The original MSRP on today’s Nice Price or No Dice BMW i3 was over fifty-five thousand dollars. Like all limited-range electric cars, depreciation on the i3 has been steep. Let’s see if this one’s current price might make that downward spiral a fun ride, at the very least.
Yesterday, I espoused—accurately, I contend—that Chevy’s Corvette is the undisputed gaudy wrestler’s championship belt holder for the title of “America’s Sports Car.” It could also be argued that the ‘Vette is the official pace car of middle-aged people whose physical appearance is self-described as being “built for comfort, not for speed.” The 2001 Chevy Corvette convertible that engendered all this discussion came with several mods to its own bodywork, including the unfortunate replacement of its pop-up headlights for fixed units.
Despite that, the prospect of adopting the jorts and chunky white sneaker lifestyle was like a siren’s call for quite a few of us (myself included) when the Corvette’s $11,900 asking price was considered. That won the day with a 74% Nice Price victory.
The juice is loose
The road to a possible all-electric future has been paved with many half-steps. Electric cars have been around since the dawn of the automobile age. However, they never really took off before the present day, owing to the relative inefficiency of their energy storage.
Pound per pound, gasoline is a pretty efficient means of energy storage, and it takes 33.7 kWh of electricity to equal the output potential of one gallon of gas. That gallon of gas weighs around 6.3 pounds, while the comparable electric car battery tips the scale at several times that. It’s the size and weight of the energy containment mechanism that has long held back the electric car. Today, we have a whole slew of electrics on the market, with even more on the way. One of those—VW’s reimagined Scout—is expected to offer an optional onboard generator as a way to extend the vehicle’s range.
Another way to do so is by adding a ton (literally) more batteries, which is what pretty much every other electric car maker is doing. Both of these mechanisms attempt to overcome the dreaded ‘range anxiety’ that plagued drivers of all the ‘around-town’ electric cars manufacturers introduced a decade or more back. Today, those cars—Nissan’s Leaf, VW’s eGolf, etc.—have seen their values plummet due to being left behind in the range game.
REX is king
One such victim of range anxiety affecting valuation is today’s 2014 BMW i3 REX. BMW introduced the i3 in 2014 as a tour de force reimagining of both the automotive end product and the way it was constructed. Utilizing innovative materials—many of which are post-consumer recycled—the i3 looks, feels, and works like few other cars. Offered in pure electric form with a feeble 80 mile range from its underfloor 22 kWh battery pack, BMW also had a 170 mile version with the addition of a 647-cc two-cylinder gas-powered onboard generator.
That gas engine also adds about 260 pounds to the i3’s bantamweight 2,635 package. On the earliest models, its value was limited in the U.S. as it could only use 1.9 of its 2.4-gallon gas tank capacity due to some goofy regulations set by California’s Air Resources Board.
Despite the range issues and the fact that BMW stopped building i3s a couple of years back, the model remains one of the most interesting testbeds for technology one can buy. The i3 is also noteworthy for its robust support among owners for addressing the car’s shortcomings after BMW’s apparent abandonment of the model. Want to take advantage of that full gas tank? Just grab a copy of BimmerCode and get at it.
Sushi Car
The i3 also looks like nothing else out there. One of my family members describes it as a “sushi car” because, when painted in white with black trim, it does look like a California roll. According to her, the dashboard also looks like a sushi tray. I don’t know if any of that’s true, but now I’m all hungry.
This i3 is described in the ad as a base model, but it does sport the optional 20-inch Style 430 alloys and leather accents on the interior, which indicates it’s likely a ‘Giga’ trim edition. The bodywork, which the seller says is “Chalk Gray,” is claimed to be in “amazing” shape, and those wheels seem free from curb rash. They also seem to be wearing decent, albeit very skinny, tires.
Per the ad, the car has 84,000 miles on the clock, with the cabin showing some wear for that meager number. That’s obvious in the staining of the seat material and the degradation of the leather on the steering wheel. The dash shows its age, too, by sporting tiny displays for the instrumentation and the center-mounted iDrive screen. BMW offered a larger screen as an option, and retrofitting that to less well-endowed cars is a fairly popular owner activity.
Does it have the range?
Other pertinent info offered in the ad is the overall condition, which the seller describes as being “like new,” the presence of a clean title, and a recent passing grade on the REX engine’s smog test. The asking price is $7,300.
When new, this little electric would have MSRP’d at somewhere north of $55K. A decade’s worth of advancements in batteries, motors, and software has taken a toll on both desirability and comparable value for the i3. It’s still, however, in the game for someone looking for a city car. And with the price plummet they’ve experienced over the past decade, having a second car for around-town diving is a vastly more viable consideration.
So, what do we think? Is this i3 worth that $7,300 asking as presented in its ad? Or does this REX-equipped electric still give you price anxiety?
You decide!
Orange County, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to FauxShizzle for the hookup!
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