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Showing posts from February, 2014

BMW i3 Born Electric Guest Blogger: Meet Steven From The Netherlands

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So Far we've had Andy from the UK , Hil from Holland , Toni from Belgium and Jan From Belgium . We'll now be traveling to The Netherlands to see what Steven has to say about his Laurel Grey i3 REx which he picked up on Valentines Day: My name is Steven and I was Born Electric on Friday, 14th February, 2014.  Love Do I? Oh yes! BMW may not have delivered the alpha and omega of the motoring world, but boy, how good is it? Every aspect to like has been covered in many a publication on many a different medium, but does this bombardment of information convey the feeling of ’togetherness’ of the finished product I have? I guess not, but I leave this for everyone to judge for themselves. Having driven 1600 km (around 1000 mi) the last week, of which 1230 km (765 mi) electric, my preliminary conclusion is that BMW has delivered something good here. And I’m not going to be talking about the performance, which is excellent, E-range, which is adequate, or about the battery, knowing t

BMW i3 Production Delays Reported

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Virtually every facet of the i3's manufacturing process is different and BMW is evidently struggling to manage setbacks According to Jay Cole over at insideevs.com i3 production is currently 50% lower than expected at this point in time. Cole's source is Manager Magazine Online , a German Publication, which states the high rejection rate of the carbon fiber parts made for the car. The article goes on to say that BMW's recent announcement that the company will be investing another 100 million euros to increase the production of carbon fiber is tied to this issue. Manager also says BMW is only churning out 70 i3's per day which is about half of what they were hoping to be making by now. BMW began i3 production in October so they are four months in and now have over 11,000 i3's on backorder. Plus, US sales are only just beginning so it would appear that even if BMW gets the current problems solved in short order (and that's a big "if"), it will still pr

BMW i3 Carves up Monticello Raceway

A few months ago I posted a story from InsideEvs written by my good friend (and neighbor!) Chris Neff. It was his take on a day in October which he spent filming a series of videos for BMW of him driving around Monticello Raceway as a passenger in a BMW i3 driven by professional race car driver Erin Crocker. We have been waiting patiently for the release of the videos and the first in the series was finally made available. Take a look above!

Autocar Gives the i3 Rave Reviews

BMW i3 - is this the world's most desirable affordable electric car? That's the question Autocar asks. Take a look at the video and you'll see what they think.

BMW i3 Born Electric Guest Blogger: Meet Jan From Belgium

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A while ago I announced that I would be starting a new series here called, "I was Born Electric on...". The series will be featuring readers who are i3 owners and who are willing to share their thoughts on the car after owning it for a while. They will begin the post by introducing themselves and stating the date they were Born Electric, which is when they picked up their i3. Andy from the UK kicked off the Born Electric series and we then visited Hil from Holland and Toni from Belgium . We will be staying in Belgium for this next installment as we hear what Jan has to say: My name is Jan and I was Born Electric on Wednesday, 30th January, 2014.  How did I get to know the BMW i3? Well, by coincidence. I saw the small car on the Brussels car show/exhibition (Autosalon) last year in January. It was presented there as concept car which would be available very soon to the audience, as kind of a car of the future which one could buy now. When I saw it I couldn't m

BMW i3 Sochi Olympic Commercials Revealed

BMW has released a series of commercials that will be used for commercials during the Sochi Winter Olympics which just opened yesterday. There are spots for many of the new BMW products but the BMW i3 spots will be the first commercials ever aired in the US for the car so I've posted them here. The commercials are titled "Shhh", "Reasons", "Cop" and "Zero Gallons". I really like Shhh & Cop. I think Reasons is OK and am not a big fan of  Zero Gallons. Shhh (seen above) is great. A father comes home and when his son wonders why he didn't hear him pull up the dad says "Electric car...sneaky" and goes off to bed. This gives the kid the great idea of sneaking out quietly with the car for a rendezvous with his girlfriend; something that many teenage kids do. I remember pushing my dads 1976 Oldsmobile Starfire out of the driveway late at night so he wouldn't hear me "borrowing" it. I would then shut it off before I re

US i3 Orders Limited to Special "Launch Edition" Package For First Three Months

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You want one of the first i3's in the US? You'll be getting the full leather Tera World interior as seen above and every option available besides the 20" wheels then. Welcome to the "Launch Edition i3" Just yesterday, BMW i dealers received a bulletin that informed them they can officially begin to process customer orders and place them in the pipeline. Many customers have already left deposits at their local BMW dealerships even though it wasn't an official order yet, with the hope of being one of the first people to take delivery of this revolutionary vehicle. However they didn't have an official order place in the system, that was just to have a place in line reserved for them and to make sure they got one of the few allotted cars their dealer would get for 2014. So now that these reservations can be turned into official orders, everyone must be really happy, right? Not so fast. In a move that will most certainly anger many of the enthusiastic people w

BMW i3 Born Electric Guest Blogger: Meet Toni From Belgium

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A while ago I announced that I would be starting a new series here called, "I was Born Electric on...". The series will be featuring readers who are i3 owners and who are willing to share their thoughts on the car after owning it for a while . They will begin the post by introducing themselves and stating the date they were Born Electric, which is when they picked up their i3. Andy from the UK kicked off the Born Electric series and we then visited Hil from Holland . We'll now be traveling to Belgium to visit with Toni and his new Capparis White i3:    My name is Toni and I was Born Electric on Monday, 27th January, 2014. The first time I realized that there was an alternative to fossil fuels for propelling a car was in early 2011, when I came across an electronic brochure about the Opel Ampera, the European sibling of the Volt. The more I read about it, the more I was convinced that my next car had to be an electric one. The reason why I didn't go for the Am

XCAR Reviews The i3: The Ultimate Driving Machine?

There are dozens of video reviews of the i3 popping up now but this one seems pretty good so I thought it was worth putting up. Later in the week I'll have another installment of the "I was Born Electric on..." series. This time we'll be traveling to Belgium to get some insight into how a new i3 owner there is feeling about living the electric life.