BMW i3 60ah - reasonable EV shed?
Discussion
I’m looking at a well looked after BMW i3 locally for around £5k with all charging cables and a spare set of winter wheels
The rub is it’s the early 60ah battery - so 70-100 mile capacity. I think this is fine for 99.9% of my usage as I’d only need 1-2 charges a week (free at work, granny charge at home), but part of me does think it could be quite limiting if I wanted to take the kids on a road trip (although I could rent a car on the odd occasion?)
Anyone got a similarly small capacity EV and how do they find it? I love the idea of an effectively free to run car for most of my journeys, and the pre-heated cabin in winter would be a treat to save scraping the windows after work.
Would cover 2-4k a year - mostly commuting (4ish miles each way) and nipping around my local town to the shops, picking up & dropping kids off (< 2miles) and general life admin within a 15 mile radius usually.
I am fairly firm on the budget for a daily so it’s really between a 60ah i3 or a diesel barge: the barge seems better suited for the 0.1% of my journeys, but probably worse for the 99.9%…
Personally I like the i3 design a lot so would choose one over a Zoe or Leaf - so it’s really i3 or ICE at this price.
Posting in EV forum to get some owners experiences - had a similar thread in car buyers which was useful.
The rub is it’s the early 60ah battery - so 70-100 mile capacity. I think this is fine for 99.9% of my usage as I’d only need 1-2 charges a week (free at work, granny charge at home), but part of me does think it could be quite limiting if I wanted to take the kids on a road trip (although I could rent a car on the odd occasion?)
Anyone got a similarly small capacity EV and how do they find it? I love the idea of an effectively free to run car for most of my journeys, and the pre-heated cabin in winter would be a treat to save scraping the windows after work.
Would cover 2-4k a year - mostly commuting (4ish miles each way) and nipping around my local town to the shops, picking up & dropping kids off (< 2miles) and general life admin within a 15 mile radius usually.
I am fairly firm on the budget for a daily so it’s really between a 60ah i3 or a diesel barge: the barge seems better suited for the 0.1% of my journeys, but probably worse for the 99.9%…
Personally I like the i3 design a lot so would choose one over a Zoe or Leaf - so it’s really i3 or ICE at this price.
Posting in EV forum to get some owners experiences - had a similar thread in car buyers which was useful.
Got a 24kwh Leaf, had it from new, now on 86k miles.
The range problem is solved by having another car and always was. Any journey in Leaf range, the Leaf gets used. Covers about 8k per year.
My feeling is that an EV can only be your only car if it offers 150+ miles of range in the depths of winter.
The range problem is solved by having another car and always was. Any journey in Leaf range, the Leaf gets used. Covers about 8k per year.
My feeling is that an EV can only be your only car if it offers 150+ miles of range in the depths of winter.
Turtle Shed said:
My feeling is that an EV can only be your only car if it offers 150+ miles of range in the depths of winter.
Probably true for most, but certainly an upgrade for all those people who manage with no car at all. Lots of people never drive any significant distance at all, and for them a short range electric car would be a better choice than an ICE that hardly ever does any miles fully warmed up. Do make sure it has rapid charging (CCS) as this was an option on the early cars and would be a deal killer if absent. As others have said your range is more likely 60-80 miles but this may not be a problem. I have a late I3s and I only drive it more than 60 miles a couple of times a year and I could avoid that if I needed to.
I think the early ones are well into time-based battery ageing now.
I looked at a few a couple of years ago, definite drop-offs in range and battery capacity.
There was a mainly USA forum for them which was quite informative.
They've dropped in price from £10k+ two years ago.
So I'm glad I didn't buy one then.
At £5k they get tempting, but only as an extra car.
They are not totally immune from going wrong!
They are definitely on a battery death spiral.
A mate bought a £5k leaf a few years back. He's managed to put a lot of miles on it, definitely got his money out of it.
Buy it if you want it, don't convince yourself it's the cheapest solution or whatever.
If it's what you want and you can afford to splurge that on a car that might need replacing in two years, go for it.
But I think EVs with really short range (or on low annual mileage finance) miss the great joy of being able to extra trips at near-zero cost.
Drive to the coast one evening, it's a fiver, not £25 in diesel, that kind of thing. Cheaper than a pushbike!
I looked at a few a couple of years ago, definite drop-offs in range and battery capacity.
There was a mainly USA forum for them which was quite informative.
They've dropped in price from £10k+ two years ago.
So I'm glad I didn't buy one then.
At £5k they get tempting, but only as an extra car.
They are not totally immune from going wrong!
They are definitely on a battery death spiral.
A mate bought a £5k leaf a few years back. He's managed to put a lot of miles on it, definitely got his money out of it.
Buy it if you want it, don't convince yourself it's the cheapest solution or whatever.
If it's what you want and you can afford to splurge that on a car that might need replacing in two years, go for it.
But I think EVs with really short range (or on low annual mileage finance) miss the great joy of being able to extra trips at near-zero cost.
Drive to the coast one evening, it's a fiver, not £25 in diesel, that kind of thing. Cheaper than a pushbike!
We've had a similarly priced 30 kwh Leaf since I sold my M140i in March. We did look at the i3 but couldn't find one locally in budget and the Leaf's were everywhere and much better specced as standard! Usage is very similar to yours and it's main job is local commuting, school runs, station car park, Tesco, etc and it does all that admirably and we are granny charging it once a week on the cheap nightly 7.5p Octopus rate.
We have ventured out a couple of times on longer runs but never enough to need to use public chargers.
Chris
We have ventured out a couple of times on longer runs but never enough to need to use public chargers.
Chris
GT6k said:
Do make sure it has rapid charging (CCS) as this was an option on the early cars and would be a deal killer if absent. As others have said your range is more likely 60-80 miles but this may not be a problem. I have a late I3s and I only drive it more than 60 miles a couple of times a year and I could avoid that if I needed to.
Absolutely this. Don’t assume it’s only the boggo ones that don’t have it either - a mate had to have one delivered to my unit a few months ago because his delivery driver abandoned ship when he realised it was AC only and it was quite well specced otherwise!SWoll said:
Toaster Pilot said:
70-100 miles from a 60Ah is pretty optimistic, it was 18.8kWh usable when new.
Indeed/ Our 120ah when brand new would do 120-170 miles with twice the capacity.Toaster Pilot said:
Absolutely this. Don t assume it s only the boggo ones that don t have it either - a mate had to have one delivered to my unit a few months ago because his delivery driver abandoned ship when he realised it was AC only and it was quite well specced otherwise!
This was good advice - it has AC Rapid Charging - so tops out at 7.2kw I think. It does not have DC rapid charging.Deal breaker?
_Hoppers said:
SWoll said:
Toaster Pilot said:
70-100 miles from a 60Ah is pretty optimistic, it was 18.8kWh usable when new.
Indeed/ Our 120ah when brand new would do 120-170 miles with twice the capacity.
Mine is much the same as SWoll's: 120-170 miles to a charge, but winter is a bit worse.
My average over the last 1000 miles is 4miles/kWh.
TheRainMaker said:
_Hoppers said:
SWoll said:
Toaster Pilot said:
70-100 miles from a 60Ah is pretty optimistic, it was 18.8kWh usable when new.
Indeed/ Our 120ah when brand new would do 120-170 miles with twice the capacity.
Mine is much the same as SWoll's: 120-170 miles to a charge, but winter is a bit worse.
My average over the last 1000 miles is 4miles/kWh.

My work commute is responsible for the high m/kwh, the amount of traffic makes it difficult to exceed 50mph most of the time!
I'm impressed with your efficiency - it's been 7 months since I picked up our i3. Has done 2500 miles in that time, mainly short journeys around town but the wife also occasionally uses it for her commute (30 round trip on the motorway) and average consumption in that time is 4 miles/kwh. That's in the middle eco mode - I don't think I could get it any higher and we drive it sedately!
Jurgen100 said:
I'm impressed with your efficiency - it's been 7 months since I picked up our i3. Has done 2500 miles in that time, mainly short journeys around town but the wife also occasionally uses it for her commute (30 round trip on the motorway) and average consumption in that time is 4 miles/kwh. That's in the middle eco mode - I don't think I could get it any higher and we drive it sedately!
Do you have the heating on, I've hardly had it above 16 so far this year?Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff