Good luck you will never look back!!!
I will shortly be picking up a new 120 Ah i3S and wonder if any owners have any tips. It will be my first electric car so a big change. I had one on an extended test drive and it was great fun. Can’t wait!
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Good luck you will never look back!!!
Ditto, a year of Tesla and no more ICE for me, ever!
There is a fantastic I3 community via facebook group - have a search - they have loads of info and help/advice - very worthwhile, im toying with one, and its a fantastic resource
Hi Ed, my wife is on her second i3, we picked up an i3s back in May this year. Having owned the first generation before it, I can say the i3s 120ah his a huge improvement. You now have practical every day range. My wife used to charge every 2 days. On average she now charges at home once a week. We find the charging infrastructure to be a little impractical so mostly charge at home. In winted preconditioning your car is well advised. You can expect the range to ary a bit between charges. But otherwise its a great pick-up. We have the white & black i3s, what spec did you go for.
I am waiting for BMW to release a high performance saloon to rival the porsche taycan and offer performance. I can't wait for an offering like that. But in the meantime I just ordered an M5 to replace my M3. I collect the M5 on Monday and can't wait.
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Paul,
sounds like you are really making the most of the last years of the great ICE performance cars - nice choice
I'm hoping too for a BMW electric sports coupe/saloon, I've failed to get the "man maths" right a few time to get into an i8 but as it would have to be our main car it doesn't work so something with a little more practicality but all the performance must be coming soon from them
Thanks chaps.
Paul, mine is black / white as well. Should be collecting on Sunday fingers crossed.
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Good luck with the m5, got mine a couple of weeks ago and it’s fantastic, a real Jekyll and Hyde!
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Here it is, when I was picking it up on Monday. I charged up this morning on the local 175kwh charger which is super fast.
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I've had an i3 since January and really love it. I came from a 540 Touring to it, and the i3 feels faster although obviously it isn't at higher speeds.
The heating struggles in the winter to keep the car warm, although if you pre-heat it it's not too bad.
My main tip is about public charging. There are 2 networks worth joining: Ecotricity have most of the motorway services and Polar have most non motorway chargers.
On the subject of charging, is it the case that you need to have some form of subscription for each charging point, otherwise you could find yourself at a charging station and if you haven’t subscribed to that particular company, you can’t recharge? Ie, there’s no way to pay by debit, or credit card?
In my experience so far as long as you have a smartphone and can download the relevant app from whichever network it is, you’ll be fine. Most of the ones around where I live are on Polar, but when I drove to Birmingham it was another brand, Pod Point I think, and all that was needed was to get the app and charging was free.
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Yes and no; most off-motorway chargers have been taken over by Polar but their pricing can be ridiculous. I still have my CYC card which works for the chargers I need although each of the three chargers I use has a different pricing structure.
I also use a charge point at a local Bannatynes (Engenie I think?) which is a PAYG so I just tap my credit card to start a charge. It’s much more convenient and definitely the way the charging network will end up.
Whilst the PAYG is 35p/kwhr, minimum £1.50, there’s a polar rapid round the corner which is 30p/kwhr with a £1 connection fee and polar membership requirement. I’ve never seen it used as you need to be putting in greater than 20kwhr to break even and that’s not possible with my van or indeed, many EVs on the road today. I also tend to just put enough charge in to get me home to charge cheaply on my home charger.
Cheers for all the replies re. charging points. It’s that kind of ridiculous situation that put me off even contemplating a move to EV.
They’ll be changing the plugs so that you can only use their own specific connection type before too long.
It’s a shame the government aren’t doing more to provide an easy transition away from fossil fuels.
It’s not that bad, I have only charged once away from home in 5 months. All the rest is at home, but if you plan it’s easy to manage. Zap map helps a lot.
It is improving all the time too. When we got the Kia EV for the Mrs 3 years ago I spent ages looking at chargers in various places with different apps, but again we only charged once in 2 years away from home
I don't need a car living in London, but prospectively moving to somewhere greener soon and this thread really has me looking at the i3 as a potential car. Seems achievable on finance, minimal running costs, and I love the concept of the car and the interior. Would have to be the REx model though.
Here in rural Norfolk, I understand they are planning on installing chargers but in my 4 years up here I’ve not seen even 1, although I’m sure that will change! - it’s a shame really as my daily commute is perfect for an EV and we rarely if ever do more than a couple of hundred miles in a day (and I have a diesel that will do 650 on a tank if we really need to) - but talk of heaters not being that effective, and with the occasional really cold snap up here and proper, road blocking snow that needs a 4x4 to negotiate, I don’t think it’s a viable choice at the moment - and this talk of charging points requiring membership etc etc - sounds like a nightmare
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My 540 had it's own heating problems. It took so long to get up to temp that often the journey was over before it warmed up. With the i3 you can program the keyfob to activate the HVAC so it's the right temp before you get in, summer or winter.
I don’t have an i3 but my plug in hybrid BMW 225xe Active Tourer is great. The BMW Pre-conditioning is superb, when it was 3C over night last week I jumped in the car at 06:30 and it was pre-set to 23C, lovely, and all the windows were clear too. It’s a truly wonderful gadget to have on a car and even makes me look forward to winter.