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Believe it or not, this was an i3. Unlike the 328i that was also destroyed in the fire, it's difficult to tell that this pile of burnt material was once a car. One of two things usually happens when people see an image of an electric vehicle on fire or the remnants of an electric vehicle that had been on fire. If you're an EV supporter, you probably hold your breath and grimace a bit until you can read the article to learn what caused the fire and if anyone was hurt. But for many people who are unfamiliar with electric vehicles, they likely question the safety of EVs. They don't even have to read the article; they just see "EV and fire" together and the unfortunate and uninformed speculation begins. Luckily, since the recent electric vehicle movement began roughly 6 years ago, there have been very few cases of EV fires, and to my knowledge no one involved has suffered an injury. Other than a couple of incidents involving the defunct Fisker Karma, the causes of EV ...

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...

  Occasionally I cross post content from other websites here (with permission of course) when I think the article is both interesting and exceptionally well done. Such is the case with this post written by Chuck Vossler of BMWBLOG about the repair process of the i3. I think Chuck may have taken particular interest in this story since he recently revealed to me that he has indeed ordered an i3 for his personal use. I have also been talking with him for the past year about his interest in solar electric and am happy to say he has indeed installed a solar array on his home and will soon be joining me in driving his i3 on pure sunshine, or "driving the future" as I like to say. Electric vehicles combined with solar electricity are such a fantastic combination, and adding the second one to your life is such a natural decision to come to once you have the first, as long as it's physically and financially possible to do so. The entire article and pictures below were written by C...

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...