Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you out there in the TFL community! We deeply appreciate your continued support and hope you enjoy this EV road trip video to celebrate the winter season.
If you’re looking for a used EV, the BMW i3 is a seriously affordable option.
A few months ago, we added this 2014 BMW i3 to our growing EV fleet, joining (at the time) the tiny Smart ForTwo Electric Drive and the Tesla Model Y Performance. This more or less hit right in the middle between those two cars. Here, you get some decent range and performance, but you don’t have to shell out quite as much cash as you would for a new Tesla. Despite some issues along the way, it’s been a reliable and efficient city car. But what happens when you actually take it out on the open road? In this video, Tommy finds out just how efficient the BMW i3 can be on a road trip.
Specifically, he needs to make it about 120 miles, from our HQ to a filming location and back again. On its own, a 2014 BMW i3 only manages between 70 and 80 miles on its own. Thanks to a 660cc gasoline range extender though, two extra gallons of gas manage to bump that range up to 126 miles. By modern EV standards that’s still a low figure — slightly less than a base Nissan Leaf — but it does at least offer some flexibility. Moreso than, say, a Ford Focus Electric. A BMW i3 without the range extender also wouldn’t make this sort of road trip without some help. Consider you can pick one of these up for between $10,000 and $15,000, though, and it’s not a terrible proposition.
Find out below whether Tommy actually makes the trip!
