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>My advice to BMW: Kill the i division, don't make EV a freaking hobby, do a serious EV within your main line-up and heavily push it. Make an all-electric vers

>My advice to BMW: Kill the i division, don't make EV a freaking hobby, do a serious EV within your main line-up and heavily push it. Make an all-electric version of the 3, 5 series and X series to go toe-to-toe with Tesla directly, instead of watered down hybrids with shit range under a non-mainstream product line. Additionally, Audi's (under the VW umbrella not BMW group) is "Vorsprung durch Technik", which is used in most of their non-US marketing. It translates as "Progress through innovation", if they were serious about this they would have taken the EV market much more seriously by now.

_pmf_ 10y ago
The i8 is serious car. The i3 is not bad, either. > Make an all-electric version of the 3, 5 series and X series to go toe-to-toe with Tesla directly I have my popcorn ready for Tesla's production ramp-up.
- s_q_b 10y ago
  The i8 isn't messing around. It's a 0-60 in 3.6 second 29 mpg car, with a completely different design than Tesla. It's a genuine production vehicle, not a concept. That's not too bad for a stodgy old company. Large ships turn slowly, and sometimes it takes a while for management to see the writing on the wall.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  Tesla has a problem where they don't have the cash on hand to build that production line quickly, nor have the equipment on site or people trained to use it for the capacity they will need. BMW's i3 and i8 are both attempts at not only testing electrification but beyond that they went after materials testing and packaging. As in, the i3 was a moon shot in materials technology and its battery pack is actually quite serviceable. While I know everyone loves to toot the Tesla horn the real problem that hit the other car makers was GM. GM because showed what having established relationship with suppliers and a wealth of in house knowledge can do in short order. GM is bringing a 200+ mile range EV to the market THIS YEAR, not late 2017, 2018 or whenever. That car, the Bolt, has basically obsoleted every sub 100 and even sub 120 range EV over night. GM's supposed battery costs are lower than projections from Tesla's gigafactory
  - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
    Is it a GM car or is it an LG car? From Wikipedia: The battery, motor, drive unit will be manufactured at LG, Incheon, South Korea
    - blackguardx 10y ago
      Are iPhones Qualcomm phones because they use a Qualcomm radio?
- dv_dt 10y ago
  I don't know how the i3 drives, but I was short of shocked at how ugly (err maybe I should say quirky) the car looked - it looks like a toaster - and the two toned paint jobs it seems to often come with is even more of a head scratcher. It may perform well, and actually be a useful form factor - but IMHO the look of it is basically guaranteed to further limit the appeal of that product to a even smaller sub-group of the people who would consider electric in the first place. I wonder if the i8 has the opposite problem - it looks lovely to me, but is a fairly radical design and again you might be turning away people who want an electric option, but don't necessarily want to call blaring attention to themselves.

_pmf_ 10y ago

The i8 is serious car. The i3 is not bad, either. > Make an all-electric version of the 3, 5 series and X series to go toe-to-toe with Tesla directly I have my popcorn ready for Tesla's production ramp-up.

s_q_b 10y ago
The i8 isn't messing around. It's a 0-60 in 3.6 second 29 mpg car, with a completely different design than Tesla. It's a genuine production vehicle, not a concept. That's not too bad for a stodgy old company. Large ships turn slowly, and sometimes it takes a while for management to see the writing on the wall.
Shivetya 10y ago
Tesla has a problem where they don't have the cash on hand to build that production line quickly, nor have the equipment on site or people trained to use it for the capacity they will need. BMW's i3 and i8 are both attempts at not only testing electrification but beyond that they went after materials testing and packaging. As in, the i3 was a moon shot in materials technology and its battery pack is actually quite serviceable. While I know everyone loves to toot the Tesla horn the real problem that hit the other car makers was GM. GM because showed what having established relationship with suppliers and a wealth of in house knowledge can do in short order. GM is bringing a 200+ mile range EV to the market THIS YEAR, not late 2017, 2018 or whenever. That car, the Bolt, has basically obsoleted every sub 100 and even sub 120 range EV over night. GM's supposed battery costs are lower than projections from Tesla's gigafactory
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  Is it a GM car or is it an LG car? From Wikipedia: The battery, motor, drive unit will be manufactured at LG, Incheon, South Korea
  - blackguardx 10y ago
    Are iPhones Qualcomm phones because they use a Qualcomm radio?
dv_dt 10y ago
I don't know how the i3 drives, but I was short of shocked at how ugly (err maybe I should say quirky) the car looked - it looks like a toaster - and the two toned paint jobs it seems to often come with is even more of a head scratcher. It may perform well, and actually be a useful form factor - but IMHO the look of it is basically guaranteed to further limit the appeal of that product to a even smaller sub-group of the people who would consider electric in the first place. I wonder if the i8 has the opposite problem - it looks lovely to me, but is a fairly radical design and again you might be turning away people who want an electric option, but don't necessarily want to call blaring attention to themselves.