banned google

If you listen to BMW marketing, they'll have you convinced that the only place to really experience the full benefits of the i3 is to drive it in a city environment. Pretty much every description they offer for the i3 includes how it's a car made for the Megacities of the world. Take this from the BMW i website for instance: "Electric and electrifying – the BMW i3 redefines mobililty(sic): with its visionary design and innovative BMW eDrive transmission it’s the sustainably designed vehicle for everyday urban use." I'm definitely not saying the i3 isn't perfectly capable of negotiating the urban jungle on a daily basis. In fact, city driving is where the i3 is most efficient. Driving streetlight to streetlight, using the regenerative braking to recapture much of the energy used, since you rarely drive for long without needing to slow down, is the type of driving that will allow for better overall range.  Aside from this efficiency advantage and the fact tha...

Now that BMW has begun to deliver some BEV i3s to the ActiveE Electronauts, some of those in the ActiveE trial lease program who haven't yet gotten their i3 have been asking how the i3 compares to the ActiveE. Questions on ride quality, acceleration, handling and charge rate have been asked, but the biggest concern is: How does the range compare? After all, with electric vehicles, range is paramount. So I got together with Michael and Pamela Thwaite who just last week picked up their Ionic Silver i3 and we mapped out an 80 mile loop that would include roughly 50% highway and 50% secondary and tertiary roads. While everybody has different driving needs and patterns, it was our hope that this course would provide an evenly balanced mix of different driving conditions. That being said, this wasn't a carefully controlled scientific experiment. We didn't weigh ourselves to make sure both vehicles were carrying the same weight, we didn't calibrate our speedometers or record t...