2015 BMW i3 – Road Test and Review
Had we had a Level 2 charger, it would have taken five hours for a full recharge and BMW’s I Charging Station would do it in 3.5 hours.
Located below the rear storage area is a 125 kW electric motor mated to a single-speed transmission that powers the rear wheels. BMW says that the effective power is 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. Press the accelerator and you’ll bear witness to the immediacy of electric torque. It’s an adult go cart with air conditioning and Bluetooth.
The car’s interior has a hushed tone, there’s no whine or droning as you’d hear in some other electric powered cars.
The car decelerates in an unusual manner due to its somewhat aggressive regenerative braking system. Taking one’s foot off the accelerator pedal results in the car immediately slowing down as it attempts to recapture as much kinetic energy as it can. It’s not at all like a hybrid, which would sail or coast, but it does take a bit of getting used to.
Steering was very responsive to even the slightest inputs. It always went exactly where I pointed it and road feel was more than acceptable.
We took many drives using BMW’s Eco Pro+ settings, which squeezes every last bit of range out of the battery. Eco Pro + will limit the speed to 56 mph (90 km/h), a number chosen by BMW because driving faster than 50 mph (80 km/h) creates significant aerodynamic drag, which dramatically decreases an EV’s range. The setting also turns off the air conditioning (the fan will continue to operate so don’t do this during a heat wave unless absolutely necessary). You could see the range increasing on the dashboard display (if you drive solely in Eco Pro+, you can expect almost 100 miles or 160 kilometers from a charge) as we continued to drive but it does remove a lot of the Freude am Fahren from the driving experience.