OK, so I now admit I have moved to the green (or is it blue?) side with a car with no tailpipe emissions, and indeed, no exhaust pipe.
The little i3 appeals to me as it is still the only composite mass production car. I have been working with carbon race cars since the mid 80’s and I understand their advantages, but cost has always kept them from the mainstream until BMW’s pioneering work. They built over 200K of them from 2013 to 2022
Like my wife’s taste in music, her taste in cars has been very hard to pigeon hole. From Mini to Lexus and SLK to Defender, the one defining factor has been a certain quirkiness. Good experience of both ML and GLE led us to an X3 BMW, but whilst there was nothing wrong with it, she just found it a bit ‘meh’
The i3 I picked up from Canterbury yesterday is just 2 years and 5k miles old. I’ve had new cars delivered which have been in worse condition and the description ‘as new’ really does apply to this one. Both the sale and handover were seamless and the young sales guy was a motorsport nut, which helped.
Range anxiety was dismissed over the course of my 155 mile journey back to Norfolk, as the more I drove, the greater the range diverged from the distance to go and I got back with 65 miles still ‘in the tank’
The throttle pedal has 3 ‘zones’. At the top is regen with up to 0.3g braking, then a small coasting zone like having the car in neutral when on the move, then press a little more for instant go. It must have taken nearly a mile to get used to, but then I touched the brakes only once over the rest of the journey, only thanks to a lane swapping white van man.
Over the last ten miles I got to let the car off the lead on the quiet Norfolk roads and found a real sports car! The low weight and low centre of gravity coupled to instant access to huge gobs of torque, makes the car a real hoot to drive. I laughed out loud on the exit of some tight bends as the little car shot out of them with just a spot of TC to keep the rear tyres gripping. A proper little roller skate. I wasn’t expecting that much fun!
My wife had a short run in the car before I put it in the garage overnight to charge. 170 miles and it has cost less than a tenner to fill the ‘tank’. About 30% of the fuel costs of the Macan diesel. When was the last time you filled up for £10? I think it is 30 years ago on a short range motor bike for me!
Welcome to my composite world! The shell is strong enough not to require a 'B' pillar.
Memory seats are but a memory in this lightweight car, so markers on the seat rails help define positions for Mr & Mrs.
That's a throttle pedal Jim, but not as we know it.
As new!
Quirky, yes. Pretty? I don't think so! But then that's not why I buy them.
The little i3 appeals to me as it is still the only composite mass production car. I have been working with carbon race cars since the mid 80’s and I understand their advantages, but cost has always kept them from the mainstream until BMW’s pioneering work. They built over 200K of them from 2013 to 2022
Like my wife’s taste in music, her taste in cars has been very hard to pigeon hole. From Mini to Lexus and SLK to Defender, the one defining factor has been a certain quirkiness. Good experience of both ML and GLE led us to an X3 BMW, but whilst there was nothing wrong with it, she just found it a bit ‘meh’
The i3 I picked up from Canterbury yesterday is just 2 years and 5k miles old. I’ve had new cars delivered which have been in worse condition and the description ‘as new’ really does apply to this one. Both the sale and handover were seamless and the young sales guy was a motorsport nut, which helped.
Range anxiety was dismissed over the course of my 155 mile journey back to Norfolk, as the more I drove, the greater the range diverged from the distance to go and I got back with 65 miles still ‘in the tank’
The throttle pedal has 3 ‘zones’. At the top is regen with up to 0.3g braking, then a small coasting zone like having the car in neutral when on the move, then press a little more for instant go. It must have taken nearly a mile to get used to, but then I touched the brakes only once over the rest of the journey, only thanks to a lane swapping white van man.
Over the last ten miles I got to let the car off the lead on the quiet Norfolk roads and found a real sports car! The low weight and low centre of gravity coupled to instant access to huge gobs of torque, makes the car a real hoot to drive. I laughed out loud on the exit of some tight bends as the little car shot out of them with just a spot of TC to keep the rear tyres gripping. A proper little roller skate. I wasn’t expecting that much fun!
My wife had a short run in the car before I put it in the garage overnight to charge. 170 miles and it has cost less than a tenner to fill the ‘tank’. About 30% of the fuel costs of the Macan diesel. When was the last time you filled up for £10? I think it is 30 years ago on a short range motor bike for me!
Welcome to my composite world! The shell is strong enough not to require a 'B' pillar.
Memory seats are but a memory in this lightweight car, so markers on the seat rails help define positions for Mr & Mrs.
That's a throttle pedal Jim, but not as we know it.
As new!
Quirky, yes. Pretty? I don't think so! But then that's not why I buy them.
