They also had a bunch of employee turnover and haven't done anything interesting with electric cars in ~6 years. The i3 was really good back then, boring now.
It's the only car in the industry that took seriously sustainability. (Sustainable textile, recycled material, end of life reusability and recycling. etc.)
The efficiency is excellent, about 5kwh less per 100km than a tesla. It drives great, it's powerful, fun to drive. I haven't found a i3 owner that didn't like his car yet.
With the range extender it removed range anxiety without add long recharge time on a trip. (granted with more frequent stop)
I bought a used one last week. Maybe it's the honey moon, but it's the best car I have ever own, by far.
The lack of leadership from top executive made the car unpopular, not the car itself. This also led to a lot of employee turnover because the lack of seriousness about the i series.
There have been many cars in history that have been popular beyond what top leadership has said. The failure of the i3 isn't that. It's a car that has a very small target market. If that was their goal, that's fine. But if they thought it was going to sell well BMW dropped the ball.
Regardless, it's good for you since you likely got a great deal.
That's not fair since (unless you mod it) the REX only kicks in when you get to 6% battery. In the year I have been driving the i3 I have used less then a gallon of gas.
Also, why do automakers keep taking the spare tires away? If you live near a city, well, great, but anyone who lives outside of "town" needs to be self-sufficient.
I appreciate a lot about the car, but its time is almost up. There are some screwy German things about it that just get more annoying as time goes by and lots of things broke before even 50K miles that never broke on Toyotas and Hondas I owned. BMW needs to go back to making cars, not computers on wheels.
Despite using a full CFRP body, like that of supercars, mass savings were small.
It is also heavy because of tons of German luxury features that should have no place in an entry level vehicle.
It was also generically marketed on being "sporty" and "fun" to drive, while being one of the more morbid EV around, much like Chinese entry level EVs.
The design suffers from usage of enormous amount of unique, custom made parts and materials.
Basically it is an EV equivalent of Suzuki Mehran on performance and feel, but painted over to make it fit the "New Type Luxury EV" marketing concept.
No lag, always full torque.
Just like any EV, but without ludicrous acceleration of top tier EVs, or just that of average sport car. And despite being an RWD car, it turns and handles the road not much better than FWD econoboxes, which means no actual motorsport person was involved in its design.