[Teddy]

I currently have a bmw 2 series convertible but am finding it painful to drive because of the low set seat and tight footwell, especially on longer journeys. Causes pain in my legs, ankles and back.

After a conversation with Motabilty they kindly agreed to an early termination if the current car isn’t suitable which will be my first early ‘hand back’ since I started in 1982!

Anyway I went today to BMW to look at MPVs and got very sidetracked by, and interested in their i3s which was charging outside.

Amazing cabin space for a very compact car, with a much better access/exit and higher seating position / more legroom so clearly better suited for my requirements. I think the pillarless design helps entry and exit as well.

Anyway after a passenger ride I’m hooked!

Very impressed that you can heat the cabin (cold weather) or cool it (hot weather) remotely via the smartphone app and even set it to heat or cool at a certain time of your choosing, such as 10 minutes before a journey for example.

I have a 24 hr test drive booked for next weekend to give their demo (non ‘S’) a good workout, so will be able to report back some more next week.

Not sure whether the ‘S’ is worth an extra £1000 though, and would be interested in others thoughts on that , as well as anyone else who has one, has tested one, or is considering one.

 

Topic

[Mike]

Teddy please please please putphoto on here when you get it we never did see your orange BMW 2 series cabriolet

[Teddy]

Ok Mike will do.

I haven’t got a photo of the convertible but I’ll get some before it goes back and post up here

[Teddy]

I re-read this thread and realised I didn’t put much feedback about my weekend test drive, which was very thorough and my experiences might be useful for others.

I wanted to test the car and replicate a normal weekend to see whether the drive and the range would be an issue for me.

I got the car on Friday afternoon after work with a full charge and straight away drove a 40 mile round trip to get my son for the weekend. The plan was to charge it overnight but that didn’t happen as all the sockets near the garage door were used for fridges and freezers so couldn’t be unplugged.

Next day after a bit of local driving I plugged into one of my local councils 7kw fast chargers whilst shopping which gave a reasonable top up and cost £1.20 (usage fee for using Polar instant, no charge for the electricity).

After that we drove up to Solihull to look at the Alfa Guilia which was about 70 miles mixed a roads and motorways. At that point we had about 60 miles of range so not enough to get home but I had planned to visit the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham and knew that they have a bank of chargers there.

Found a fast charger and went to use it and my polar instant app wouldn’t work! These are on a different network called Pod Point so another app to download but after a few (about 20) minutes we were fast charging again.

Here you have to pay for parking even with a blue badge so that was an expected cost but the charging was free.

On returning after about 3 hrs we were on about three quarters charged as I believe that the rate of charge slows as you get closer to 100% to save the batteries.

Anyway then it was back home for the night via the M5.

One excellent thing is that you can get the satnav to overlay a graphic of how far you can drive with your current battery charge so you can easily see if where you want to go is within range or not.

All in we did not far short of 200 miles over the weekend and the cost of electricity was just £1.20.

[James Ian Bury]

Nice review fella, I’m really interested in how you get on with it…..I can see there are new things to think about and consider when using an EV (charging, range, money saving) but equally is there stuff you no longer have to consider aswell when you changed to an EV?

I think changing to an EV is the biggest step change in car ownership I have ever done and I am keen to understand how different it is from conventional now you have a daily drive of an I3

[Teddy]

Another update but a potentially important one for some people.

i had a call yesterday from Motability saying that BP Chargemaster would be contacting me about fitting a fast charger at my house, which I was aware of.

But interestingly she continued saying that if Chargemaster said they could not fit a charging point for whatever reason I could still have the i3 if I wanted, because they had relaxed the rules due to more public chargers becoming available.

So basically if you thought that not being able to have a home charger fitted (eg if you live in a flat or terrace with no driveway) would exclude you from an i3 on Motability, that is now changed and you will be able to have one.

I hope this is helpful

[Brydo]

Good news Teddy?

[Author]

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