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Loveland Pass, Continental Divide, Colorado. Elevation 11,990 ft A few weeks ago Don Parsons of Denver, Colorado took his i3 REx on a 128 mile road trip from his house to Loveland Pass (Continental Divide, Colorado). On his way up to the 11,990 ft elevation of Loveland Pass he stopped at Beau Jo's Pizza for lunch and to charge on their public ChargePoint EVSE where his i3 REx accepted 8.9kWh's of juice to help with the rest of the climb up the mountain.  The car showed 18 miles remaining at the top of Loveland Pass, and he nearly made the trip entirely on electricity when 62 miles later the range extender kicked on and he was only 2 miles from his home.  The trip summary:   -64 miles each way -8,960 feet of climbing, 2329 Feet of descending on way out -2329 feet of climbing, 8,960 feet of descending on way back Having heard about this Continental Divide conquest, I asked Don if he wanted to write a guest blog post about the trip, but he offered to do one better. His next ...

The Challenge Last week I was contacted by High Gear Media Senior Editor, John Voelcker and asked if I had interest in doing a head to head comparison piece between my i3 REx and a Chevy Volt. Green Car Reports contributor David Noland (who happens to own a Volt and a Model S) wanted to pit the Volt against an i3 REx and asked John to reach out to me and find out if I was up for it. I liked the idea of swapping cars and driving side by side for a few hours and that met David's needs as well. David wanted to do an efficiency test and measure the miles per kWh's used driving 15 to 20 miles in a city environment, and then do the same thing at highway speeds of 65 to 75mph. Going in, David expected the i3 to be more efficient in the city driving test, but the Volt to be more efficient on the highway test where weight plays a lesser role and aerodynamics are more important. The i3 is tall, has a large front area and is a bit boxy compared to the Volt. This creates a much higher CdA ...

The i3 is the most efficient production car available today Every now and then I have a reader send me an article they wrote and ask if I'd like to post it here. Usually it's not exactly what I'm looking for and politely explain why I won't be posting it and thank them for sending it nonetheless.  Occasionally I'll get something interesting though, like the post below which was sent to me by Robert Kasper. I think it's particularly timely since just last week I posted the Tesla/BMW comparison piece and I think this is an interesting follow up to it.  I hope you enjoy:                       Efficiency or Range?  You Can’t Have Both . …But Advanced Technology Can Help. By Rob Kasper In the world of electric vehicles, whether Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) or Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs), there is a clear trade off between range and efficiency.  ...

Christopher on pick-up day! Born Electric 8/6/14 An EV Awakening Hi, my name is Christopher and I was born electric on August 6, 2014. In retrospect, ending up behind the wheel of BMW’s new electric i3 feels like it was inevitable.  If you let it, life has a funny way of getting you where you belong.  My path into an i3 took about seven years, but with the benefit of hindsight, it feels like destiny. The car I took to college in the late 80s was an I nka orange 1972 BMW 2002. That was followed by a jade green one, which I still vividly remember driving across the country in the summer of 1989.  I have been a fan of the BMW brand since those days and have owned five of them of various types in a continuous chain over the last 30 years.  For me the design, the handling, the safety, the quality, the purity of focus, the racing heritage - all of these things made BMW a brand I kept coming back to.  I have also always been drawn to the geeky technical side of thing...

Horatiu Boeriu of BMWBLOG recently did a piece titled "BMW vs. Tesla - Which Company Is A Bigger Innovator?" in which he mentions that while both companies are competing in the premium automobile segment and are committed to electric mobility, they are taking different paths to achieve success. I'm not going to try to analyze who has it right or who is a bigger innovator, but it's clear that both companies have chosen to focus on different aspects of their respective vehicles. With Tesla, it's all about the batteries. Unlike every other automobile manufacturer, BMW included, Tesla's approach isn't for their electric cars to complement their lineup of gasoline and diesel offerings since they don't have any. Instead, it is to render gasoline vehicles from their competitors obsolete. In order to do so, their cars have to be at least as good or better than most features of competing gas cars; and that includes range, performance and utility. BMW on the ot...