thought of shoehorning myself into the ugly and
painfully boring Prius hybrid was enough to make me puke.
So my first tentative step in the right direction was to
sign up to make annual contributions to one of those carbon-offset
charities. I even got vanity license
plates that said “I OFFSET.” Wow, how big
and how brave of me!
Then BMW came out with a diesel version of their X5 so I
dumped my Range Rover in favor of that on the theory that at least I would be
burning a lot less fuel. As nice a car as the X5 was, it ended up only getting about 16mpg, and I also came to understand that the diesel wasn’t as clean as I had
thought it might be.
Meanwhile, there were
more hybrid cars coming on the market, but all still seemed to frumpy for me.
I’m sorry, but I live in
California and I spend a ton of time in my car and I want it to look and feel
great!
And then Audi launched their stylish little Q5, and I dumped the X5 in favor of this
smaller, more fuel efficient
vehicle. But even that only got around
20mpg.
So about a year ago I started the search for my next
car. I did my first exploration of
EV’s. The RAV4 was too clearly a
Toyota. The Leaf, which a neighbor of mine happily drives, drove like a turtle to me. The Volt was claustrophobic – and a Chevy to
boot. The Tesla was way cool, but I actually don’t fit very well in it
and, at least in the San Francisco area,
driving one has already become interpreted as a sign that you are an obnoxious
snob.
So, I had resigned
myself to getting the new edition of the X5 diesel, which promised to deliver significantly
better – and cleaner – mileage than the original one. And then one day while I was checking out the
new X5 on one of the BMW forums, I saw
something about the coming of the i3. It
looked weird as hell in the photo, but
it sounded intriguing. I started to
follow stories about it.
I went to a car show in San Jose to see it in person. I fully expected to discover that I could not
fit in it, but when I sat down in the
model on display I discovered that it had more head room and leg room and better
visibility than my Q5. (Of course at
this point, BMW was showing it with a
sunroof – more about that later….). Plus, the interior design was
stunning. And the exterior, while weird, was weird in a sexy way. So I was
hooked.
When the test drives started happening in the Bay Area, I
went to them at three different dealers.
Driving the car was a total blast (all the more so with the sunroof
open…..) and I had to have one. I went
to my dealer and said I’m willing to pay MSRP for one of the first ones you
get, I just need to get two key options
– the sun roof and the REX. Can you
arrange that please?
And then things started to fall apart. For one, it turned out the sunroof was not going to be offered in the US. No reason for this has ever been provided,
but that alone was enough to put me off.
I’m claustrophobic, and I always
felt I needed a sunroof to have the feeling of openness they give. And then some negative stories started to
appear about the REX – a review in Europe said driving with the REX was like
driving in limp-home mode, and then it
was revealed that the REX was being modified in the US in ways that made it seem
even less desirable. And, being new to EV’s, I was at that point too chicken to go the
full BEV route.
So, I abandoned my
quest for an i3. I signed off of the i3
forums and facebook group. I went back
to my dealer and started haggling over prices on the X5 diesel again. But the x5 diesel remained in hot
demand, and I couldn’t get what I
thought was a reasonable price. And then
the i3’s actually arrived. I saw two in
one day “in the wild.” I went behind my
dealer’s back and went to another dealer to test drive an i3 again. I found that even without the sunroof it still
felt very open. And it was just as fun
to drive as I had remembered.
So I went back to my CA, said you’re not going to believe this, but I want the i3 after all. He
laughed very heartily. We worked the numbers for a while. I ended up doing the two year version of
“owner’s choice.” (Went with owner’s choice vs. lease to get the full advantage
of the federal tax credit, and went two
years rather than three just because I expect the EV technology is going to
advance pretty rapidly over the next couple of years and I may want to move to
the next edition sooner rather than later.) And within just a few weeks I was
driving my new Andesite Silver Terra i3, loaded up with everything except for the 20” wheels. And, surprise surprise, I even got over my fear of running out of
juice and went with the BEV instead of the REX.
PART 2:
“WHO SAYS
MEDICINE HAS TO TASTE BAD TO BE GOOD FOR YOU?
As I mentioned earlier, a key factor that kept me from switching sooner to a more
environmentally correct car was that they all just seemed too ugly, too uncomfortable, and too boring. I wanted to do the right thing for the planet
– but I wanted to still be able to enjoy driving at the same time.
Thankfully, my i3 has
solved all three of those problems for me.
While I will admit that the exterior is a bit of an acquired
taste, there can be no denying that the
interior is stunning. Yes, the materials are all very environmentally
friendly, but more important to me –
they are gorgeous. The design is very
fresh, very high tech, and yet very simple. Among the features I like most are the
floating high definition screens (one for the instrument cluster stuff, one for the navigation and multimedia stuff)
and the eucalyptus dash. I also really
appreciate the openness of the cabin and the great sight lines.
The interior is also quite comfortable. I was initially skeptical about the thinness
of the seats. As a veteran business
road warrior, I have equated the steady
thinning down of airline seats over the years with an equally steady decline in
the comfort of those seats. Well, I can
only hope that the designers at Boeing and Airbus get to drive an i3 soon so
they can see how to make a thinner seat super supportive and comfortable.
And as for the driving experience, well, I haven’t had so much fun driving a car since the very first one I
owned. First comes the peppiness. As the folks at BMW are fond of saying, the i3 is the fastest car they make from 0 to
30 mph. And I believe them now! Zipping in and out of city traffic is as easy
as can be – aided by how tight the turning radius is. Likewise, accelerating on to freeway ramps
and passing at freeway speeds is also quick and easy. When we had a meet up of Bay area i3 drivers
recently, I had t-shirts printed up for
everyone that carried this message: “I
drive a BMW i3. So you can eat my
dust, not my exhaust. You’re welcome.” Trust me, the message is appropriate: this
car hauls ass.
 |
| It's hard to see in the picture, but the blue T-Shirts everyone is wearing are the shirts Harold made up for the Crissy Field i3 meet. He was even gracious enough to send me a couple in the mail. Photo credit: Dino Ignacio |
The steering is also very tight. I’m sure it has some degree of electronic
assistance, but it doesn’t feel in the
least bit mushy or vague. If
anything it’s too responsive – you have
to be attentive or it’s a bit too easy to oversteer.
The ride is firm, but
in a good, BMW way. If you don’t want to feel the road at
all, then this is not the car for
you. But if you like to get some
feedback from your driving, you should
like this.
I really like the quietness of the car. If you keep the windows rolled up, it is super quiet; there is of course some wind noise at higher
speeds, but I have not found it to be objectionable. And, at the same time, if you drive
with the windows open, you can actually
hear the sounds of nature!
I’m still learning all the fancy new tech tools. Love the Harman Kardon stereo, love being able to use apps like Pandora and
TuneIn. Appreciate that iDrive has
gotten clearer and more manageable, though it still requires a learning curve. Love the collision avoidance system and the adaptive cruise
control. Haven’t yet tried the
self-parking thing – but haven’t felt the need either, as this is the smallest car I have driven in
ages and I would feel like a total wimp if I couldn’t park it by myself. : )
As for downsides of the i3, anyone who buys this car has to
accept that they are on the bleeding edge of technology and that things may go
wrong. And they have for some of the
early owners. But, knock on wood, after just about 1,000 miles, the worst thing
that has happened to me so far is that one morning while I was driving along a
nearly empty six lane freeway a warning message popped up on my screen that
said something about “Danger – objects detected in roadway.” There were no objects to be seen, so I ignored the message and kept on driving
and the message ultimately disappeared.
Also, if you choose
as I did to go with the BEV instead of the REx, you will probably find yourself being more than a little bit paranoid
about monitoring how much charge you have left. I have been running somewhere around 75 miles per full charge – a little
less than what the EPA says, but then I
drive with a bit of a lead foot and I leave the AC on all the time. So far I’ve only once gotten the dreaded
verbal warning “you have 15 miles of range left,” and thankfully that happened
when I was only about a mile from my house.
One other downside is that, to my way of thinking, the i3 is not practical as a family car. The “suicide”
doors (aka coach doors) make access to the back seat just too awkward
for regular use, especially if you are trying to cope with child seats.
OK, so the i3 is good
looking, it’s comfortable, and it’s fun
to drive. But how does it do on my
original overall reason for getting it, which is to help address the problem of global warming?
Well, for one thing I
have not been to a gas station since I got the car. And will never have to go to a gas station
with it. Take that, Exxon and BP and the rest of you big oil
companies! (The vanity plates I have on
order for my car will read: “I86DGAS”) And, at least according to the i3 mobile app, so far I have already saved 530 pounds of CO2 from being pumped out into
the air.
So, in sum, thank you BMW for giving birth to the i3 so
that I can at last do my part for solving global warming – but do it in a way
that fits my own selfish needs for style, comfort, and fun!
PS- The i3 may not be
right for everyone, but there are now
plenty of EV’s on the market – surely one of them will be right for you!
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Thanks for participating Harold! If you drive an i3 and want to share your Born Electric story here, just send me an email and we'll set it up! tom.moloughney@gmail.com
