Woman Maths: BMW i3

Meanwhile, I was hammering to and from West London in my then 30-year-old Mercedes 500SL. It took it all in its stride – the lovely old V8 looked after me in some of the worst traffic imaginable. But rumour was that the ULEZ zone was expanding, and the idea of a daily charge large enough to fund a small yacht was enough to send me scuttling back to the classifieds.

Enter Arthur – friend and EV geek – who suggested a BMW i3. A full EV meant 80p parking in Westminster (sadly no longer a thing) for four hours, zero congestion charge, and big fuel savings. A no-brainer… Surely?

The i3 is brilliantly over-engineered, exactly the kind of car I love. The sort hated by BMW accountants as it would have been adored by its engineers. It weighs just 1195kg, only 93kg more than an Alpine A110. When it went on sale, it was the lightest BMW you could buy. An EV. Imagine that. There was nothing like it, and I’d struggle to replace it even now and I have tried all sorts including a Dacia Spring, Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, BYD Sealion and others.

Going from a 1990 SL to a 2016 BMW i3 through the streets of South Kensington felt like being teleported into the future. I didn’t exactly cut a dashing figure, but I felt I’d nailed the daily, darting through traffic, not worrying about overheating, saving a small fortune. Or so I thought.

Such smugness lasted less than a week, right up to the moment I realised I needed to charge it. Living at the Holiday Inn I had no home charger, which meant braving the public network. Even with Zapmap as co-pilot, I remember crying in frustration after the fourth or fifth dead charger. Offline, in use, or holding my cable hostage while refusing to deliver so much as a single Watt of power to my depleted i3.

No matter how clever or nimble the i3 was, the whole experience was spoiled by the frustrating charging infrastructure. By the time I was finally allowed home, I’d already written the ad and taken the photos to shift it on. I was done. It was back to the V8s for me, with scarcely a look over my shoulder.

That was 70,000 miles ago. You already know what saved the i3 from ending up in the automotive equivalent of Battersea Dogs Home for unwanted EVs: home charging. After the electricians untangled the terrifying mess behind my walls, a Zappi home charger was installed and, suddenly, the i3 made perfect sense.

My 2016 33.2kWh version has a real-world range of around 140 miles, which covers 85 per cent of my journeys. It’s averaged 4.7 miles per kWh over the last 5000 miles, with plenty of motorway driving and through winter. That range comes with very little effort.

As for cost? Charging overnight on the cheap rate is £1.90 and, during the daytime, around £7.80. That’s 140 miles for less than the cost of a coffee. It’s light, responsive, and doesn’t feel flimsy thanks to its clever ‘LifeDrive’ architecture – carbon fibre-reinforced passenger cell, aluminium chassis, and loads of sustainable materials. It offsets the battery’s weight, which is modest because it doesn’t need to lug around an enormous pack.

The i3 takes care of the short commutes and inner-city dashes my old W124 and 129 Mercs would rather not discuss. In return, they handle the longer, waftier stuff the i3 simply can’t do without getting public chargers involved. I’m sure the infrastructure has improved but I’ve still not quite forgiven it. My other half and I swap cars depending on the mission at hand. It’s all very sensible. If only the same could be said for the rest of the garage. I mean… where exactly does a Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution fit into this carefully curated ecosystem? (It doesn’t. And yes, I still bought it.)

You can pick up a low-mileage 71-plate i3 for around £13,000. It comes with wood trim, physical buttons, and mercifully few irritating beeps or boops. Oh, and it’s still more efficient than almost anything on sale today. As for battery degradation, I swear my i3 is getting more frugal: this could be because I’m better at driving it, the new Michelin e.Primacy tyres, me imagining it, or any combination of the above.

Frankly, the i3 should be keeping the Chinese EV giants up at night. It’s proof that Europe can build a truly original, world-class EV – light, clever, fun and packed with personality. Let’s just hope it wasn’t the swansong.

Mic dropped. Cable not released.

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