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TG's electric lifetime achievement award: the BMW i3

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TG's electric lifetime achievement award: the BMW i3 | Top Gear

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This special award goes to the little BMW that could (not sell very well)

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TG's electric lifetime achievement award: the BMW i3

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
This special award goes to the little BMW that could (not sell very well)

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
This special award goes to the little BMW that could (not sell very well)

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
TG's electric lifetime achievement award: the BMW i3

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
TG's electric lifetime achievement award: the BMW i3

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
TG's electric lifetime achievement award: the BMW i3

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
This special award goes to the little BMW that could (not sell very well)

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What is it?

A failure. A folly. An attempt to reinvent the city car, and to kickstart an all-electric BMW subbrand which, quite frankly, was too clever for its own good. Or rather, for the sort of people with over £30,000 to spend on a BMW.

Not convinced. Here’s a thought experiment for you.

BMW has just announced a new small electric car. It’s got a carbon fibre passenger shell mounted on a lightweight aluminium chassis. It’s hyper-manoeuvrable, rear-wheel drive, seats four and offers the option of a range-extending scooter engine to assuage range anxiety. Inside it’s lavished with hemp fibre door trims and sustainably felled wood.

Tempted? Problem is, for the last thirty seconds you’ve been in 2013. That car, the i3, has just been killed off for good. And with it, the first flush of BMW’s all-electric strategy. The future for the ‘i’ brand isn’t innovative, bespoke rule-breakers. It’s to stuff the likes of the 4 Series, 7 Series and X3 with batteries.

Give me some details about the BMW i3.

BMW has admitted in the intervening years that the i3 was too radical, particularly in its high-roof, wonky-beltline styling. It looked like the villain’s sidekick in a Pixar movie, somehow Germanically aggressive yet cute as Wall-E. It swam against the current that demanded EVs should be conservative, to avoid scaring off the punters.

And ultimately, it drowned. The i3 now completes the holy trinity of ‘really clever German reinventions of the city car that were too radical for people to actually buy'. Mercedes has the sandwich floored, aerodynamic A-Class. Audi’s lightweight all-aluminium A2 pretty much flopped. And the i3 was not so much ahead of its time as too intelligent for a world rapidly decamping to SUVs and conspicuous consumption.

That's not to say the i3 was perfect and we were all fools. At launch it only had the range to be a second car for tottering through town: the real-world e-range was 75-90 miles, and even a 2016 battery upgrade (when BMW binned the thimble-tanked 650cc booster engine) only upped that to around 140 miles. The REx is now clobbered by the London congestion charge, which seems insane for a space-efficient hatchback that uses the same engine as millions of scooter-delivery chariots, but that’s sweeping legislation for you.

Why should I care about the BMW i3?

Look at it like this: the i3 is more spacious, more efficient and 300kg lighter than today’s Honda e. Because BMW spent millions making everything bespoke amid a worldwide economic recession – even the wiper mechanism and all of the suspension is purely for the i3 – so it could be as low-mass and parsimonious as possible.

Oh, and go take a look at the interior of a VW ID.3 or ID.4 and then try telling someone there isn’t loads of i3 inspiration in there. Except, Volkswagen cheaped out on the materials, tech, and didn’t nail the execution anywhere near as well as BMW did a decade ago. Whoops.

Why did you give the BMW i3 an award?

We handed the i3 our EV lifetime achievement award because while it may have been a commercial dead-end, BMW still deserves massive credit for putting it into production in the first place. It will become a modern classic – even as our roads are invaded by iX3s and i7s, a little fleet of i3s will continue to fight the good fight and maybe the appreciation will grow for this quirky battery-powered Quasimodo. We may never see its like again. RiP.

For the full story pick up the Electric Awards issue of Top Gear magazine

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What is it?

A failure. A folly. An attempt to reinvent the city car, and to kickstart an all-electric BMW subbrand which, quite frankly, was too clever for its own good. Or rather, for the sort of people with over £30,000 to spend on a BMW.

Not convinced. Here’s a thought experiment for you.

BMW has just announced a new small electric car. It’s got a carbon fibre passenger shell mounted on a lightweight aluminium chassis. It’s hyper-manoeuvrable, rear-wheel drive, seats four and offers the option of a range-extending scooter engine to assuage range anxiety. Inside it’s lavished with hemp fibre door trims and sustainably felled wood.

Tempted? Problem is, for the last thirty seconds you’ve been in 2013. That car, the i3, has just been killed off for good. And with it, the first flush of BMW’s all-electric strategy. The future for the ‘i’ brand isn’t innovative, bespoke rule-breakers. It’s to stuff the likes of the 4 Series, 7 Series and X3 with batteries.

Give me some details about the BMW i3.

BMW has admitted in the intervening years that the i3 was too radical, particularly in its high-roof, wonky-beltline styling. It looked like the villain’s sidekick in a Pixar movie, somehow Germanically aggressive yet cute as Wall-E. It swam against the current that demanded EVs should be conservative, to avoid scaring off the punters.

And ultimately, it drowned. The i3 now completes the holy trinity of ‘really clever German reinventions of the city car that were too radical for people to actually buy'. Mercedes has the sandwich floored, aerodynamic A-Class. Audi’s lightweight all-aluminium A2 pretty much flopped. And the i3 was not so much ahead of its time as too intelligent for a world rapidly decamping to SUVs and conspicuous consumption.

That's not to say the i3 was perfect and we were all fools. At launch it only had the range to be a second car for tottering through town: the real-world e-range was 75-90 miles, and even a 2016 battery upgrade (when BMW binned the thimble-tanked 650cc booster engine) only upped that to around 140 miles. The REx is now clobbered by the London congestion charge, which seems insane for a space-efficient hatchback that uses the same engine as millions of scooter-delivery chariots, but that’s sweeping legislation for you.

Why should I care about the BMW i3?

Look at it like this: the i3 is more spacious, more efficient and 300kg lighter than today’s Honda e. Because BMW spent millions making everything bespoke amid a worldwide economic recession – even the wiper mechanism and all of the suspension is purely for the i3 – so it could be as low-mass and parsimonious as possible.

Oh, and go take a look at the interior of a VW ID.3 or ID.4 and then try telling someone there isn’t loads of i3 inspiration in there. Except, Volkswagen cheaped out on the materials, tech, and didn’t nail the execution anywhere near as well as BMW did a decade ago. Whoops.

Why did you give the BMW i3 an award?

We handed the i3 our EV lifetime achievement award because while it may have been a commercial dead-end, BMW still deserves massive credit for putting it into production in the first place. It will become a modern classic – even as our roads are invaded by iX3s and i7s, a little fleet of i3s will continue to fight the good fight and maybe the appreciation will grow for this quirky battery-powered Quasimodo. We may never see its like again. RiP.

For the full story pick up the Electric Awards issue of Top Gear magazine

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This special award goes to the little BMW that could (not sell very well)