LED Headlights Won't be Standard

Want LED headlights on your i3? It looks like you'll have to pay for them. Close up images of recent i3's caught driving around on public streets confirm there are two different headlights used; one being typical Halogen and the other LED. Combine that with the recent (patent?) drawings posted online by autoevolution.com and it's clear the car will have two headlight options. 

The Halogen headlights that will likely be standard

The more expensive and energy efficient LED headlights that appear to be optional

 I'm not sure what this means for the taillights which look to be blade-lit LED's in all the spy photos I've examined. Perhaps only the LED headlights will be optional and the rest of the lighting will always be LED. I think many would have assumed the i3 would be all LED in all trim levels because of the emphasis BMW has put on efficiency. Using heat pumps, uniquely tall and skinny tires, CFRP and aluminum to reduce weight, etc it would seem like a shame to then have normal halogen headlights lighting the way. If this is the case, I'm sure it's a result of BMW trying to get the base MSRP as low as possible. Will that mean the stylish wheels we've seen recently will be optional also, as well an "EV necessities" like navigation with charging station locator? We don't have long to go now and the "Vorfreude" is certainly building. I'm looking forward to getting all this information finally out in the open so we can really get down to discussing what we like and what we don't. What do you think of the headlight topic? Post your comments below.

Both i3 concept cars(the original 5 door & the more recent coupe') had LED headlights

BMW i3 Interior Pictures Captured

Super-thin seats of the i3. They'll save weight but will they be comfortable and supportive?

There have been dozens of i3 spy photos captured over the past couple years since BMW has been field testing mule i3's in hot and cold weather climates. Until last week the cars have been camouflaged with a blue swirly cover that effectively disguises the body lines beneath it. However they have all been exterior pictures. Nobody has really been able to capture any interior pictures at all, until now.

An Autokarma follower happened upon a parked i3 on the streets of Leipzig, Germany which didn't have its interior completely covered so he snapped some shots with his cell phone. Although much of it was covered, the seats are completely visible and we get to see them for the first time. They are surprisingly thin, no doubt to save weight. The picture of the rear seats is kind of dark but what you can take from it is there will be plenty of rear leg room which is uncommon in a car of this size and much more than there is in a BMW 1 series like my ActiveE. In fact, I'd say it looks like there is at least as much room in the rear seating area than there is in a 3-Series. This would confirm what BMW NA electric vehicle program manager Jacob Harb said at last years LA Auto Show, that the i3 would have about as much interior passenger room as a 3-Series even though the exterior dimensions are much smaller.

The rear seats will have plenty of legroom

Now that BMW has pretty much shown the whole exterior and are leaving pre-production i3's on the streets of Germany it can't be long in my opinion before we get to see the whole car. I had previously assumed BMW would hold off to the Frankfurt Auto Show to reveal the production i3, but recent reports have claimed it will be much sooner than that and I'm beginning to believe that will be the case. All the better!

Practically uncovered i3's now roam the streets in Germany. BMW is still obscuring the funky look of the rear window though.

The video above is brief but you can see the interior a bit and even an armrest which people have asked about. It was shot by Joachim Kerscher in Sittenbach, Germany. He just happened to see the car drive by his house so he drove around looking for it and found it parked here. 

BMW i3 Exclusive New Color: Solar Orange Metallic

Autoevolution scored some spy photos of a BMW i3 with a new color exposed. It's evidently a new color for BMW that will be exclusive to the i3 and it's called Solar Orange Metallic. BMW describes the new color as: "a warm shade bursting with energy that was created especially for the BMW i3." Autoevolution also said "For contrast, the bonnet and part of the boot lid will be gloss black" which would indicate the hood of the i3 will not be the painted the color of the rest of the car, but instead will be gloss black.

This was true for both of the concept i3's that BMW has shown but I think most people just assumed they had the two tone color scheme for dramatic car show effect. It's interesting to me because the hood & roof are CFRP, while the majority of the body is plastic panels that are bolted onto the CFRP frame. So if Autoevolution is right it would appear all the exposed CFRP will be simply gloss black regardless of the color of the rest of the car. And the tidbits of info keep coming...

BMW Slowly Undressing the i3

The most recent spy shots of the BMW i3 show more of the car than ever before, continuing the trend BMW has set of slowly exposing more and more of the car as we approach its official unveiling at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show in September.

A production-looking nose is spotted

When the very first spy shots were captured two years ago, the car looked very boxy and was completely covered in the blue and white swirly camouflage. It was also clear that BMW had even added fake panels under the "camo" to further obfuscate the real look. As time progressed the fake body panels were slowly dropped and now we are seeing what looks to be pre-production i3's during testing with parts of the body exposed as some of the camouflage has been removed. There was even one picture of what looks like the nose of a full production version i3 which was taken during a photo shoot in California recently.

BMW is still holding back on releasing much information on the car but we have learned a few things recently:

1) BMW will offer gas loaners for customers who need to drive further than their i3 will conveniently take them. The full details haven't been released like how many times per year you are offered the loaner or if there is any fee, time or mileage restriction. Can you take the loaner for a two week vacation on a 1,000 mile trip? Answers to these important questions are still unknown.

2) The optional range extender will not operate like Chevy Volt, allowing the driver to continue driving for hundreds of miles after the battery is exhausted without any noticeable difference. The details are still very unclear, but BMW had said the i3 will have reduced performance when in range extender mode. While BMW is quick to say the car will not be in any kind of "limp home" mode while utilizing the REx, it is not meant to extend your range on a daily basis. In fact Herbert Diess BMW’s global R&D chief was quoted saying “The range extender is not intended for daily use. It’s for situations when the driver needs to extend the range of the vehicle to reach the next charging station,” said Diess. “Therefore, the i3 probably won’t be the choice for customers with a need for an extended range.”

3) The i3 will first go on sale in Europe (November 16th has been rumored to be the launch date) and come to the US in late December. The first batch of i3's that do make it to the US will have the range extender option, as BMW expects the majority of the initial sales to have the option included. Although some i3's will arrive in late December, the speculation is that the official US launch will occur in early January when the car becomes widely available. 

BMW i3 Photo's Emerge

It's been a few weeks since any new i3 spy shots have been published, but worldcarfans and carscoop blog have just brought us some recent pictures of a couple i3's with the REx range extender option taken in what appears to be Germany.

In these pictures you can see the lines of the headlights and body panels much clearer than the past spy photos.

 We also now know where the charge port and the fuel filler door will be for certain. Both are on the passenger side with the charge port in the rear and the gas filler door on the front quarter panel.

Even though BMW tried to hide the shape of the taillight, it's clear the concept i3's U-shaped taillight design made it to production.

The headlight lines are clearly defined for the first time.

 

Kinda looks like a Nissan LEAF from this view. Not a comparison I like to make. Hopefully we won't draw that comparison without the crazy camo-stickers all over.

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.

BMW i3 Hot Weather Testing Video

Auto Motor Sport just put up a new video of an i3 caught doing hot weather testing in Spain. You can check it out here: BMW i3 Hot weather Testing video

BMW i3 Spotted Again During Hot Weather Testing

Autocar recently posted the latest pictures of an i3 during what is described as hot weather testing somewhere in Southern Europe. It would seem from the pictures the car had some kind of mechanical failure because they appear to be trying to recharge or 'jump' the 12 volt battery.

The car is still very well disguised and even the interior shots show they have everything covered to prevent anyone form getting real images of what they are working on, but a couple things do stand out. The steering column is long and really comes a long way from the dash, just like it does in the concept i3. The car also has basically the same display panels as the concept i3, with a small rectangular display on top of the steering column and a larger display in the center stack, however both had a fabric cover over them. After seeing changes in the body style in all the test cars for over a year, now every new set of spy photographs show the same thing, so I think it's safe to say they have the final production form decided. With the car 12 months away from it's rumored launch, I suspect they would have to have that set in stone by now so they can begin to get the production molds/stamps ready.

This is the first time I've seen a picture of the hood open. It shows what looks like a small storage area or 'frunk'. I've been told there will be some storage space under the front hood, but that it will be a small compartment. What I'm not sure about is whether the REx version will house the engine up there though, in which case the REx option would eliminate any storage space you may have in the frunk. It's also clear to see from the pictures the headlights are not production, and just there to make the test car street legal. The one thing I found particularly interesting in the photo I posted on the top was that it looks like the car may have a B-pillar. That is something I wasn't expecting as the concept didn't and the BMW program managers seemed to proudly talk about how the car was so easy to get in and out of without the need for a B-pillar. It's hard to tell and what I'm interpreting as the possible B-pillar may well be the weather stripping from the coach door seal so I'm going to hold off an saying the car does have a B-pillar until I get better photographic proof. You can click on the picture to enlarge it and tell me what you think.

Is This The Production BMW i3?

Autoblog scored some spy photo's of the BMW i3. The car is noticeably different from the original spy photo's that were taken last year of the car during cols weather testing. This looks VERY close to the concept i3 which is definitely good news.

At last weeks LA Auto Show, Richard Steinberg told George Parrot, reporting for Greencarreports that the concept i3 is “95 percent final” as compared to the production version. These photo's would seem to concur. The one obvious difference I can see is the doors. The concept had much larger doors that extended all the way into the wheel wells. The car in this photo clearly has smaller doors that do not extend to the wheel wells. Also, the rear "coach" doors do not have a handle so apparently they can only be opened once the front door is open, much like the MINI Clubman (and my Toyota Tacoma extended cab pick up).

Fake "Hybrid" badge on ActiveE

What Autoblog also reported was that they believe the car is fitted with the range extender (REx) option. I disagree. I think it's the pure BEV version. I see no sign of a tailpipe and the single reason they gave for this conclusion was that the car has badges that say "Hybrid Test Vehicle" That means nothing. When BMW was testing the ActiveE it had the same badges and that isn't a hybrid. I think BMW puts that on cars to confuse spy's and it worked!


Whether it is the BEV version or the REx version it really doesn't matter. What's important here is this proves the car will look very similar to the concept i3 and that's good news. The i3 that was photographed last year during testing look too boxy, this has much smoother lines. Can't wait to see it without all the camouflage! Here's some more pictures: