Preface
As scheduled, the community’s weekly star hunt is here.
Recently, the Garage App has been very lively, with many high-quality and exciting content emerging. It seems that many experts don’t take action in the early stage, but once they do, they all come up with valuable resources.
This week, let’s take a look at what @ItzKlaus has contributed to the community.
Klaus: BMW i3 owner, expert in new energy vehicles, German car enthusiast, The Weeknd fan, saving money to buy a NIO next time…
Have you caught any important information from this introduction? Yes, he is a BMW i3 owner.
There are numerous reports of large price reductions for the BMW i3, and it seems to have entered a “crazy price reduction mode”, with prices falling by 80,000 to 100,000 yuan. Remember, its original price was 349,900 yuan.
What’s your impression of the i3? Let’s see how @ItzKlaus evaluates it.
Is the BMW i3 Worth Buying?
This is @ItzKlaus‘s homework from car selection to why he chose it, discussing in detail.
Preparation and Selection Process
Considering economic efficiency and license plate restrictions, I chose an electric car.
My wife also thinks that a car without exhaust and engine noise is better after experiencing it.
So we started the test drive of mainstream brands. As a senior car fan, I immediately Pass-ed the BYD Han and Volkswagen ID series. After looking at XPeng P7, Ford Mustang-Mach E, Tesla Model 3/Y, four cars in total, we both agreed that the electric horse was the most satisfying.
But I personally think that the 320,000 yuan infinite luxury rear-drive version may not be able to support the current brand power of the electric horse. So I had to give up and continue to observe.
Why i3?
Based on the test drive results, the comparison between i3, electric horse, and ET5 is as follows:
#### Table 1: Comparison of Three Cars at a Glance
The advantages of i3 are its excellent handling and comfort, and strong brand power. Its disadvantages are also obvious: based on the CLAR platform, it has average rear seat and luggage space, and its level of intelligence is also average.
It is often criticized for being a “gas-to-electric” vehicle. However, what I need is brand power, excellent driving experience, and comfortable front seat. As for the rear seat, it is sufficient.
Driving Experience
B gear is the one-pedal mode which is very useful when following cars in congested road sections. D gear, combined with Comfort mode, can provide elegant acceleration without losing explosiveness, and its braking is confident enough. Even the wife’s mother, who is prone to car sickness, thinks it’s a great car.
The only downside is that there is a slight shaking during braking from medium to high speeds after activating the Autohold. If you want to release all the power, and on safe roads, you can activate the Sport mode. The instrument screen will display the speed and power output percentage in a small area in the center of the screen according to the Sport mode, and the UI color will change from light blue to bright red. The experience is 100 points.
Riding Experience
The seat has good wrapping and support. Sitting in the front passenger seat, you can lie down directly with the help of the thigh support. If the people in the front sit upright, two adults can sit comfortably in the back. One drawback is that the storage space is surprisingly small.
Energy Consumption Performance
Based on driving conditions with 25% time spent in congestion, an average speed of less than 30km/h, and D gear + ECO power output mode, the commuting consumption is about 17.2kWh/100km. The vehicle can travel about 400km from 100% to 0%. Under driving conditions with an average speed of 50km/h throughout the entire journey without traffic jams, the lowest energy consumption can be reduced to 13.4kWh/100km.
The percentage of remaining power displayed on the screen is lower than the actual value, and the displayed remaining mileage is also lower than the actual range. This is a unique feature of BMW electric cars. Compared with the “happy meter” of other brands, I prefer to see such honest feedback.### Charging
Slow charging supports 7kw single-phase AC charging and 11kw three-phase AC charging stations.
It takes less than 10 hours to charge the home charging station from 0 to full. For fast charging, the Little Orange/Special DC charging station takes 40 minutes from 40% to 90%, and an input of 36kWh of electricity. The average usable power of the charging station is about 50kW. After all, this is a 400V battery platform, and this performance is mediocre.
Smart features
Supports wireless Carplay, so the smart level is passable.
The voice assistant, under the premise of the standard Mandarin, can make the driver and the co-driver control basic vehicle functions including air conditioning and multimedia. So it’s still passable.
If it can be equipped with electric tailgate opening and closing, keyless entry and exit, HUD and intelligent parking system, I believe this set of BMW’s intelligent system can at least give a B+ rating.
After reading this comprehensive car delivery report, have you got a new understanding of the BMW i3?
What is the true value of an electric vehicle?
Nowadays, electric vehicles generally cost more than 30W+. In the era of equalization of power and technology, which “aspects” do you think best reflect the value of electric vehicles?
In ItzKlau’s answer, I don’t know if he thinks i3 is worth the price.
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Transmission efficiency: Every bit of power loss from charging station to battery to motor to wheels is worth optimizing to the extreme;
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Industrial design: In terms of material, leather cover is just one option, and non-traditional woven materials and recyclable materials are also options. In terms of detail design, the difference between a five-star hotel and a four-star hotel lobby will soon be felt inside the passenger compartment. Whether it’s luxury/technology/simple design, the coherence must be sufficient. This is the key for new brands to beat Mercedes-Benz;
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Weight: Taking my own car as an example: 330Li has a curb weight of 411kg lighter than i3. If the level of lightweighting is continuously improved and reduced by 400kg, i3’s battery life can be increased by several tens of kilometers with the same battery;
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Quietness: That is, the NVH level and noise level. Double-layer laminated glass, sound insulation cotton, and silent tires, etc., electric vehicles with these configurations are worthy of being called “luxury cars”;
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Charging speed: Imagine working overtime until 10 o’clock, finding that the car is out of power, and then enduring fatigue to go to the fast charging station to charge, but finding that the peak power is only 60kw, and the phone shows “30+ minutes to full charge” which will definitely break your defense. If it is a high-voltage platform vehicle, it can be charged to 80% in just a few minutes of watching TikTok. The difference between the two is like day and night.## Klaus Has Something to Say
As a practitioner and consumer in the new energy vehicle industry, I can objectively affirm that there are many fantastic products in China’s new energy vehicle market, especially domestic brands. Each of these products has its own advantages and selling points.
Consumers can choose and make purchases according to their needs and preferences. From the market perspective, this is a blessing for Chinese consumers. In the past, due to the low product strength of domestic automobile products, some joint venture and imported car models have been wantonly priced and unjustly downgraded on the research and development side, which has begun to be punished by the market.
The price surge of a certain joint venture MPV last year, when compared to the Ideal L9’s sales breakthrough of 10,000 in the first month this year, is sufficient to prove that only excellent product strength and sincere pricing can earn long-term support from consumers.
From a professional point of view, pure electric platforms do have higher upper and lower limits. What does this mean?
A vehicle developed based on a pure electric platform can perform better than a non-pure electric platform model in various performance dimensions, given the same development resources and cost. However, this “excellence” is not inherent in pure electric platform vehicles, but something that requires R&D personnel to work hard together day and night to achieve.
Why? Because pure electric vehicles also have their development difficulties.
For example, controlling the weight of the entire vehicle, balancing between handling and comfort, and balancing the degree of configuration abundance and the cost of the vehicle model, etc. These are not issues in the development of fuel-based vehicles, but they become major issues in the development of pure electric vehicles. Even for excellent pure electric architectures/platforms such as the Volkswagen MEB, Hyundai E-GMP, and Geely-Volvo SEA, there are still many areas to be improved and optimized due to their short application time.
In other words, even if a vehicle is developed on a pure electric platform, if there is no fastidious insistence of R&D personnel, no clear product positioning, and no understanding of the people’s needs, it will ultimately only be a mediocre product. Such products may not even be as good as mixed power products with “outdated technology” or “oil-to-electric conversion” products in the view of automotive reviewers.
I sincerely expect that Chinese brand new energy vehicles can continue to perform better and march towards the world, allowing users around the world to have Chinese new energy vehicles that are suitable for them in due course.
In Conclusion
It is late at night when I write this article of praise. Once again, I thank every friend who has enthusiastically contributed to the Garage App.The way time passes through a person’s body is different for each individual, but we are bonded by our love for cars, and it is here that we have met.
Looking forward to seeing you here, we will see each other again next Monday.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.