It's a pity that it costs so much to launch a new automotive brand name, because e-Setta (an electric play on BMW's classic bubble-car Isetta) was reportedly considered, and might have proved an easier sell for BMW's new earth-hugging electrics. Instead, the 285 (of 340) BMW dealers signed up to sell the BMW i3 and other electric cars will need to work hard to dissuade folks from expecting to have their sustainable, baby-carbon-footprint cake and eat up twisty byways, too.
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"But Mr. Technical Director," you're musing, "Why is that, when the i3 weighs just 2850 pounds, has a super-low center of gravity and a 50/50 weight distribution, is rear-drive, and comes standard with 19-inch rolling stock?" Admittedly, this technological moonshot seems 100 percent BMW on paper, but I have a hunch it's no Ultimate Driving Machine. But I can't say definitively, because the 150-mile driving event described in this report was held in the congested, bicycle-clogged, 7-million-strong megalopolis of Amsterdam.
Surely if the i3 did handle like a BMW they'd have found us at least one unimpeded S-curve somewhere along the route and/or allowed us to drive on the Zandvoort Grand Prix circuit instead of just setting up a micro slalom in its parking lot, right?
No, dear customers, you need to expect a vehicle designed for time travel, with its dial set to 2050, when 70 percent of Earth's unfathomable population will live in megacities without the luxury of rolling solo in 2-ton SUVs. We'll be car-sharing compacts designed to tread very lightly on Mother Earth from cradle to auto graveyard. BMW's i division kept this altruistic "tread lightly" objective uppermost in mind throughout the i3's design and development, often at the expense of selfish "driving fun" concerns.
A perfect example: While the feathery forged wheels are an impressive 19 inches in diameter, they're only 5.0 and 5.5 inches wide front and rear, shod with 155/70 and 175/65 tires to minimize frontal area and rolling resistance. These tires' total contact patch area is similar to that of a set of conventional tires, but the patches are long and narrow—great for traction under acceleration or braking, but crappy for lateral grip. Stiffer sidewalls make up for some of that, but make these tall-sidewall tires ride like low-profilers. (We felt the impact of lane-divider paint lines.) Range über alles!
The car itself is one element in a suite of mobility products and services BMW envisions offering, so the company has invested in DriveNow (a car sharing program), ParkAtMyHouse (land sharing), and MyCityWay (a location-aware city guide app). But let's focus on the car, which looks and feels about as futuristic as its carbon-fiber "Life module" body on aluminum "Drive module" rolling chassis design concept suggest. The gear selector is a rotary gizmo on the steering column. The main gauges are concentrated in a freestanding iPad Mini-like display ahead of the driver, while infotainment/nav/ConnectedDrive functions appear on a wider screen that hovers over an open stowage bin in the center of the dash. The forward dash and upper door panels are made from renewable kenaf plants (a hemp relative) and look like cheap trunkliner material that's rock-hard to the touch. The seat fabric made from recycled plastic bottles looks and feels like normal cloth, while optional leather is tanned using olive-tree extract. BMW i's heart is in the right place but it's hard not to roll your eyes a little at some of these details.
