5 ms·

Maybe I’m in a bubble, but I didn’t even notice BMW had EVs

rsynnott 2y ago
Are you in America? I think their market penetration there is still extremely low. Most of BMW’s electric cars (with the exception of the notably weird-looking i3) are also pretty subtle; you wouldn’t really know they were electric unless you looked closely. In particular, they’ve kept some approximation of their trademark grille.
NewJazz 2y ago
Are you based in the EU?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
SllX 2y ago
They’ve been in the BEV market for a bit. Not long after the first Tesla Model S was released, BMW released the i3. That one’s since been discontinued but they have at least 8 other BMW i models on the market.
- darkteflon 2y ago
  The i3 was such a great city car, well ahead of its time. Such a shame that they have apparently abandoned the EV design ethos embodied in that car (and that car alone) in favour of bloated luxo-barges. Tell me that your EV strategy is about brand greenwashing without telling me it’s about brand greenwashing. They seem to be really focused on chasing the Boomer demographic. I’m a happy former customer (twice over) but wouldn’t consider anything in their EV range - which means I wouldn’t consider buying a BMW again at all unless there’s some sort of radical strategic change.
  - linotype 2y ago
    Many (not all, obviously) boomers will never buy an EV because of identity politics in the midwestern United States. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true elsewhere as well. Why they’re not pumping out $25k 250 mile range city cars for millenials and gen z is a mystery to me.
    - rsynnott 2y ago
      In most of Europe, at least, the “producing lots of CO2 is good, actually” thing popular on the US right is just not a significant factor in mainstream politics. In practice, looked at globally, it’s mostly only a thing in big fossil fuel producers; the stats on global warming denial in particular are very stark, with the US and Australia _way_ out ahead of the rest of the developed world.
    - bdcravens 2y ago
      The same reason why the industry pushed away from the sedan and onto larger SUVs: profit margins. The Chevy Bolt was very close to what you described and was cancelled (brought back, but cancelling it was a momentum killer)
    - fy20 2y ago
      In Europe the Dacia Spring is available for under €20k on the road, and it is a proper car similar to others in the compact range - not a toy like the Citroen Ami (that thing doesn't even have heating). However it's really the only car like that available in Europe, and Dacia isn't exactly known for it's reliability (sorry Romania). Plus at that price point they are not competing with other compacts - which aren't that popular anyway - but with a 2-4 year old used car. One of my collegues just bought a 4 year old Toyota Avensis for the same price. Which one do you think will last longer?
  - NightlyDev 2y ago
    BMW has not abandoned it. i3 was a cool cheap car, with a carbon fiber cell. It was ugly as hell, but cool tech. BMW platforms now are both for ICE and EV, but "Neue klasse" that will start to arrive soon is a from-scratch, new, electric only platform. That will really make the cars more spacious. The sportiest platform is supposedly architected for 1350 hp, so it will be interesting to see if BMW will take up the lap time fight with Porsche. That would be interesting.
Etheryte 2y ago
While BMW does have some models that are blatantly electric like the i3, most of their electric cars look pretty much just like the regular gasoline ones. I think it's a clever move that taps into their existing market dynamic.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  > most of their electric cars look pretty much just like the regular gasoline ones Right, they have disguised the electric ones as phenomenally ugly late-stage German cars, so you can't really tell they are electric without getting closer than you'd really like. From a safe distance it just looks like any other BMW with grill cancer.
  - readyplayernull 2y ago
    They must love their Adolf's toothbrush grill.
- amelius 2y ago
  Don't they pack the batteries in the floor, making the car necessarily higher? Isn't this the biggest difference? And the weight, of course.
  - to11mtm 2y ago
    > Don't they pack the batteries in the floor, making the car necessarily higher? Isn't this the biggest difference? Batteries in the floor make a good amount of sense if done right. 1. Just the battery for a -hybrid- (1.1kWh) can weigh at least half as much as a 3 cylinder engine. putting it either under the front or in the trunk is an issue, as now you have to have a more reinforced firewall or reinforced whatever to keep the battery from being an additional force in an impact. 2. Lower center of gravity is always a good thing. > And the weight, of course. 3. Weight is interesting because we start to see some of the fun 'delta-V' issues. As an example look at the GMC Hummer EV, the F-150 Lightning, and the Cybertruck. You can see that as the weight goes up the amount of battery to increase range also goes waaayyyy up.
connicpu 2y ago
At this point I feel like it's easier to list all the car companies that don't have EV offerings than all of the ones that do.
the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
Cannot judge if you are in a bubble but BMW has more variety for electric models than Tesla. There are probably some customers that care.
- nicce 2y ago
  I would never buy Tesla personally if there is an alrernative with decades of experience, like BMW
  - reducesuffering 2y ago
    That's not a good heuristic since Teslas have been far better than the i3
    - nicce 2y ago
      Depends on how you measure it. Teslas rank at #1 as the most faulty electric car in existence. Everything else than the battery or motors are poor quality if you compare to any other above average brand.
      - porphyra 2y ago
        I would rather take panel gaps and paint chips than faulty battery or motors. Most sources would agree that small cosmetic defects aside, Tesla has the quite good drivetrain and battery reliability. [0] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/tesla-and-nissan-make-the-most-reliable-electric-vehicles-a1003912076/ https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s... [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/electric-vehicles-are-less-reliable-than-conventional-cars-a1047214174 https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
      - cobalt 2y ago
        most faulty by raw numbers or by %? Also poor quality of what?
kpw94 2y ago
They're easy to spot, at least for recent sedans & suv, they're the ones with a front grille looking like beaver teeth and the grille look more solid vs traditional vent (which make sense since there's no combustion engine that needs cold air intake to cool down) https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/bmw-ix-electric-suv-review-interior-luxury-2022-6%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/bmw-ix-...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
closeparen 2y ago
The most popular BMW EV is probably the i4, which has that incredibly loud and ugly 4-series grille shape with a flat, plasticky-looking material. They're very noticeable! In a bad way. Image: https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/attachment.php?s=aae66d266bd8ee4d08bab805a38ad534&attachmentid=3180733&stc=1&d=1684066072 https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/attachment.php?s=aae66d26...
- brikym 2y ago
  Car designers have lost the plot. Fake vents, fake grills. Black naked plastic bumpers. Yuck! Just make the whole damn thing one color.
- kanbara 2y ago
  i love the look of my i4 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
rgreekguy 2y ago
At least down here, there are few options that are not electric to some extent. Every brand has at least 2-3 fully electric cars, and the rest of the lineup is hybrid. Suzuki has Jimny that is not (yet?) hybrid, and maybe BMW and Mercedes have some non-electric (to any extent) options, due to the sheer size of their roster.
bdcravens 2y ago
Unlike other brands, their EVs don't look much different than their ICE cars (though their earliest attempts, like the i3, were definitely nothing like what they sold). I'm pretty sure this is intentional; they're trying to replicate the BMW experience, and make it less about the drivetrain.
throwadobe 2y ago
are you in Europe, which TFA discusses?
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> Maybe I’m in a bubble, but I didn’t even notice BMW had EVs I'd say you've indeed been living in a serious bubble. The European Commission decided, years ago, that by 2035 (which is around the corner), not a single new car could be sold in the EU if it wasn't 100% electric. Not even hybrid. Since that decision they backtracked a little bit but meanwhile all the german automanufacturers started freaking out and started, in a hurry, to come up with EVs. It's not just BMW. Porsche, Mercedes, Audi/VW: they all produce EVs now.
regnull 2y ago
You might not notice them because they look like regular BMW. For example, you wouldn't know i4 is electric just by looks. But I'd recommend anyone who is thinking of buying a Tesla to give BMW EV a test drive, you might end up getting it (like I did).

Are you in America? I think their market penetration there is still extremely low. Most of BMW’s electric cars (with the exception of the notably weird-looking i3) are also pretty subtle; you wouldn’t really know they were electric unless you looked closely. In particular, they’ve kept some approximation of their trademark grille.

NewJazz 2y ago

Are you based in the EU?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

SllX 2y ago

They’ve been in the BEV market for a bit. Not long after the first Tesla Model S was released, BMW released the i3. That one’s since been discontinued but they have at least 8 other BMW i models on the market.

darkteflon 2y ago
The i3 was such a great city car, well ahead of its time. Such a shame that they have apparently abandoned the EV design ethos embodied in that car (and that car alone) in favour of bloated luxo-barges. Tell me that your EV strategy is about brand greenwashing without telling me it’s about brand greenwashing. They seem to be really focused on chasing the Boomer demographic. I’m a happy former customer (twice over) but wouldn’t consider anything in their EV range - which means I wouldn’t consider buying a BMW again at all unless there’s some sort of radical strategic change.
- linotype 2y ago
  Many (not all, obviously) boomers will never buy an EV because of identity politics in the midwestern United States. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true elsewhere as well. Why they’re not pumping out $25k 250 mile range city cars for millenials and gen z is a mystery to me.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    In most of Europe, at least, the “producing lots of CO2 is good, actually” thing popular on the US right is just not a significant factor in mainstream politics. In practice, looked at globally, it’s mostly only a thing in big fossil fuel producers; the stats on global warming denial in particular are very stark, with the US and Australia _way_ out ahead of the rest of the developed world.
  - bdcravens 2y ago
    The same reason why the industry pushed away from the sedan and onto larger SUVs: profit margins. The Chevy Bolt was very close to what you described and was cancelled (brought back, but cancelling it was a momentum killer)
  - fy20 2y ago
    In Europe the Dacia Spring is available for under €20k on the road, and it is a proper car similar to others in the compact range - not a toy like the Citroen Ami (that thing doesn't even have heating). However it's really the only car like that available in Europe, and Dacia isn't exactly known for it's reliability (sorry Romania). Plus at that price point they are not competing with other compacts - which aren't that popular anyway - but with a 2-4 year old used car. One of my collegues just bought a 4 year old Toyota Avensis for the same price. Which one do you think will last longer?
- NightlyDev 2y ago
  BMW has not abandoned it. i3 was a cool cheap car, with a carbon fiber cell. It was ugly as hell, but cool tech. BMW platforms now are both for ICE and EV, but "Neue klasse" that will start to arrive soon is a from-scratch, new, electric only platform. That will really make the cars more spacious. The sportiest platform is supposedly architected for 1350 hp, so it will be interesting to see if BMW will take up the lap time fight with Porsche. That would be interesting.

Etheryte 2y ago

While BMW does have some models that are blatantly electric like the i3, most of their electric cars look pretty much just like the regular gasoline ones. I think it's a clever move that taps into their existing market dynamic.

jeffbee 2y ago
> most of their electric cars look pretty much just like the regular gasoline ones Right, they have disguised the electric ones as phenomenally ugly late-stage German cars, so you can't really tell they are electric without getting closer than you'd really like. From a safe distance it just looks like any other BMW with grill cancer.
- readyplayernull 2y ago
  They must love their Adolf's toothbrush grill.
amelius 2y ago
Don't they pack the batteries in the floor, making the car necessarily higher? Isn't this the biggest difference? And the weight, of course.
- to11mtm 2y ago
  > Don't they pack the batteries in the floor, making the car necessarily higher? Isn't this the biggest difference? Batteries in the floor make a good amount of sense if done right. 1. Just the battery for a -hybrid- (1.1kWh) can weigh at least half as much as a 3 cylinder engine. putting it either under the front or in the trunk is an issue, as now you have to have a more reinforced firewall or reinforced whatever to keep the battery from being an additional force in an impact. 2. Lower center of gravity is always a good thing. > And the weight, of course. 3. Weight is interesting because we start to see some of the fun 'delta-V' issues. As an example look at the GMC Hummer EV, the F-150 Lightning, and the Cybertruck. You can see that as the weight goes up the amount of battery to increase range also goes waaayyyy up.

connicpu 2y ago

At this point I feel like it's easier to list all the car companies that don't have EV offerings than all of the ones that do.

the_mitsuhiko 2y ago

Cannot judge if you are in a bubble but BMW has more variety for electric models than Tesla. There are probably some customers that care.

nicce 2y ago
I would never buy Tesla personally if there is an alrernative with decades of experience, like BMW
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  That's not a good heuristic since Teslas have been far better than the i3
  - nicce 2y ago
    Depends on how you measure it. Teslas rank at #1 as the most faulty electric car in existence. Everything else than the battery or motors are poor quality if you compare to any other above average brand.
    - porphyra 2y ago
      I would rather take panel gaps and paint chips than faulty battery or motors. Most sources would agree that small cosmetic defects aside, Tesla has the quite good drivetrain and battery reliability. [0] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/tesla-and-nissan-make-the-most-reliable-electric-vehicles-a1003912076/ https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s... [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/electric-vehicles-are-less-reliable-than-conventional-cars-a1047214174 https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s...
    - cobalt 2y ago
      most faulty by raw numbers or by %? Also poor quality of what?

kpw94 2y ago

They're easy to spot, at least for recent sedans & suv, they're the ones with a front grille looking like beaver teeth and the grille look more solid vs traditional vent (which make sense since there's no combustion engine that needs cold air intake to cool down) https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/bmw-ix-electric-suv-review-interior-luxury-2022-6%3famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/bmw-ix-...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

closeparen 2y ago

The most popular BMW EV is probably the i4, which has that incredibly loud and ugly 4-series grille shape with a flat, plasticky-looking material. They're very noticeable! In a bad way. Image: https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/attachment.php?s=aae66d266bd8ee4d08bab805a38ad534&attachmentid=3180733&stc=1&d=1684066072 https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/attachment.php?s=aae66d26...

brikym 2y ago
Car designers have lost the plot. Fake vents, fake grills. Black naked plastic bumpers. Yuck! Just make the whole damn thing one color.
kanbara 2y ago
i love the look of my i4 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

rgreekguy 2y ago

At least down here, there are few options that are not electric to some extent. Every brand has at least 2-3 fully electric cars, and the rest of the lineup is hybrid. Suzuki has Jimny that is not (yet?) hybrid, and maybe BMW and Mercedes have some non-electric (to any extent) options, due to the sheer size of their roster.

bdcravens 2y ago

Unlike other brands, their EVs don't look much different than their ICE cars (though their earliest attempts, like the i3, were definitely nothing like what they sold). I'm pretty sure this is intentional; they're trying to replicate the BMW experience, and make it less about the drivetrain.

throwadobe 2y ago

are you in Europe, which TFA discusses?

TacticalCoder 2y ago

> Maybe I’m in a bubble, but I didn’t even notice BMW had EVs I'd say you've indeed been living in a serious bubble. The European Commission decided, years ago, that by 2035 (which is around the corner), not a single new car could be sold in the EU if it wasn't 100% electric. Not even hybrid. Since that decision they backtracked a little bit but meanwhile all the german automanufacturers started freaking out and started, in a hurry, to come up with EVs. It's not just BMW. Porsche, Mercedes, Audi/VW: they all produce EVs now.

regnull 2y ago

You might not notice them because they look like regular BMW. For example, you wouldn't know i4 is electric just by looks. But I'd recommend anyone who is thinking of buying a Tesla to give BMW EV a test drive, you might end up getting it (like I did).