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Jacob Harb (left) pictured with Oliver Walter of BMW at the LA Auto Show in 2012 I've just learned that Jacob Harb is no longer the Manager of Electric Vehicles for BMW of North America. Harb has held the position for a little over two years since the position was vacated by Richard Steinberg, who left the post in August of 2012 to assume the position of CEO of BMW's new car sharing program DriveNow. This is a bit surprising since I just talked with Jacob at the LA Auto Show a couple weeks ago where we discussed upcoming plans for BMW i. BMW hasn't announced who Harb's successor will be yet, but being close to BMW's e-mobility program I'd like to throw a couple names out there that they'll likely consider: 1) Jose Guerrero . Jose is the i3 Product Manager for North America. He knows as much about the i3 & i8 and anybody at BMW and is good in front of a camera, which is important for department heads who need to be available for interviews.  2) Joan Bowen...

Back on October 16th 2011, I celebrated the first National Plug in Day at the only event being held within driving range of my MINI-E. That was held in New York City and was one of 29 events held nationally. Last year National Plug in Day was expanded to a weekend (even though we still called it "plug in day") because there was such interest we wanted to have more opportunities to hold events. There ended up being a little over 100 different events and it was indeed so successful, that for this year and moving forward it will be called National Drive Electric Week, and we'll dedicate an entire week to host events. My MINI-E on display at the very first National Plug in Day back in 2011 This year there were an amazing 152 events taking place in 5 countries, 39 US states and 6 Canadian Provinces. There were 150 different cities in which owners of over 3,000 electric vehicles registered to display their cars and share their electric driving experience with the public. The Cu...

My name is Fred and I was born electric on July 30, 2014.  Today I have just a little over 1,000 miles on my i3 REx—over 1,000 happy miles I should add. I live in Huntington Beach, California and use my i3 regularly for running local errands, for meetings of 80 to 120 miles across the Los Angeles basin, and for pure pleasure. Indeed, it is now the only car I own. I sold my Lexus LS460L and my Lexus SC430 for the i3, and while both are great cars, the i3 meets my needs so well that I have no regrets about giving up either of them.    I never intended to own an electric vehicle and paid little attention to them believing that they were in general impractical. I was raised on the internal combustion engine and had no intention of doing anything other than sticking with what I knew and what worked for me. Adding to my mind set were two facts:  first, America is awash in fossil fuels with the potential of freeing us from the importation of foreign oil; seco...

My i3 REx. Will it now cost me $3,900 more than my contract calls for? It what can only be categorized as a major misstep, BMW of North America has announced that the i3 with range extender is not tax exempt in the state of New Jersey as what was previously reported. Back on January 27th, BMW of North America manager of Electric Vehicle sales and strategy Jacob Harb told his client advisers on a conference call that the i3 REx would be treated as a zero emission vehicle in New Jersey, and qualify for the state's Zero Emission tax exemption . That was big news at the time for New Jersey residents including myself, and was one of the final deciding factors for me to actually choose the REx version over the BEV i3. "The sales tax exemption in NJ only applies to zero-emission vehicles--and as such, does not apply to the i3 with range-extender as it does not apply currently to any vehicle with an internal combustion engine."... "Any assumption that the i3 with range-e...