BMW has ended production of its i3, launched in 2013. The electric city car will not be directly replaced. With it, the German manufacturer has taken the first risky but instructive steps in the “zero emission” segment. Back in figures on the career of the model.
That’s the end of the BMW i3. After almost nine years of good and loyal service, the first mass-produced electric BMW is bowing out. Production of the city car, which was assembled in Leipzig, recently ceased. BMW announced at the start of 2020 that it would be extended until 2024, but since then the coronavirus pandemic and the shortage of semiconductors have disrupted the industrial activities of manufacturers while the electric car market has evolved very rapidly. All factors that may have weighed in on the decision to end production of the i3 early. Experimental in more ways than one for BMWthe city car has allowed the Bavarian firm to test electromobility solutions, to define the way forward as well as discover the mistakes to stop making.
A design worthy of a supercar
The BMW i3 was publicly announced in September 2011, at the Frankfurt Motor Show, with the presentation of an eponymous concept car alongside that which foreshadowed the i8, to launch the electrified BMW i range. The car was unveiled in its final version in July 2013 and marketed the following fall. Playing the “car of the future” card, it surprised as much by its appearance as a small minivan with a short nose and complex lines as by its construction, which combined a CFRP (polymer/carbon composite) cell on an aluminum frame with a cabin partially clad in recycled materials. Its weight was thus contained at 1,270 kg empty.
This much avant-garde and expensive design for a small vehicle has not caught on in the industry since and can today be seen as a bet reminiscent of that of the aluminum Audi A2 a few years earlier; however, the i3 had a more lasting career than the city car with the rings, which only remained in the catalog for five years.
Autonomy doubled since the beginning
The BMW i3 was launched with a 170 hp rear electric motor powered by a 22.6 kWh lithium-ion battery housed under the floor, which gave it a maximum range of 160 km according to the old NEDC homologation cycle. At the same time, a Renault Zoe claimed a maximum of 190 km.
Aware that this low capacity was all the more restrictive as the charging network was even less provided than today, BMW very quickly offered a range extender optional nicknamed REx (Range Extender). This 650 cc twin-cylinder petrol engine was used as a generator to increase the announced range to 300 km. General Motors also used such a device for a time on the Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera, and Mazda is preparing to introduce it on the MX-30, but the extender has not caught on in the industry either.
The REx left the BMW catalog at the end of 2018. In the meantime, the i3 had received several battery changes improving its autonomy, and a restyling in 2017 accompanied by the launch of the 184 hp i3s. In its latest iteration, the BMW i3 could travel 305 km on a WLTP cycle charge thanks to a 42.2 kWh accumulator.
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The BMW i3 on the sales side
In total, BMW produced around 250,000 i3s. The milestone of 100,000 was reached in the fall of 2017. Of the 237,595 worldwide sales of the model, 172,488 copies were delivered in Europe, including 14,479 in France. The German had a very gradual commercial start on our market, going from 592 units sold in 2014 to 1,347 in 2016 to peak at 2,956 registrations in 2019, then ranking 4th electric sales in France between the Nissan Leaf and the Kia e-Niro. Then came the decline to 2021’s 926 sales, relegating it to 19th national rank in the “zero emission” segment. The i3s represented just over 10% of French deliveries.
The iX1 and the Mini Cooper SE to replace the i3
The BMW group is now developing an electric range covering several segments through its various brands, from Mini to Rolls-Royce. The i3 will have no direct replacement, its clientele being divided between the BMW iX1 and the Mini Cooper SE whose renewal is imminent.
The Munich manufacturer says it supports this strategy on feedback from i3 owners and potential customers. According to him, some of them are looking for a more spacious vehicle while the other wants a city car with a more consensual style.
In March 2020, Stefan Sielaff, then design director of Bentley (since gone to Geely), spoke of the i3 in these terms to British journalists fromCoach : “ As a designer, I admire BMW for making the i3. But if you talk to customers, they say they find it ugly. While the supply of electric vehicles is gradually homogenizing and the development of the charging network is reducing the constraint of autonomy, who knows? The atypical BMW i3 could one day make it one of the first collectors of the electric era.
