Here’s Why The BMW i3 Is A Great Used Electric Car Buy

you can see that you actually have somewhat of an amount of space in here you can store your charging uh things here and they hide from view all of the electrical components that you normally just see under the hood of most EVS also there's a we didn't stage this there's a uh donut in this one uh that's kind of funny but uh that can't be helping too much of the range a little bit of extra mass but it's fine hey guys remember the Chesapeake climate Action Network action fund that we ran the prize to win a rivian r1t or a Tesla Model S plaid over a number of episodes this year well guess what one of you guys wanted Alex dude we're so pumped that you won a rivian r1t big thanks to ccan for sponsoring out of spec and for an out of spec viewer to win the awesome prize here's Alex I'm really excited to you know uh have a pickup truck that's electric win or lose I was excited to like you know give a little bit for charity I guess for that and I actually have solar at my house so something to help out uh like you know maintain my energy self-sustaining at my house it was just a good opportunity to help out uh you know you guys that were doing a lot for the climate and moving us forward where we should be going in the future guys if you would like to be like Alex and win a cool EV next year head to evraffle.org to sign up on the future announcements of this raffle big thanks to Chesapeake climate Action Network action fund for sponsoring this video and a whole bunch of others to come next year hello everyone what's up I'm Max with out of spec reviews and next up in the used EV series under 25 000 we're looking at a BMW I3 now the market being what it is this one is actually thirty thousand dollars that's because it's a 2020 I3 not so long ago you could get the BMW i3 for really cheap and that was something special because the I3 well when it came out in 2014 for its debut model year it was a frankly Space Age car we're talking rear wheel drive mid-engine or just say mid motor mounting carbon fiber plastic reinforced chassis super lightweight super ahead of its time well the sad thing about this car is it had limited range when it came not only 83 miles now that got bumped up iteratively and it this one we're looking at has 150 miles of range but that wasn't enough people just never bought into it and to be fair the original price for this car was quite something we're talking I think 50 to 60 thousand dollars uh it started at 45 Grand but frankly you just have to be crazy to spend that much new and so there was a point in time a few years ago where you could get a car like this even a 2019-2020 model with the biggest 42 kilowatt hour pack new uh you know new-ish a used one you could get that for like 18 Grand well the Market's not that anymore but you still can't find these cars under 25 Grand if you're looking at 2015 2016 model year so I'm going to give you a quick walk around of the I3 and we're going to talk about this specific one then Jordan and I later in the video are gonna drive it and then I'm gonna give you a full buyer's guide where I talk about all the changes they made to i3s over the years and which one you should get especially if you're on a budget so this I I3 we're looking at like I said 2020 it's riding on 19-inch wheels these kind of Aero blade style now the unique thing about I3 and if Jordan comes in here you can see is it has really skinny Wheels now BMW did this for uh basically efficiency reasons but these low rolling resistance Wheels they don't have a huge contact patch or the ground and combined with this car being rear-wheel drive you might wonder how does it do in Winter well assuming you put blizzax on it which BMW actually did have OEM spec made by Bridgestone you can get winter tires for this it's actually not bad however this car is Infamous for very aggressive regenerative braking so especially in low traction environments like on the snow and ice you want to be aware of that this car will break on its own very abruptly now overall I just want to comment on the design of the I3 I think it's lovely this spec here in white and black in my opinion it like should be the flagship color for I3 it's just so beautiful the way it contrasts you have these blue accents that being W design language for electric and if you look at BMW today they're taking cars like the i7 which cut Kyle just drove those are just conversions uh they're shared platforms with their gas cars the I3 was so special because when this car came out it was great it was ground up new it was really something quite exciting just like the Chevy bolt in this series every other car we've looked at has been a compliance car it's been a shared platform with some gas car that the automaker converted this was something different it was new and it's really sad in my opinion that BMW kind of departed from this direction and is now making cars that you can see or in some ways are limited what do I mean by that well everyone talks about frunks with EVS let me show you the front on the I3 because believe it or not the I3 is the only car in this series that we looked at that actually has a frunk don't believe me if I open up the hood you can see that you actually have somewhat of an amount of space in here you can store your charging uh things here and they hide from view all of the electrical components that you normally just see under the hood of most EVS also there's a we didn't stage this there's a uh donut in this one uh that's kind of funny but uh that can't be helping too much of the range a little bit of extra mass but it's fine now if I close that this three uh by the way we're looking at Courtesy of BMW of Denver downtown it's their model so this is a name brand vehicle when Jordan and I drive it uh they're insisting on being in the car with us sure that's fine we thank them for working with us to let them let us use this I3 but yeah like and let me talk about specs before we get into driving because this I3 well it is running a 42 kilowatt hour battery that was the biggest they ever put in this car and no it doesn't have the range extender if you know anything about the I3 you might have heard that they have this range extender engine basically it's like a 2.4 gallon tank you actually have this little gasoline engine that's a generator that can extend your range in my opinion that takes away from the purity of the I3 it adds weight it adds complexity and they got better over the years and more reliable but I think if you're getting an I3 you might as well go pure go light get the fastest one the simplest one the one that just battery now it's easy to say on this one because it 42 kilowatt hours but the I3 initially came with a 22 kilowatt hour gross pack of which you had net capacity of about 19 kilowatt hours that's where you've got the 80 mile range from now they bumped that up to 33 kilowatt hours in 2017 and then in 2019 you got 42 kilowatt hour standard so this model here to iterate 153 miles of range now this one is also the only car we looked at in the series that's rear wheel drive you've got one motor power in the rear axle and it's giving you I believe 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque now that may not sound like a super impressive figure but consider that this is a carbon fiber composite aluminum subframe car it's super light so that goes zero to 60 and just over seven seconds but that's 0-30 in particular in this car is really quick and because it's rear wheel drive it's got these skinny tires it honestly has quite Nimble handling but we'll get to that in the driving part of this video now I'm just going to walk around quickly and show you the trunk because you also get quite a decent amount of usable space on the I3 now this trunk at the moment isn't working so I might have to go back in the car and get my key it's supposed to be a keyless entry trunk but who knows maybe the key fobs on low battery now also the tail lights on the I3 always a super distinctive design element something I've always loved I know some people call the I3 a futuristic egg I think that's a term of endearment I personally like this futuristic egg and inside here we've got a level one charging cable now this car did come standard as of 2015 of DC fast charging 50 kilowatts similar to a lot of the other cars you'd like in this series of course it also had level one and level 2 Charging with AC now if I look into the trunk here you can see that as they've expanded the battery this is the biggest battery right they ever made 42 kilowatt hours you really don't get any space under here it's all just battery but it is a fairly big battery for a fairly small vehicle giving it 150 miles of range the best we've looked at in this series aside from the bolt it's still a far cry from what you get with the bolt and those new batteries but it's a hatchback so I can fold down these seats and get a usable amount of space now we do have to talk about the rear seats because that's something else that's kind kind of weird about the I3 if I uh open the rear door well you'll see that it's actually a latch here if Jordan comes in you can see it's um the flattering term for these is Coat Stores they were called suicide doors but that name's not super politically correct so coach doors is what you should call them but basically you have rear wheel opening doors and then you have this kind of interesting um window design here the whole door also like these materials like this was I believe uh some kind of recycled material it's all making use of vegan materials BMW uh you can see also put the carbon tub here so this car is just making use of Space Age materials really quite futuristic both outside and in and if I get in the rear seat behind myself where I'd have it configured as a driver uh it's you know it's fine uh but it's a little bit compact but that's been every car we've looked at I think the Bolton leaf and then standouts for cargo space this one is okay I do get cup holders here which is nice they're actually uh right in the middle here but I don't get an arm rest and you can't seat five people in this car unlike the leaf you can only seat four because it's a two by two setup now one more thing I should show you is the charging door because I've been talking about charging a little bit where is the charging door good question the other side because it's a European car what did you expect so rear passenger side we're going to look at our honestly pretty big aperture for this door like geez uh nice little kind of motor design there now these this is before BMW saw the light and had those amazing hinge opening flaps these guys are just on wires yeah it's a little bit lame but there you go DC fast charging on this car up to 50 kilowatts may not sound like a lot but because it's a smaller battery than the bolt it charged I believe six and a half hours on level two 240 volt and uh just about an hour and a half with DC fast charging not terrible but anyhow that's been my walk around of the I3 now Jordan and I and uh rod from BMW of Denver are gonna drive it and then we'll finish up the video with a quick buyer's guide where we talk about which one you should actually get to save money okay starting on the I3 Jordan and I are here we've also got Rod courtesy BMW Denver in the back but yeah we're just going to basically quickly drive this car give you our impressions of it so there is a start button interestingly on the I3 uh which I guess every car we looked at including the bolt has had one right but the Tesla's the rivians they don't do that just interesting kind of uh philosophy some people like having that I do like however this weird gauge selector like a lot of things in the I3 it's quirky but I do think it has a lot of Personality it does make you feel like you're driving a car of the future I should know because this is a 2020 model on this guy we're looking at iDrive 6 over here so this wasn't seven even though that came out that year I think maybe the 2021 was the last model year of I3 they made maybe the update of that I don't know but this did have car play however you couldn't get a carplay in I3 until 2018 uh so BMW was a little late on the party there uh but if you get to go to 2018 or later model year you do get carplay so that's you know something important for all of you Tech nerds out there now driving this car right those super skinny Bridgestone ecopia tires and the 19-inch Wheels uh it's a surprising amount of traction because it's a light car and I really love to get up and go it has we have a red light ahead here so I'm not going to launch it but um in general I just really appreciate how this car has uh just such a zippy character part of that's the rear wheel drive and like any true BMW they did obsess over 50 50 weight distribution on I3 and it actually achieves that if you get the battery EV spec I know everyone bangs on about wrecks and the range extender that you can get on this car and frankly I think it misses the point because if you're talking about range extender well you can look at a Chevy Volt you can look at any amount of plug-in hybrids this car in my opinion is best at its best when it's a pure battery electric car it's the lightest it's the fastest spec you can get it's cheaper because they're a little bit less desirable but I think people are missing out because range was never the big point of this car even in this one with 153 mile range um you know it's not a ton of range the bolt killed it on Range even when it got to this spec but it's about the driving enjoyment it's about this being a super efficient City car and also just the feeling in here it's a bit like a fish ball and I mean that in a flattering sense I really like the visibility I'm getting I have actually a up high driving position if that's something you like and then this funky of Jordan looks on the camera here uh the funky sunroof that you could get now this is a deco world I believe uh spec or maybe it's Mega world I don't know we'll talk in the buyer's guide this video about the trims but you could get these in uh you know funny techno name trims Deco world uh Mega World Giga world and Terra world so a lot of funkiness and personality in this car and Jordan as a passenger so far we're just you know low speeds driving around town what have you thought super comfortable I mean I love the spaciousness and the I guess feel of the Interior the light above me is nice some of these cars that are cheaper they sacrifice in different methods and so a lot of them Sacrifice by not having a sunroof of course a lot of cars have that as an option but this is a cool like almost double bubble approach yeah so it feels more sports car even though you are in kind of a cube orb type thing yep but the I3 as far as all the cars in the series probably one of my favorites as far as design it is polarizing a bit some people think it's ugly some people think it's cool I think it is one of the more interesting EVS to look at um you know like we do compare this to a bolt a lot but this has less range than the bolt but a lot more range than some of the others we've looked at like the Fiat 500e or the e-golf those you know combustion platforms modified to be electric this one is 150 miles of range which I could see as usable for me in my calculations and that's with a long commute included so it's definitely shorter than you know Tesla but longer than a lot of the other competition yes and grenin I should note the 150 mile range of course being if you get 2019 or newer you're looking at like 110 mile range if you get the 33 kilowatt hour battery made from 2017 to 2019 and earlier than that you're looking at the original 80 mile range which was never that great but also that would be the lightest either for Ev purists out there so driving this around even you know in Denver's terrible potholder in the streets it's fine with these tires uh and around town like I said it's just so zippy I love even that like 30 to 40 0 to 30 those low speed accelerations are really fun if this car is governed to 93 miles an hour and frankly if you're on the highway with these skinny tires I don't think you need to come much faster than that so it's fine always has been super efficient and I really like the region approach BMW had here it's aggressive you can't really modulate it much but it's true one pedal and this car kind of forces you to be one pedal and a lot of cars don't have one pedal in this project yeah the sole I was just looking at the sole EV didn't uh the Fiat 500e we looked at yep they missed out on that opportunity but this I just love how everything is laid out in here the cool like interesting floating screen and it's almost like two floating screens and the I mean there they had a light interior for these as well with different light components and I love the contrast of the materials what do you think of the funky like uh I don't know what recycled plastic this is but all the funky kind of vehicles I really like it you see that over here on the door as well I think it's a really unique approach you know Mazda did some of that with the new mx-30 they're complying its car for California and I think that really makes sense because the whole idea with these cars is efficiency and more eco-minded Concepts and so using eco-minded materials is a really good thing even if it means a bit more r d up front but I think all right is the story of this car right BMW kind of bet the house or at least they originally did with their electric strategy here and you know people didn't buy it because it was super expensive new uh frankly but I mean for the price of these are going now even used it's such a space age car it's so distinctive I really do love the airiness of this cabin like you're saying the double bubbles uh sunroof and everything it's fun and um yeah I like that aggressive region approach generally I would say this is the kind of car where yeah maybe it's not the most friendly EV for you uh people coming from Ice Vehicles out there oh I thought this would be a turn in Road it's not so we're gonna test the turning radius really quickly here um it's really good turns out short wheelbase Car rear wheel drive uh you're never gonna have to worry about understeer I love that but yeah if I accelerate from a stop here I just oh this infinite so fun the Dynamics of BMW come through with this car and that's what a lot of the other cars aren't really known for you know the golf can be kind of interesting but they they didn't really turn a Golf R into an electric they just it's nowhere near as spicy as this and if you are looking at above that 25 Grand price comp you could get the i3s which they made in 2018 um and later model years that was I think like 10 more horsepower or 20 pound feet more torque uh marginal but you know a little bit spicier still on top of this already pretty fast powertrain yeah the S was genuinely fun I did drive that back in the day but did they give it wider tires too or this is 155 so these guys are super narrow um basically like moped spec but you know it contributes to efficiency which is crazy and it's so unique and cool I mean this is a car to drive if you want to be known that you're driving eco-minded a lot of the other cars are quote-unquote sleepers it's like a lot of people don't even know which ones are electric or not yeah this is all about that Driving Experience and letting the world know that guess what I'm in an EV and this is a statement car where it's like yeah that e-golf like it looks like a golf the slowly I mean they all look the Chevy bolt you know and even though it's a grand SUV does it look that futuristic no just looks like a better Chevy tracks so yeah so what does that tell you this tells you something uh even though you know and again I have to be nostalgic right BMW's current electric strategy whether the i7 that Kyle drove you know those are super great cars super fast but we're talking about over engineering that car to the point if they're matching the ice car right they're building it to spec they want to match the engine this was just always EV from the ground up uh and this was you know back when BMW had a very different approach to building an EV so super compelling in that way it's quirky it's funky and yes you're paying a premium now in the used Market but if you want something with personality if you want the most efficient the most space agv uh you want your carbon fiber this is kind of your only game in town yeah honestly final thoughts speaking of game in town this is the perfect Town Car just driving all around town the nvh is fantastic I hear like no creaks and rattles it's nice and quiet in here we can easily have a conversation at speed yeah what do you think of the electric motors just natural sound I think it's fine yeah it's always hard in cars to tell what's piped in and artificial I think there is a little bit of sound design work here but the motor generally is quiet and you know it's I guess it sounds as futuristic as it looks yeah it sounds interesting and it's not iconic Sounds by Hans Zimmer or anything like that no like you see the I-4 and The IX yeah and I like those not everyone does this is the more safe approach where it just sounds like a I don't know electric motor wearing up which it is yes and and fun and it's not just the looks like functionally that aggressive regen it gives you all that so you know in short I think I3 is the car you get if you want personality you're paying a premium on the market for these now though and you're not going to get the most range when compared to a bolt but liquid cool battery pack super well engineered car super Space Age and even now I think something that looks quite distinctive agreed and I will say I've driven cars twice this amount of money without less interesting and less quality feeling interior so for what it's worth I think this does have its own bargain so again this is a 2020 technically been over the original price when we're looking but we're not disqualifying it because you can find i3s in the price bracket yeah and we'll talk in the buyer's guide part of this video which we'll film later at home about which specific I3 you should get to save the most money now I'm looking for BMW i3s that are within 500 miles of Boulder Colorado and of course we're going to limit our results to that maximum price cap of 25 000 now in terms of model year 2021 was the last made but I don't think we're gonna find the recent i3s because the prices have just gone so high in this market and yep just as it's expected looking at carvana results we're really seeing 2014 through 2016 models somewhere the range extender which obviously adds a premium Now on these early models 2014 through 2016 you had a 22 kilowatt hour battery and that meant that you really just had not that much range 83 miles EPA range but if you had the range extent sender you can potentially almost double that because you have a 2.4 gallon gas tank it was electronically limited on these cars to 1.9 gallons for U.S regulations because if the car went further and gassed and electric then it would be considered an electric car for tax credit reasons now those tax credits no longer apply new because the car is not made new but if you buy it used that four thousand dollar credit under 25 Grand of course could be very tempting so I'm not sure exactly on the rules though if range extender applies to that you can always get the range extender one from these model years and hack it afterwards with like a USB flash drive of course it's unofficial but that'll unlock that full 2.4 gallon tank it's a software limitation the BMW put on these early models now this one has high mileage but don't worry about high mileage as much on I3 as long as there's no accident history high mileage is nothing to worry about because well their liquid cooled actively managed batteries on these cars super nice to see now I'm going to go back to the search results and like I said 2014 through 2016 why the big get Delta between that and 2017 well once you get to 20 17 I3 it's like oh we actually see one here you've got s standard a 33 kilowatt hour pack big increase that bumped the range up from about 80 miles to 110 miles uh and that range would go down a bit more if you added the range extender because that added extra weight now this model looks uh you know high mileage but not that high six to eight thousand miles nothing insane for an I3 and it looks like clean you know history through carvana so this looks like a deal you actually can find some 2017s for under 25 Grand so if your budget allows I would get 2017 for just that more range now let's say you're a Tech head or you want apple carplay right the smartphone mirroring you're gonna have to get 2018 or newer and I'm just not sure if we can find any 2018 model years of I3 that qualify now in terms of trim there were a few different levels there was of course deco World Mega Giga and Terra these mainly apply to like interior technology features things like nicer materials uh the thing I would care about is just finding LED headlamps which I believe was giggle world and above um and then it actually became standard on much later model years but led headlamps great safety feature in terms of parking assist and all of those fancy features I can you know I can live without those but that's up to you but do consider like I said basically model here equating the battery if you can find 2017 that's a huge bump up in quality of life with that bigger range 2019 of course would bump that up to 42 kilowatt hours like the 150 mile range one that Jordan and I were driving earlier in this video but I'm just not seeing any of those for this price unfortunately but I am seeing a lot of the 2014s and like I said if you avoid the range extender you get a less complicated lighter car that's likely cheaper and just there's less things to maintain or fewer things you don't have a gasoline moped engine to worry about so yeah that's what I'm seeing for I3 at least through carvana if I keep scrolling down I find some interestingcars.com results um here's a 2016 with the range extender that's actually very low mileage for not a bad price in this market and then I'm also seeing let's see uh any 2017 so we can find yeah here's another 2017 in Utah for a decent price not that high mileage not bad now of course I'd want to look on this one and see what kind of equipment it comes with the heated seats were standard on 2015 and newer as was DC fast charging so the one thing to look out for I would say is if you get a very early model Year by the way this one's a good deal yeah look at that so LED headlights and heated seats standard on 2015 and newer but the thing I'm mentioning about 2014s to look out for is make sure they have that DC fast charging package if that's something you care about as of 2015 and newer this was standard on i3s but there were some 2014 i3s that did not have the fast charging so yeah there we go so that's kind of the story with I3 don't worry too much about Mila just make sure it's a clean car and uh yeah options are you know they range in terms of trim and stuff but the biggest thing I would be concerned about is deciding do you want that range extender and the complexity it adds is that extra range worth it for you it might be on especially these earlier models and do you want to maybe spend a little more money on a newer I3 like a 2017 that has a bigger battery or do you want to skip that used tax credit all together spend more money for 2019 or newer that has the very largest battery now that doesn't make as much sense because you won't get the four thousand dollar credit and those models just seem to be well Above This price anyhow so maybe I would say stick to 2017 but if you can find the good deals on those that model here if I scroll back to a 2017 I think that's really The Sweet Spot here with a range extender or not like I said depending on whether you want it yeah that's my buying advice for i3 but thank you so much for watching uh we'll be back with actually a few more uh compliance cars and just other cheap EVS because we want to cover basically every one of them so if you find one that's good for us to look at or that you feel like we're missing let us know because we're going to be looking at everything with a few more episodes to go before we make our decision thanks so much for watching and stay tuned to out of spec reviews

Channel: Out of Spec Reviews

Views: 65,354

Keywords: Car, Review, Acceleration, Braking, POV, Handling, Test, VS, Comparison, Interior, Exterior, Supercar, Hypercar, Sedan, SUV, CUV, TFL, Redline Reviews, Motor1, sports car

Id: 1OpxwQnROU0

Length: 27min 6sec (1626 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 07 2022