BMW i3 - Why this little EV has big potential

I WANT ONE

 

Well looks like BMW has a new competitor. Today I saw a new Mercedes Benz "Electric Drive" small 5 door car, maybe the A class in Europe. Very boring looking, nothing like the I3.

 

You don't. There's also the small problem of a totally opened ended credit lease for the HV battery. This starts at £77/$128 each and every month that you own the car. That £77 is for upto 9000 miles per year or £93/$155 pm for upto 12,000 miles a year.

Z.E. Battery - ZOE - Renault Cars - Renault UK

You must pay it each and every month you own the car. How do you sell the car? Will the new owner pass the credit check? What if they don't? What if you can't sell the car? Nobody wants them, even at £6,000 for what is a new car. You also have the problem of when the car is 4 or 5 years old and worth £2,000/$3,300. Will somebody be happy paying a lease for nearly half the value of the car each and every year just to have the battery?

And that's before we get onto all the insurance issues surrounding you only owning half the car, market values etc. Might be why Renault EVs are just not selling at all. The stubborn French attitude won't budge. They believe battery leasing is the way to go and that's it, end of.

So the 12 month old electric Renault Fluence at £6,000 isn't the bargain it first appears. By contrast, the Nissan Leaf is still holding value well.

We have a few new models out at the moment. The e-Golf has just appeared and the smaller VW hatchback the e-Up has been for sale for a while.

 

The MB Electric Drive is the new "B" model, not "A" model......price in low $30,000 is not bad..

 

Thanks for the additional details
Let's see.. ignoring the insurance questions
A 10 year ownership with a well functioning battery costs 6000 ukp + 120*98 ukp = 17,760 UK pounds.

That sounds quite competitive for an EV in the UK unless the monthly price can change. Do you disagree ?

 

The main of this car was to showcase the carbon fiber, and BMW has reduced its production cost. Then the extra of using cheaper materials would have dragged down the range and efficiency.

A battery lease can be an affordable way to get more people into BEVs. Many are already leasing the cars now because of expected improvements in range that will mostly come from improving batteries. It is an option for the Smart ED in the US.

Renault, though, is doing battery leasing only. A 10 year old BEV probably won't have much value left in it, but it will be more than that BEV with no battery. In the case where the battery lease is an option, there will be the option of buying the pack. Not so with the Renault. Most people looking to buy used, 10yr old cars aren't looking to get something with a monthly payment attached.

They have made a car that will mechanically last longer than a ICE one, outside the battery, into a disposable one.

 

Not when a 2 year old Nissan Leaf is going for £11,000 or a 3 year old one for about £9,000-£9,500. £17,700 would almost buy you a new base Leaf or a new VW e-Up. Talking of e-Ups, they're going for about £14,000 for a 6 month old model.

So a 10 year ownership model of the Fluence ZE is still quite high. Also remember it's a Renault so could have some reliability issues, with only 100 being sold in the UK you're going to have issues with spare parts and dealer support and the battery lease just adds complications. If I had to sell my Prius within a week I could and would get a good price too. Try that with the Renault and there no hope.

And you shouldn't ignore insurance questions as many of the larger insurers here won't cover Renault BEVs with leased batteries. There has been an owner in the UK who had all sorts of issues when his car was beyond repair in an accident. The insurers said the value of the car was £8,000 which they thought was fair. Renault thought the battery was worth £6,000 and wanted to be paid that to cover the loss of the battery. The owner having paid £12,000 (when the car was 6 months old) suddenly ended up with £2,000. Eventually he got it sorted out but only after about 6 weeks of hassle in what is a difficult time. Normally you would get settlement within a couple weeks.

 

It also restricts your options. At the moment I'm between jobs (unemployed) and thus doing only a few miles. The car is paid for and only costs are my minimal monthly insurance payments. With the Renault I'm still having to find £70 pm which whilst not a lot just adds a complication.

And the problem isn't just a 10 year old car, but even a 4 or 5 year old car which normally would have minimal value. Who is going to pay £70 pm on an old(er) car? It's like you getting the latest iphone on a high value mobile phone contract. After 2 years you sell the phone on but the new owner still has to pay the £30 pm line contract. Why would they? They'd just take out a new contract themselves at £40pm with a new phone. Same with the Renault.

Also, and no offense to people who buy 5 year old cars, but the very people who buy second hand cars are ones who are unable to buy new for whatever reason; probably due to credit reasons. They might want to buy the 5 year old Fluence but not get accepted for the battery lease. What if you miss a payment or two? Do Renault come take half your car away? Too many unknowns.

Battery lease only makes sense if you lease the car over 3 years but then why not just include the battery costs in the lease anyway. It's all a confused, typically French idea. The UK Leaf has the option of battery leasing and battery purchase. Guess which one hasn't sold many?

 

From my POV, the problem with comparing the price of a LEAF bought up-front with the long-term lease of a Fluence is the built-in battery insurance of the latter that is not present in the LEAF. How much is that worth ?

Really hard to say, but as a data point I'll mention that only a small fraction of EVs other than Tesla in the US are bought outright; the remainder are leases. In part this reflects consumer preference for improved tech in a few years, but the other motivation is skepticism regarding the long(er) term performance of the battery.

I'm not convinced the Fluence leasing arrangement is more expennsive that upfront purchase, but it does highlight a basic market fact of EVs: the battery is a big, expensive component of uncertain longevity and reliability. We can agree that leasing the Fluence way is doing a bad job of hiding that unpleasant fact from the consumer.

Oh and by the way: the Internet was abuzz a few years back with the demand to lease the battery only as insurance. Those voices became quiet when the price came out.

 

Yep - we had one of their test mules stop by for charge.







It's sort of a little crossover in body style . . . . pretty slick
.

 

So it's the same cost as Digital Cable TV which provides no value whatsoever (just a bunch of ___ programs). I'd rather cancel the cable and pay the $128 for the car.

I would have used the cheaper aluminum, so I could sell my i3 for $20,000 (same price as the aluminum insight was). Mercedes are reliable cars, but the other German brands rank in the bottom ten.

Replacing the 328i, 335i, 535i cars with 328d, 335d, 535d is a logical way to boost MPG (from ~30 to ~40). Though BMW's CAFE is not poor. 33.1 which is well above the minimum & better than half of all other manufacturers. They don't "have" to sell electrics to boost their score.

 

They need a BEV(or FCEV) to meet CARB requirements, which is a market the size of some small nations. Great that they are willing to sell it outside California.

BMW's technology with carbon fiber is the reason Toyota has formed a partnership with them.

 

And for those that don't want to spring for the REX option for their i3:

How to charge up your BMW i3 with a Honda

Which, until I saw the video, I did not think it would work. Its actually pretty impressive given it charged 4 miles in 1/2 hour.

 

Perhaps my memory fails me, I thought you were the guy who dissed hybrids because they were not the most frugal option possible. Now you have a Prius sitting around collecting dust, and another car payment.

 

and i have some land in florida i would like to sell you.

 

Pardon (assuming the comment is directed my way) ?

Do you doubt the Prius, the FCV, or both ? Or something else ?

 

i doubt them all. probably 14 years old and posting from his mothers basement.

 

Then he is precocious, since he has been annoying Chuck for years
I admit that I have been patiently waiting for TH to show a couple of selfies with his FCV to allay my skepticism. I'll not be terribly surprised though to find he did in fact lease the car. People have done things a whole lot more foolish for a little attention.

 

yeah, well that's not hard, is it. (sorry chuck)

 

Just a guess - you must have been away for awhile. Folks with EV's have been running with generators since the 1990's







And this guy's running on propane which is a lot cleaner than your run-of-the-mill gasoline generator.

Rav Long Ranger
Thanks go to PC's 'evnut' for keeping up the great archives.
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