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Cost of owning a BMW i3

tomkiss.net

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Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#51

Post by dsfyu404ed »

davidbanham wrote: post #2

I wonder why he's getting rid of the vehicle.

It's a one car household. He's probably going back to something that has a more practical form factor i.e. another 4-door station wagon (a 4dr hatch is a small station wagon, change my mind) of similar footprint. The i3 is heavily optimized to be a city commuter car. It's not optimized to be a multi-tool

Or his wife (page isn't loading anymore but IIRC he used a bunch of language implying he has a >1 person household) has one in the oven and they're doing what every upper middle class couple does when that happens, buying a crossover.

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#52

Post by bluGill »

antidaily wrote: post #23
czbond wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for posting that. If they are in the US, 10k is considered low mileage per year. For working age adults, 18k is considered average. Source: Bc I'll be asked ;) https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm

Wow. 18k is nuts. 50 miles a day? We lowered our last lease to 10k and wont even be close at end of the year.

50 miles a day is 25 miles each way. At Freeway speeds that is a half hour commute. It really isn't that unreasonable when put into that perspective.

There are lots of other reasons to think it is unreasonable, but from the perspective of someone who sees their trip to work as half an hour it doesn't seem bad.

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#53

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Finnucane wrote: post #45
bluGill wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your costs for a ICE car wouldn't be much more. There were be a few oil changes in there, but they are not expensive.

After 20 years, I'd expect it to be different. We have a '99 Honda CRV, and a significant chunk of the money we've paid for maintenance in the 12 yrs we've had it has been for the exhaust system. Over time, on any car, brakes will eventually need replacing, electrical bits will fail and need replacing, bits of your suspension will need replacing, and so on.

After 10-15yr the Tesla (or any EV) will probably need a battery. After 20yr it is basically a certainty.

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#54

Post by pintxo »

lazyjones wrote: post #39
brohee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lastest version has a bigger battery and doesn't offer the range extender IIRC.

Yes, they stopped selling the REX. The i3 is still not a very attractive car for me and despite the good crash test results, it doesn't look safe to me. Here's the aftermath of a frontal crash vs. an old Cadillac that happened recently - both drivers dead: https://image.kurier.at/images/cfs_landscape_1864w_1049h/372...

This [1] seems to be the report including photos you are talking about. Not sure which image you linked here. Totally different story.

[1] https://insideevs.com/news/328403/bmw-i3-vs-cadillac-cts-imp...

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#55

Post by randcraw »

Finnucane wrote: post #45
bluGill wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your costs for a ICE car wouldn't be much more. There were be a few oil changes in there, but they are not expensive.

After 20 years, I'd expect it to be different. We have a '99 Honda CRV, and a significant chunk of the money we've paid for maintenance in the 12 yrs we've had it has been for the exhaust system. Over time, on any car, brakes will eventually need replacing, electrical bits will fail and need replacing, bits of your suspension will need replacing, and so on.

You expect owning an electric car to be different, yet Teslas also have the very systems you mention will wear out -- brakes, electric bits, etc -- making them comparably consumable to any ICE or hybrid, especially after 20 years of daily driving (like your CRV).

I would imagine any car heavily dependent on advanced sensors and electronics to cost more to maintain than traditional cars, especially after the first few years. And those parts will likely cost more than a muffler.

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#56

Post by natefinch »

benjymo wrote: post #40
archi42 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two things at play here: 1. The US is much larger than the UK, with a lot of nothing/low population density. 2. Mentality might be different: I imported my current car used from the Netherlands; the country is tiny, but the Dutch seem really like driving a lot. I saw many cars with 30k miles per year on them.

Do people in the US really drive to through the country that often? I guess people drive maybe 2000-3000 km a year for holidays, e.g. to skiing resorts in winter or to Italy in summer, but even that isn't average. I'd say most of the drives are commutes to work and shopping.

When everything is twice as far away, it adds up. My wife and I work from home and we still manage 10,000 miles a year on the car. That's driving kids to school (just a couple miles each way), going grocery shopping (10 miles each way), driving kids to swim lessons (10 miles each way), going to grandma's house (120 miles each way), our one vacation (150 miles each way)

There's also zero useful public transportation for us. If I worked in the city, I could take the train, but it's 4 miles to the train station.

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#57

Post by Gravityloss »

ddorian43 wrote: post #12
Gravityloss wrote: post #11

Too bad, AFAIK, the i3 REX (with range extender gasoline engine) is hobbled by a tiny gasoline tank. The total range is something like 200 km: 100 electric and 100 gasoline. With my current car I can drive to the summer cottage and back with one tank. It's just carefree and convenient. With an i3, even when starting with full charge, one would have to tank about halfway each way. It is hard for me to understand such…

... how far is your summer cottage ?

300 km or 200 miles. Usually weekend trips.

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#58

Post by geggam »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #53
Finnucane wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 20 years, I'd expect it to be different. We have a '99 Honda CRV, and a significant chunk of the money we've paid for maintenance in the 12 yrs we've had it has been for the exhaust system. Over time, on any car, brakes will eventually need replacing, electrical bits will fail and need replacing, bits of your suspension will need replacing, and so on.

After 10-15yr the Tesla (or any EV) will probably need a battery. After 20yr it is basically a certainty.

yet my 2001 tahoe ICE gas guzzler has required only oil changes, brakes and tires.

260k miles and it still goes strong, diesels easily get to 500k miles

An interesting twist would be using a hydrogen fuel in an ICE.

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#59

Post by bluGill »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #42
bluGill wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your costs for a ICE car wouldn't be much more. There were be a few oil changes in there, but they are not expensive.

Don't know where you live but a regular yearly service with oil and cabin filter change is around €200 for a basic ICE car at a dealership in Austria. €290 for a Tesla would definitely be cheaper here.

YMMV. I change my own oil - it takes me less time because I can get the parts as part of a different errand, and I can do something else while waiting for the oil to drain out. If I go to the dealer I spend an hour in their waiting room with nothing to do, plus travel time for a special trip.

You can do a lot better than dealer prices for oil changes if you don't do your own maintenance.

Re: Cost of owning a BMW i3

#60

Post by gwbas1c »

bluGill wrote: post #38
lazyjones wrote: post #27

Their i3 isn't even an electric car, it's a hybrid with a petrol engine (range extender). The title claims the content is somehow about electric cars in general, but it's just one datapoint about one model and one owner. FWIW, my maintenance costs for almost 3 years with a Tesla S90D were so far: €290 for changing and storing winter tires. No repairs, no breakdowns so far, despite some abuse on italian country roads.…

Your costs for a ICE car wouldn't be much more. There were be a few oil changes in there, but they are not expensive.

You don't understand the difference.

Just look at the cost of brakes. An ICE car will need them every 30-60k miles depending on various factors, but an electric car will need them every 100-200k miles.

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