i3 REx in US Spec Spotted at Pebble Beach

You can tell this is a US spec i3 by the red and orange reflectors on the edge of the wheel wells. Look at the previous pictures on this blog and you won't see the reflectors there because they were all European spec pre-production i3's

I've had people ask me if I had any high resolution pictures on an i3 in Laural Grey already but till now I didn't. there were a couple pictures out there of i3's with the partial camouflage in Laurus Grey but none since all the wraps have come off. So when I came across these pictures posted on Bimmerpost taken a couple days ago at the Pebble Beach Auto Show in California I grabbed them and figured I'd put them up here for those that want to see this color on a real car and not just on the online Visualizer.

The only thing I'm thinking about with this color is the details get hidden because everything looks nearly black. Another reason I need to see it on a car in person.

I happen to like this color a lot. In fact it may have escalated up to the top of my want list now but I still need to see all the colors on cars in person. Another thing people have asked me about is the blue stripe below the side doors. Can it be ordered in different colors? The answer is no it can't. All of the cars will have the "BMW i Blue" accent there, as well as on the inside of the double kidney faux grill in the front of the car with the exception of i3's ordered in Solar Metallic Orange. The accent color on Solar Orange is called "Frozen Grey Metallic". Unfortunately you cannot mix and match. I suppose the only option you'd have is to customize it yourself and have the pieces painted after you purchase the car if it really bothers you.

You can see the blue trim piece here below the carbon fiber door sill. It's much more visible when you open the door

The BMW i Blue grill really stands out when it's on a Laural Grey i3.

So if you really don't like the standard accent color on your i3 your only options are to repaint it or possibly apply a vinyl wrap - at your expense. I happen to think the trim colors look good, but that is obviously subjective. Actually, if I were to complain at all about the exterior colors, I'd wonder why BMW stuck so much grey scale. Other than the Solar Orange all the other colors are a shade of white to black with slivers and greys in between. The Solar Orange is the only real bold color and I think they could have been a little more creative there. How about borrowing a cool color from the M division?

The Frozen Grey Metallic accent on the Solar Orange i3's will look less prominent than the BMW i Blue will on the other cars in my opinion since it's not as bright of an accent

i3 Modifications, a Sport Version and Fun

I found this photoshopped i3 on Bimmerpost. It looks to me like the creator has the right idea!

Now that we've seen the production i3 and BMW has revealed most of the specifications, I'm ready to begin the modifications! Evidently someone on the Bimmerpost forums is ready also because he used his photoshop skills and went to work on creating his own autocross-ready i3. I like it! It's even in the Laural Gray that I'm leaning towards so that made it all the better.

So this gets me wondering if BMW even realizes there are people out there that will want to modify their i3. BMW has already said there won't be an M version of the i3 and I conformed that with a program manager recently, but that doesn't mean they won't offer modification parts for those interested. After all, BMW cars are some of the most modified of any manufacturer. I hope they aren't under the assumption that just because i3 customers are concerned with things like sustainability, environmental issues, energy policies or just like driving electric that they won't share the same enthusiasm for driving as their combustion car customers do.

I'll take it one step further. Even if they don't cross pollinate the i and M brands, they could still make an i3 Sport version. Give it a special interior, offer it in a unique, bold exterior color, beef up the suspension, put on some real tires and give it a little more torque and HP(I'm sure they can do that with the same motor they have with very little tweaking) and you'll have a 6 second 0-60 car that will have better handling than 90% of all the sports cars out there. Sure it will probably cut 10 miles or so off the range but I think there are many of us out there willing to make that sacrifice.

I know BMW knows the market, and they know people want fun. Even if they are driving a "futuristic, sustainably manufactured" car. All that's great, but it's nothing if it's not fun. :)

First i3 Interior Spy Shot Captured by Bimmerpost

Bimmerpost was the first to get a decent shot of an i3's dashboard. While much is still covered and the dashboard is obviously not in finished trim, you can see a lot of what BMW has kept and what they have changed from the concept i3. Compare this new photo with the concept i3 below:

BMW is keeping the gear shift know on the steering column. That oval 'Q' looking knob is the gear selector. If you push it forward you put the car in drive and if you pull back all the way you put it in reverse. I guess somewhere in the middle is neutral, there must be a distinctive click or resistance when you pass neutral or it would be difficult to know when you have placed it in neutral. The start/stop button is also on the steering column.

The two main instrumentation panels appear to be similar in size and location as the concept, and if you expand the picture to the right it looks like the display on the drivers instrument cluster is very close to what the concept i3 display looked like. It is fuzzy, but you can clearly see the main display is just about exactly what the concept display showed. You can see the current speed in the center, surrounded by an oval which displays the level of energy you are either using or gaining with regenerative braking. On the left is the outside temperature and on the right is the amount of miles you have driven on the current trip. Along the bottom there is line that represents the battery charge level with the estimated remaining miles you have before needing to plug in. If indeed I am correct about the oval circle encompassing the speed indicator, and all that is displayed is an amount of bars to show you if you are using or recapturing energy, then I will be disappointed. I want that to be represented in a numeric value for me to see like watt hours per mile. Five bars doesn't tell me anything about how much energy I'm using or how much I'm gaining by driving down a long hill. I'd like to see the actual energy flow in real value, not just bars please. I do like this small simple display unit though, and expect the production one to be all screen, unlike the one in the photo that has more painted surface than screen.

Now to the center stack console and here is where it gets a little dicey in my opinion. I'm not a fan of what I see in the picture. In fact it reminds me of the center stack console of my late 90's Honda Civic. I'm not going to go all out and slam it yet because the best feature, the large display screen is covered and hidden from view. However I can't help but look at what is visible, compare it to the concept i3 console and wonder what went wrong. They kept the tray to hold items between the controls and the display which I think is nice to have, but the button arrangement, vents and knobs remind me of something from the past, not the future of personal mobility. I loved the simple, modern, streamlined look of the concept i3's dash and I guess I was hoping for more of that look. I'm not giving up yet though because most of the dash is still covered and who knows, this might not even be the real production dash. The steering wheel was borrowed from a 3 series so perhaps what we see is only partially correct, however I have to believe what we see here is mostly what we'll get.

I know production cars never quite live up to the concept form. Designers can do wild things when they are making one car, and often some of the aspects of the things they dream up don't translate to making an affordable production vehicle, so changes are made. I doubt the manufacturers say "Yeah this concept is gorgeous, too nice for the public in fact so let's ugly it up a bit". I just really liked the look of the concept i3 interior (more so than the look of the exterior)and hope BMW manages to bring as much of it to the production version as possible.